DALTON -- An estimated 2,500 persons saw sportswriter Roger E. O'Gara unmasked as the mystery man and witnessed an upset of the Hinsdale tug of war team by Pat Broderick's new Dalton champions yesterday afternoon at Pine Grove Park.
Dalton's Old Home Week came to a close with one of the fullest afternoons of activity and entertainment ever seen in this town. Highlights were the hard-pulled three contests between the human leviathans of Broderick's and Mike Cioffi's 10-man teams and the correct naming of Mr. O'Gara, Eagle sportswriter and WBEC sports broadcaster, as Mr. Community Recreation by Mrs. Charles J. Hamilton.
Hinsdale won the first of the three tug of war heats by a scant four inches. They raised a howl of protest as Dalton got the jump on them to win the second contest with two feet of rope to spare. In the third and deciding pull, Hinsdale appeared an easy victor for the first 30 seconds as they hauled the flag marking the center point of the rope a full 18-inches across the center line.
At this point Broderick's huskies put their 2,445 pounds to work and forced the weary Hinsdale team to give back the 18 inches with 10 inches to spare before referee Howard E. Barrett signified the end of the pull. At the end, the pullers were so tired they lay in the grass with none of the bombast which had marked the preliminaries.
Coming at the end of the afternoon, the unmasking of the Superman-garbed O'Gara held the crowd to the last. A final clue, that the mystery man had three children, preceded the drawing of Mrs. Hamilton's name for a chance to solve the carefully guarded identity of the masked figure.
Obviously uncertain, Mrs. Hamilton took a deep breath, a last look at the garbed figure before her, and blurted out the correct answer. She will receive several hundred dollars in prizes, many of which will be appropriate to various holidays throughout the year.
O'Gara said following his unmasking, he "had more fun in acting as the mystery man than in any other single event in my 36 years."
Explaining the clues given to his identity, he said an apostrophe in his name was the thing which he had and appeared 21 times in the Dalton telephone directory. The three things he had in common with President Truman are three "R"s in the full names. He was "robbed" of two hits in one time at bat in the 1930 play-off game for the county American Legion title between Dalton and Pittsfield.
His wife, Mrs. O'Gara, came in for public praise from Community Recreation Association officials as retaining the secret of her husband's mysterious role, "in spite of being a woman."