1926: Sentinel-Chronicle newspaper beef over a football game

May 7—As the Lodi High football team made a run in the playoffs of the young California Interscholastic Federation in 1926, another contest was brewing: newspaper beef.

While the Flames slogged it out with Bakersfield and San Mateo in the rain-soaked mud of Lodi High's field, writers from the Lodi Sentinel and the San Francisco Chronicle traded blows in ink.

Lodi went on an incredible run that year, beating an already-storied Bakersfield team in the NorCal semifinals to set up a NorCal championship game against San Mateo, which Lodi lost 40-14 in a rainstorm on Saturday, Dec. 18.

That morning, a column by Chronicle writer Harry B. Smith, titled "Eating and Keeping Your Cake", asserted that Lodi High principal William Inch had entered a formal protest with the CIF to play the game under forfeit, citing an unapproved trip to play in Honolulu the year before meant the San Mateo team was suspended from competition for the year. Thus, Lodi should move on to the state championship regardless of the outcome of the game.

"I am quite sure the people of the Lodi section are far better sportsmen than any such attitude would indicate," Smith wrote. "In case the protest has grounds, which San Mateo says is not the case, it should be acted upon before the game is played. It is a well-established axiom that you cannot have your cake and eat it too."

Upon the Sentinel's next publish date (the paper put out editions on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at the time), the sports section printed the relevant section of Smith's column, adding that "The only criticism of the foregoing is that it contains not a word of truth. No protest was filed with the C.I.F., nor was a protest contemplated."

So, a hundred years later, who was wrong? Well, both. The Chronicle was wrong in stating that a protest was filed, and the Sentinel was wrong in stating that no protest was contemplated — as shown by reporting from both newspapers in the days leading up to the contest.

Several San Francisco newspapers (the Chronicle, the Bulletin, the Call and the Examiner) reported on rumors about the protest before the game, but Chronicle staff writer Prescott Sullivan was on the ground in Lodi for the game. In his game preview for the Dec. 18 edition, a subhead in the story discussed the rumors and that Lodi officials dismissed them.

"Lodi is willing to stand or fall on the outcome of tomorrow's game, which it determined to win on the field of battle and not in the council rooms of the California Interscholastic Federation," Sullivan wrote.

The Sentinel's reporting on the matter delved deeper in a Dec. 18 article titled "Lodi will not make protest on S.M. Player." The story began by saying that Inch "stated yesterday that in all probability no protests will be filed against the San Mateo High School football team either because of the use of halfback Taylor or the fact that the team went to Hawaii last year without permission of the C.I.F. officials."

The Sentinel's reporting gets to the meat of both controversies: the halfback mentioned had moved away previously, but the family moved back to San Mateo before the end of the semester, making him eligible, and the San Mateo team had been given permission by the secretary of the section which oversaw the area, who was not himself a C.I.F. official and did not have the authority to give permission.

"Later he reported his action to the official board and was raked over the coals, but finally his action was approved," the story reported. The Sentinel concluded that Principal Inch decided not to protest "unless something develops later."

San Mateo went on to shut out Covina, 20-0, for the state championship. Lodi end Bob Pickering was selected as a NorCal All-Star by several state newspapers.