Racing

Pre-NASCAR motorcycle and auto-racing were early arrivals at Hinchliffe. People living nearby say the high-pitched snarl of midget cars created an excitement that made the heart race too, as much as it made a noisy hell of weekends on nearby Maple and Walnut Streets right up to World War II.

Post-war, the sport came back in full force, creating some of the most popular and well-supported events at the stadium. Midget-racing stars Dutch Schaefer and Rex Records rode here in '45 (a 75-lap championship) and again in '46. In its first race at Hinchliffe on Easter Sunday, 1946, "Sugar Blues," one of the most successful cars in the Kingsbridge Armory (built in Paterson for owner Jerry Willetts) was driven by Rex Records.

Ted Horn, the unique seven-time AAA champion who kept up his race cars in Paterson's famous "Gasoline Alley" on East 29th Street, rode here in 1947, the year before he was tragically killed in a racing accident in Illinois.

And on September 30, 1947, Bill ("Bronco Bill") Schindler won his 48th feature event of the year at Hinchliffe.

East Rutherford's own Art Cross rode here, before being made Indy Rookie of the Year in 1952, and finishing second in the ’53 Indi 500, on one of the hottest racing days on record, when driver Carl Scarborough died from the heat. Cross led in the 1954 and 1955 Indianapolis 500 before his retirement. One of his many triumphs included capturing the coveted 50-lap Offenhauser championship on the final day of the 1947 season (10/14/47).

But they say if you asked him, he'd claim his greatest Hinchliffe accomplishment took place after a race, when he met his future wife Margaret, and introduced himself with the immortal line: “You look like the girl I want to marry.”

Boxing: An Overview

Boxing came to Hinchliffe in the late 30s, another chance for tough poor kids to show their stuff that soon evolved into a family spectator sport. By the late '30s the stadium was already hosting Diamond Gloves championship bouts-predecessors to the Golden Gloves. Paterson's own Lou Duva won a championship here in 1940 in the Bantamweight Division. Later, as a world-class trainer and promoter, Duva built a career enabling other champions.

Paterson native Lou Costello, legendary Hollywood comic, was also a boxing enthusiast. Well into the 1940s Costello could be found at Diamond Glove matches with his chum Duva and their mutual friend Gaetano Federici, whose portraits of Costello, Ingrid Bergman, and "Jack Dempsey's Arms" had made him a kind of a sculptor to the stars.

Bouts were guest-refereed by boxing champions Jack Dempsey in '43 and Joe Louis in '49, who then hobnobbed in the stadium with sports celebrities like Babe Ruth, Pee Wee Reese, Herman Franks, Max Baer, Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Louis, Rocky Graziano, Rocky Marciano, Jake LaMotta, and Dixie Walker. Larry Doby and other hometown stars would come back to Hinchliffe to see and be seen at major boxing events, and find themselves sharing attention with superstars of screen and radio.

And in 1946 it was the semi-finals of the Diamond Gloves Championships here that made sports history as the first telecast of an athletic event in New Jersey (July 31).

Art Cross: ten wins in 1947.