Longtime East Rochester Herald writer Louis 'Cabby' Providence (1912-85) is generally credited with coming up with the 'Bombers' nickname in 1949 (the same year the East Avenue outdoor pool opened and the World War II monument was erected in Edmund Lyon Park), in a story about Coach Dick Baroody's '49 basketball team.
According to 'Images of America: Perinton and Fairport in the 20th Century,' Mr. Providence "associated the scrappy hometown team with the prizefighting career of Joe Louis, also known as the 'Brown Bomber.' Prior to 1949, the ER teams were known as the Brown & Whites and the Piano Towners (after the Foster-Armstrong Piano Works, which had a factory on Commercial Street)."
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