Who's on First: Replacement Players in World War II: SABR Digital Library, #26

By Society for American Baseball Research

During the four seasons the U.S. was at war in World War II (1942-1945), 533 players made their major-league debuts. There were 67 first-time major leaguers under the age of 21 (Joe Nuxhall the youngest at 15 in 1944). More than 60 percent of the players in the 1941 Opening Day lineups departed for the service. The 1944 Dodgers had only Dixie Walker and Mickey Owen as the two regulars from their 1941 pennant-winning team.

The owners brought in not only first-timers but also many oldsters. Hod Lisenbee pitched 80 innings for the Reds in 1945 at the age of 46. He had last pitched in the major leagues in 1936. War veteran and former POW Bert Shepard, with an artificial leg, pitched in one game for the 1945 Senators, and one-armed outfielder Pete Gray played for the St. Louis Browns.

The war years featured firsts and lasts. The St. Louis Browns won their first (and last) pennant in 1944 — a feat made more amazing by the fact that they had not finished in the first division since 1929. The 1944 team featured 13 players classified as 4-F. The Chicago Cubs appeared in the 1945 World Series but have not made it back since.

More than 50 members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) have contributed to this volume. We invite you to sit back and relax as you learn Who's on First.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Society for American Baseball Research
• Release date: Mar 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781933599908

Book preview

Whos on First cover 400x600title.psd

Edited by Marc Z Aaron and Bill Nowlin

Associate Editors:

james forr and Len Levin

Society for American Baseball Research, Inc.

Phoenix, AZ

SABRlogo-1inch-300dpi-gray.tif

Who’s on First: Replacement Players in World War II

Edited by Marc Z Aaron and Bill Nowlin

Associate editors: James Forr and Len Levin

Copyright © 2015 Society for American Baseball Research, Inc.

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part

without permission is prohibited.

ISBN 978-1-933599-91-5

(Ebook ISBN 978-1-933599-90-8)

Cover and book design: Gilly Rosenthol

Photo credits:

The cover photograph depicts a storefront promoting the All-Star replacement game staged between Boston’s two big-league ballclubs in place of the canceled 1945 major-league All-Star Game. Courtesy of Boston Braves Historical Association.

Courtesy of Peter C. Bjarkman: 100

Courtesy of Boston Braves Historical Association: 5, 6, 9, 48

Courtesy of Rory Costello: 355

Courtesy of Hilary Drammis: 285

Courtesy of Merrie Fidler: 381, 386, 389

Courtesy of Ron and Janet Grausam: 122

Courtesy of Hennepin County Library Special Collections: 199, 246

Courtesy of Dave Jordan: 57, 97, 135, 144, 151, 164, 182, 187, 202, 207, 226, 231, 247, 251, 301, 307, 312, 345

Courtesy National Baseball Hall of Fame: 31, 36, 40, 62, 83, 86, 109, 116, 130, 190, 234, 258, 267, 272, 278, 294, 325, 329, 334

Courtesy of the Negro League Baseball Museum: 371

Courtesy of Bill Nowlin: 67, 77, 348

Courtesy of Pat O’Donnell: 291

Courtesy of the Pittsburgh Pirates: 163, 168, 171

Courtesy of J. G. Preston: 155

The Society for American Baseball Research, Inc.

4455 E. Camelback Road, Ste. D-140

Phoenix, AZ 85018

Phone: [phone] or [phone]

Web: www.sabr.org

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Twitter: @SABR

Table of Contents

Introduction Marc Z Aaron 1

The Business of Baseball

During World War II Jeff Obermeyer 4

But Where is Pearl Harbor? Baseball and the Day

the World Changed, December 7, 1941 Bob LeMoine 11

The Tri-Cornered War Bond Baseball Game

Michael Huber and Rachel Hamelers 18

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Boston Braves

How the Boston Braves Survived the War

But Lost the Battle for Boston Bob Brady 22

Ben Cardoni by Mark S. Sternman 30

Buck Etchison by Alan Cohen 34

Butch Nieman by Sidney Davis 39

Mystery Member of the ‘45 Braves Bob Brady 47

Brooklyn Dodgers

The Brooklyn Dodgers in Wartime Michael Huber 50

John Fats D’Antonio Richard Cuicchi 55

Bill Hart Bob LeMoine 60

Lee Pfund Bob Webster 66

Chicago Cubs

The Cubs in Wartime Thomas Ayers 69

Jorge Comellas Rich Bogovich 76

Billy Holm Bill Nowlin 82

Walter Signer Gregory H. Wolf 85

Cincinnati Reds

The Cincinnati Reds During World War II Jay Hurd 90

Tomás de la Cruz Peter C. Bjarkman 96

Buck Fausett J. G. Preston 108

Dick Sipek Charles Faber 114

New York Giants

The New York Giants in Wartime Bob Mayer 118

Al Gardella Charlie Weatherby 121

Frank Seward Jeff Marlett 128

Roy Zimmerman Joanne Hulbert 133

Philadelphia Phillies

The Phillies in Wartime Seamus Kearney 139

Chet Covington Steve Smith 142

Hilly Flitcraft Jim Sweetman 148

Lee Riley Mel Marmer 152

Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates in Wartime David Finoli 157

Xavier Rescigno David Finoli 161

Len Gilmore David Finoli 166

Frankie Zak David Finoli 169

St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals in Wartime Gregory H. Wolf 172

Jack Creel Gregory H. Wolf 180

Gene Crumling Gregory H. Wolf 184

Bob Keely Gregory H. Wolf 188

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox in Wartime Bill Nowlin 193

Otey Clark Bill Nowlin 197

Ty LaForest Bill Nowlin 201

Stan Partenheimer John Shannahan 205

The Frostbite League: Spring Training 1943 - 1945

Bill Nowlin 211

The 1944 Red Sox: What Could Have Been

Duke Goldman 215

Chicago White Sox

The White Sox in Wartime Don Zminda 218

Vince Castino David Raglin and Barb Mantegani 224

Guy Curtright Don Zminda 228

Floyd Speer Rex Hamann 232

Cleveland Indians

World War II and the Cleveland Indians

David W. Pugh 237

Otto Denning Chris Rainey 244

Jim McDonnell

Ashlie Christian and Armand Peterson 249

Mickey Rocco Gregg Omoth 256

Detroit Tigers

The Tigers in Wartime Mike McClary 261

Chuck Hostetler Marc Lancaster 265

Bobby Maier Marc Lancaster 270

Charlie Metro Tom Hawthorn 276

New York Yankees

The Yankees in Wartime Marc Z Aaron 281

Joe Buzas Marc Z Aaron 283

Mike Garbark Marc Z Aaron 288

Bud Metheny Marc Z Aaron 292

Philadelphia Athletics

The Wartime Philadelphia Athletics David M. Jordan 297

Orie Arntzen Gregory H. Wolf 300

Jim Tyack Alan Cohen 305

Woody Wheaton Alan Cohen 310

St. Louis Browns

The St. Louis Browns in World War II Greg Erion 315

Milt Byrnes Greg Erion 323

Charley Fuchs Greg Erion 327

Pete Gray Mel Marmer 331

Washington Senators

The Washington Senators in Wartime

Richard Moraski 337

Ed Butka Cort Vitty 343

Jug Thesenga Bob LeMoine 346

Tony Zardón Rory Costello and Lou Hernández 352

Senators Who Died in Combat Richard Moraski 358

OTHER ESSAYS

The All-Star Games in the War Years Lyle Spatz 359

Wartime Baseball: Minor Leagues, Major Changes

(San Diego to Buffalo) James D. Smith, III 366

Impact of WWII on the Negro Leagues

Leslie Heaphy 369

Baseball’s Women on the Field During WWII

Merrie A. Fidler 374

In-season Exhibition Games During Wartime

Walter LeConte 392

The Double Victory Campaign and the Campaign

to Integrate Baseball Duke Goldman 405

Contributors 409

Thanks to selectors who helped determine which players from which teams we would write up. They included, in addition to the editors and some of the authors: Jan Finkel, Mark Pattison, and Joe Wancho.

Introduction

By Marc Z Aaron

The idea for this book was conceived in January 2011. The original thought was to compile biographies of some of the players who made their debut during World War II and went on to successful careers after the war ended. (The premise was that perhaps they got their chance because many major leaguers went off to serve their country.) But then the corollary came to light. What about all those players who debuted during the years 1942-1945 but did not see their major-league careers continue past this period? The field was narrowed down to those who did debut during the war and did not serve in the military. They were ineligible for various reasons. They were baseball’s true replacement players. ¹

The attack on Pearl Harbor changed the way Americans looked at life and baseball. President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed that they needed recreational entertainment to take their minds off the military efforts overseas and at home. There was also the possibility that canceling baseball would be perceived by the Japanese as a sign of weakness.² Before the US got into the war, a green light would be given to a batter on a 3-and-0 count or to a runner rounding third. FDR gave it new meaning when he sent his famous Green Light letter to Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, providing baseball with the go-ahead to keep the games going. The president encouraged night baseball to allow defense factory workers the opportunity to attend the games and relax.

The owners understandably had concerns about the quality of players they would be able to put on the field and its effect on attendance. In 1944, the third year of the war for the US, 153 players made their major-league debuts. This was the highest since 1915, when many established players jumped to the Federal League. It was not until the 1969 expansion that more players (183) began their big-league careers. During the four seasons the US was at war in World War II (1942-1945), 533 players made their major-league debuts. They were all different ages. There were 67 first-time major leaguers (Joe Nuxhall the youngest at 15 in 1944) under the age of 21; 462 were 21 to 36, and four (Chuck Hostetler, Bill McGhee, Lee Riley, and Joe Berry) were over 36. According to The Sporting News, more than 60 percent of the players in the 1941 Opening Day lineups departed for the service.³

The owners did not want to sign or trade for players who were eligible for the draft. A victim of this policy was Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Hugh Mulcahy. The Selective Service law passed while the US was still at peace required every male between 21 and 36 to register for 12 months of military service. Mulcahy was the first player to be drafted, on March 8, 1941. A physical deficiency, as defined by the military, became an asset of sorts. In time a new law released draftees 28 or older from duty. Hank Greenberg fell within this classification, but chose to re-enlist after Pearl Harbor. The minor leagues no longer were a source of manpower for the major-league teams, as over 4,000 minor-league players entered military service.⁴ The minor-league system was hit hard and

declined from 44 leagues in 1940 to 10 (not including the Mexican League in 1943 and 1944.)

The owners brought in not only first-timers but also many oldsters. Hod Lisenbee pitched 80 innings for the Reds in 1945 at the age of 46. He had last pitched in the major leagues in 1936. Future Hall of Famers Lloyd and Paul Waner and recently retired Jimmie Foxx once again took the field. The 1944 Dodgers had only Dixie Walker and Mickey Owen as the two regulars from their 1941 pennant-winning team. So manager Leo Durocher, 38, put himself back into the lineup. In 1943 the Cardinals placed a help-wanted advertisement in The Sporting News.⁵ Outfielder Ben Chapman returned to baseball in 1944 as a pitcher for the Dodgers. War veteran and former POW Bert Shepard, with an artificial leg, pitched in one game for the 1945 Senators, and one-armed outfielder Pete Gray played for the St. Louis Browns. Cuban and other Latin American players, who could not be drafted, were in demand during the earlier war years. Though black players were taken into the armed services, the owners resisted allowing them into Organized Baseball. However, World War II can be credited with helping open the door to black players. When the war ended, Commissioner Happy Chandler said, If blacks can make it on Okinawa, they could make it in baseball.⁶

Ballplayers aided the war effort by raising funds through promotions that helped sell war bonds. On June 26, 1944, a three-sided benefit game took place at the Polo Grounds that featured the Dodgers, Yankees, and Giants playing a nine-inning game. Each team sat out three innings. The effort raised over $50 million in war-bond sales. Players actively solicited team members to join them in buying war bonds with some of their salary.

The war years featured firsts and lasts. The St. Louis Browns won their first (and last) pennant in 1944 — a feat made more amazing by the fact that they had not finished in the first division since 1929. The 1944 team featured 13 players classified as 4-F.⁷ The Chicago Cubs appeared in the 1945 World Series but have not made it back since.

There was a downturn in home-run production. The American League home-run leaders in 1944 and 1945 were Nick Etten of the Yankees with 22 and Vern Stephens of the Browns with 24, respectively. The last time a home-run leader in the American League had 24 or fewer home runs was 1918, and even the strike-shortened season of 1981 featured four co-leaders with 22 each. The 16 major-league teams hit 1,331 home runs in 1941. By 1944 and 1945, the number was 1,034 and 1,007, respectively. In 1946, with many of the replacements gone, the total increased to 1,215. Part of the deficiency may be attributable to the balata ball used during the war years, as valuable resources used in making standard baseballs were diverted to military usage. Fans attending games were encouraged to return foul balls and homers hit into the stands.

When the war was over and the 1946 season began, only 32 of the 128 non-pitching regulars of 1945 remained full-time players.⁸ The remaining 96 (75 percent) had been replaced by returning veterans, and by rookies, like Ralph Kiner, whose debuts had been delayed by military service.

Attendance at baseball games, both in the major and minor leagues, suffered during the war. In each of the first two years after the US entered the war, it dropped by 10 to 15 percent. A major reason was the absence of talented players. Another was demographics: The US population according to the 1940 Census was 132,164,569. The number of men and women who served during the war was 17.867 million.⁹ The average time spent overseas was 16 months.¹⁰ The number of men and women in service at one time hit a high of 11,340,000. The total labor force increased from 57,530,000 in 1941 to a high of 66,040,000 in 1944 as more women entered the factories. Women indeed had a league of their own during the war years, another effort to spur morale on the home front. The unemployment rate fell from 9.9 percent in 1941 to 1.2 percent.¹¹ The Great Depression was no more.

In the pages that follow you will read and learn about baseball’s first Xavier; some players who played in just one major-league game; the last player to wear Babe Ruth’s uniform number before it was retired by the Yankees; the batting-practice pitcher who moved up to his team’s active roster; baseball’s chain-store operator; the pitcher who didn’t take his pitching duties seriously; one of the worst All-Star players ever; the player with crooked fingers; the catcher who feared that he might not be able to catch both ends of a doubleheader in the hot and humid weather of August; the player who decided to drop the letter b from his name because he thought it would look better in print; the scrawny kid who homered in his first major-league contest; the backstop once labeled best catcher while in the minors, only to lead all National League catchers in errors; the rookie who hit safely in 26 straight games; the player who stayed in shape by chasing rabbits on foot; the only major-league pitcher to be relieved by a 15-year-old; the player who was deaf; the 31-year-old rookie who went back to the minors to hit four home runs in one game; and many, many more stories of the wartime replacement players.

So sit back and relax as you learn Who’s On First?

Notes

1 Some of the replacement players chosen for this book made minimal appearance in major-league games after 1945, and one or two spent a number of weeks in military service.

2 George Vecsey, Baseball: A History of America’s Favorite Game (New York: Random House, 2006, 109).

3 Frank Graham, Jr., When Baseball Went to War, Sports Illustrated, April 17, 1967.

4 Gary Bedingfield’s website: baseballinwartime.com.

5 Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf, Baseball Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, 168).

6 Baseball Enlists: An Exhibition Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of World War II, a 1995 pamphlet from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (reference contained in Richard Gannon’s December 9, 1998, essay on Baseball and World War II).

7 Okrent and Wulf, 172.

8 Okrent and Wulf, 175.

9 nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/us-military.html.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

When Marc Aaron approached me with the book idea that became Who’s On First?, I didn’t hesitate a moment. Several years ago, I had worked with Todd Anton on the book When Baseball Went to War , which we did in collaboration with the National World War II Museum. Todd and I had met at a conference honoring Ted Williams at the San Diego Hall of Champions and we hit it off. He had presented on Ted’s wartime years, and I was already at work on a book on the subject. Todd suggested that the National World War II Museum host a conference to honor ballplayers who had served in the Second World War, and the conference was held in New Orleans in Nove mber 2007.

That same year — 2007 — my book Ted Williams At War was published by Rounder Books. It was later selected as Book of the Month by Leatherneck Magazine.

There were three days of panels, featuring major- and minor-league (and AAGPBL) ballplayers Lou Brissie, Jerry Coleman, Bob Feller, Morrie Martin, Johnny Pesky, Herb Simpson, Dolly Brumfield-White, and Lenny Yochim. Tommy Lasorda and Curt Schilling attended the event as well, as did the founding curator of the CIA museum Linda McCarthy and National Baseball Hall of Fame vice president Ted Spencer. Gary Bedingfield of baseballinwartime.com came from the United Kingdom, joining other participants S. Derby Gisclair, Gary W. Moore, Kerry Yo Nakagawa, Arthur Schott, Bill Swank, Todd, and myself.

After Todd and I put the book together, I sat down with Curt Schilling in the Red Sox dugout at the Tokyo Dome, where the Red Sox opened the 2008 baseball season, and Curt wrote the Foreword for the book. When Baseball Went to War was published by Triumph Books in 2008. Tom Bast of Triumph had also attended the conference, as had a number of dignitaries including former California Governor Pete Wilson. Todd and I later collaborated, again with Tom Bast and Triumph Books, in the 2013 book When Football Went to War.

So Marc’s idea fit in perfectly — a way to give some attention to many of those who helped keep baseball alive during the war years. We are pleased to also offer brief appreciations for Negro Leagues baseball during the war years and the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. In all our research, for all the various projects, it was always clear that FDR had been right — soldiers serving in the trenches, both in the European and Pacific Theaters, craved information about baseball back home. It helped remind them of another part of what they were fighting for. They wouldn’t have recognized some of the names, either, but they had their teams and they followed the game through Stars and Stripes and Armed Forces Radio.

— Bill Nowlin

The Business of Baseball During World War II

Jeff Obermeyer

Major League Baseball has always been a for-profit business. It emerged from the Roaring Twenties and survived the Great Depression to emerge firmly entrenched as The National Pastime, but despite the reverence held for the game the primary objective of the owners was to fill the stadiums and keep costs to a minimum, maximizing their profits. With America’s entry into World War II the men who controlled the game found themselves facing a dilemma — how could they keep their businesses, which were certainly non-essential from a wartime economy perspective, afloat and generating revenue? The solution was to paint baseball as a patriotic activity that was part of what it meant to be an American and an integral part of the fabric of American society. They hoped this would also convince the government it should allow them to continue operating during the war, while also making the game’s customers, the fans, feel that just showing up to the ballpark was at least a small individual contribution to the war effort on t heir part.

To understand professional baseball’s responses to the challenges presented by World War II, we need to look back a quarter-century from then to the previous time the United States found itself embroiled in a global conflict. The major leagues survived a serious challenge to their position at the top of the baseball world at the start of the World War I era with the rise and fall of the Federal League in 1914-15, and unintentionally scored a major coup when the litigation surrounding the demise of the Federals reached the Supreme Court in 1922 and resulted in the majors gaining an invaluable exemption from the nation’s antitrust laws, in effect allowing them to operate as a legal monopoly.¹ There were also the impacts that World War I itself had on the game, including the shortening of the 1918 season, the near cancellation of that year’s World Series, the tax challenges, and most importantly the public-relations missteps and gaffes that seemed to plague the owners at every turn. Complaints from the owners about the difficulties of filling out rosters and suggestions that baseball players should be exempted from the military draft did not play well in the court of public opinion, nor did proposals that the war taxes on admissions be passed on to the customers. Even the players hurt the cause with salary holdouts and the threat to not play the fifth game of the 1918 World Series in a dispute over bonus money. It sometimes seemed as if everyone involved in professional baseball went out of his way to hurt the game’s image at the worst possible time.² But baseball is resilient, and even the 1919 Black Sox Scandal couldn’t keep the game down, and actually even made it stronger by the addition of the last piece of the puzzle that would help define the game’s strategy during World War II — the hiring of its first commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

Baseball entered the 1940s on a high note. The attendance decreases of the Depression era were erased and the majors were drawing close to 10 million fans per season. In the second half of the 1930s every season saw at least half the major-league clubs turn a profit, fueled in no small part by the increase in attendance as ticket sales accounted for 79.9 percent of an average team’s revenues in 1939.³ Even the minor leagues saw a resurgence, increasing from a low of only 14 leagues in operation in 1933 to a prewar high of 42 leagues in 1941 as the majors expanded their farm systems and even independent operators found ways to make a buck.⁴ The game was more popular than ever before.

The owners of the 16 major-league teams tightly controlled the business aspects of the game, and they often behaved like men who were not only willing to use their positions of power to get their way, but in fact saw doing so as their right. The antitrust exemption gained in the Federal Baseball case allowed them to be ruthless in maintaining their economic power and to deal with any upstarts and potential competitors who might try to intrude on their territory. They used the reserve clause to control both the players and their salaries; the farm system allowed them to keep some of the best next-level talent away from their rivals while also giving them power over much of the minor-league system; and they used the so-called gentleman’s agreement to keep black players out of the game. They were men used to calling the shots.

The nation took its first tentative steps in preparing for possible involvement in the building world conflict with the passing of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which re-instituted military conscription for the first time since World War I. While the specter of a military draft was cause for concern among the owners, Landis for one had learned from the game’s missteps during the previous war and made it clear that baseball would not be seeking any special treatment for its players and that only he would speak for the game on draft-related issues.⁵ It wasn’t long before the military claimed its first baseball superstar when Detroit Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg was called to duty in April 1941. Greenberg reported without complaint, and Tigers owner Walter Briggs offered no public objections.⁶ Overall the draft didn’t have a serious impact on the 1941 season and the majors once again attracted over 9 million fans to the ballparks. But 1942 would be a different story.

Landis wasted no time in reacting to the December 7, 1941, attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, sending a letter to President Roosevelt on January 14, 1942, asking if professional baseball should continue to operate during the war.⁷ Perhaps surprisingly, Roosevelt wasted no time in responding, penning a reply to the commissioner the next day in what has become known as the Green Light Letter, which, while intentionally vague, spoke of the morale and recreation value provided by the game as a spectator sport.⁸ The president also hinted that an expansion of the number of night games would be beneficial, which may very well have been a sort of favor to his friend the Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith, one of the few owners who recognized the attendance and therefore financial benefits of night baseball. Regardless, the business of baseball could carry on, at least for now.

If professional baseball was to continue during what promised to be a long and costly war, the major-league owners needed to put their best collective foot forward and not repeat the mistakes of World War I. Their approach, while it may have never been formally codified as an official strategy, was two-pronged. The first was to play to patriotism and morale, tying baseball fandom (and therefore attendance) to what it meant to be an American. The other was to publicly emphasize the manpower contributions baseball as a whole made to the military in the form of players, umpires, and executives of every level who entered the military via the draft or voluntary enlistment. This was positive from a publicity standpoint, and it also would build a strong relationship between baseball and the military that would give the owners and Landis at least some influence with government and military decision makers. For many owners at the major-league level, baseball was their only occupation, so it was essential to do what they could to keep their businesses afloat during the war.

Landis was quick to show baseball’s patriotism and contributions to the war effort by reviving the Professional Baseball Equipment Fund, also known as the Ball and Bat Fund, in December 1941. The fund was originally established during World War I to provide baseball equipment to servicemen, and the newly launched program was seeded with $25,000 ($24,000 from the leagues and $1,000 from the Baseball Writers Association of America), and 1,500 kits were on order before the year was out. It was further announced that all the proceeds from the 1942 All-Star Game would go to the fund.⁹ Brooklyn Dodgers general manager and World War I veteran Larry MacPhail also got into the act, announcing in February 1942 that the Dodgers had plans to admit 150,000 servicemen to Ebbets Field free of charge in the coming season,¹⁰ a program that was adopted to some extent by every team in the majors and most in the minors.

War-bond sales, raw-materials drives, the playing of the National Anthem, and sometimes military drills before games were all means to tie to the game to the war effort at home, while overseas servicemen stayed connected to the game through radio broadcasts, films of important games, and free copies of The Sporting News. Maintaining the support of the servicemen was essential — while an April 1942 Gallup Poll indicated that 66 percent of Americans were in favor of professional sports continuing during the war,¹¹ the owners knew how quickly this support could and would erode as casualties mounted and the inevitable questions arose as to why a man who could play professional baseball wasn’t serving in the military. Fortunately baseball’s popularity remained high among servicemen, with an early 1943 poll showing that upwards of 95 percent supported the continuation of professional baseball,¹² and the majority of servicemen described the game favorably throughout the war.

Perhaps the most public and patriotic contribution to the war effort was through teams and leagues donating receipts from games to various wartime charities. In the majors a formal program was established through which each team would donate the total receipts from one home game, meaning that each team in effect gave up their share of the receipts from one home and one road game each season. While this resulted in some huge public-relations wins, such as the May 8, 1942, Dodgers-Giants game that generated almost $60,000,¹³ there were also some public failures like the paltry $3,700 raised less than two weeks later when the Phillies hosted the Pirates.¹⁴ These discrepancies raised some questions about the games selected by the owners. While the Dodgers contributed revenues from a lucrative Friday-afternoon game, the Phillies chose a Tuesday day game that came the day after a fairly well attended doubleheader. For chronically poor teams like the Phillies, the loss of revenues from a home game was a big deal, and this may have impacted their scheduling decisions. As the war progressed the money raised from these games decreased, though the fans have to take some of the blame as well for not coming out to the parks. Regardless, over the first three years of charity games, including All-Star and World Series contests, the majors contributed over $2.6 million to various wartime charities¹⁵ and helped sell over $1 billion in war bonds.¹⁶

Not all the owners were happy with how the contributions were dictated by Landis, however. In late 1943 sportswriter Dan Daniel noted, There is a feeling in some quarters that in giving away most of the profits of the World Series, Judge Landis has been too lavish, that it would have been wiser to set up a sinking fund against possible trouble with finances.¹⁷ The majors as a whole failed to turn a profit in 1943, which no doubt contributed to the financial concerns. More surprising was the resistance to Roosevelt’s Green Light Letter recommendation to increase the number of night games, which in theory would be more accessible to people who worked during the day in war industries. While the majors agreed to expand the night schedule somewhat, owners were not free to do so at will, despite both Roosevelt’s request and the fact that night games drew considerably more fans than daytime contests. While the owners as a group generally objected to broadly expanding the night schedule, tellingly it was the wealthier teams that were most adamantly against it, while those that perennially struggled at the gate wanted to see more nighttime baseball. New York Yankees president Ed Barrow was very clear as to his reasons for opposing night ball at Yankee Stadium — dollars and cents. Night baseball is a passing attraction which will not make it wise for the New York Club to spend $250,000 on a lighting system for the stadium.¹⁸ The Yankees had no trouble selling tickets and turning profits with day games, so it didn’t make sense to incur a large expense to play at night.

Manpower was baseball’s most visible contribution to the war effort, though to be fair the owners had minimal control over this and in fact the minors were hit far worse than the majors. Minor-league players tended to be younger than their major-league counterparts and fewer had families to support, making them higher-priority draftees. By the start of the 1942 season over 600 minor leaguers were in the military,¹⁹ and almost a quarter of the minor leagues that operated in 1941 folded up shop. By 1943 the situation was dire, with only 10 leagues starting the season and only nine completing their schedules. It wasn’t until the conclusion of the war and the flood of returning veterans that the minors were able to get back on track.

The majors looked to fill out their rosters with men who weren’t eligible for the draft. Sometimes this meant players who were either too young or too old to be drafted, but as the war progressed the focus turned more towards those classified 4-F by their local draft boards, making them ineligible for military service due to medical reasons. Sometimes these medical exemptions were for obvious reasons, such as Pete Gray of the St. Louis Browns, who was missing his right arm as a result of a childhood accident. For others, though, the reasons for their medical deferments were not always apparent. Ruptured eardrums, herniated discs, or even significant dental problems could make a man ineligible for military service but could be managed effectively at home, where he would be healthy enough to play baseball. By 1944 the Browns had 18 4-F players on their roster, insulating the team from much of the impact of the draft and certainly contributing to their American League championship that season. ²⁰

As the war progressed and casualties increased, so too did resentment towards 4-F athletes. The thinking went that if a man was well enough to play a sport professionally, he should be able to perform some kind of military service, or at the very least work in a war industry. The pressure finally reached the point in 1944 that the director of the Office of War Mobilization, James F. Byrnes, ordered that all 4-F athletes be re-evaluated by draft boards, and suggested that they be required to transition into some type of service work.²¹ One of baseball’s supporters during this difficult time was Senator Albert B. Chandler of Kentucky, who would later be rewarded for his efforts on behalf of the game by being selected as its new commissioner in late 1945. Eventually the chairman of the War Manpower Commission, Paul V. McNutt, agreed to allow those still classified 4-F to play in the 1945 season, averting a probable shutdown of the majors.²² The timing of this announcement was interesting, however, as it followed comments made by Roosevelt during a press conference in which he expressed his hope that baseball would continue, a press conference held the day after his friend Griffith stopped by the White House to drop off the president’s pass for the coming season.²³ The owners had businesses to protect, and having a baseball fan in the White House didn’t hurt.

Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher thought there was an obvious answer to the manpower challenges faced by the majors: the Negro Leagues. When he commented to the press in 1942 that there were a number of black players he would gladly sign if he were allowed to do so, Landis was swift in issuing a statement that there was no rule prohibiting the signing of black ballplayers.²⁴ This was technically true — no such written rule existed. However, there was widespread opposition to integrating baseball, particularly among the major-league owners and executives, with the exception of the Dodgers’ Branch Rickey. World War II provided the perfect opportunity to sign black ballplayers — not only were the majors depleted, but Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802 also barred racial discrimination from war industries, opening the door for a wider, societal integration. However, owners worried about the effects on their pocketbooks. . According to Larry MacPhail, now in a leadership role with the New York Yankees: Our organization rented our parks to the Negro Leagues last year for about $100,000. This is about return we made on our investment. The investment of Negro League clubs is also legitimate. I will not jeopardize my income nor their investment. …²⁵ Even more telling, though, was the explanation laid out in the 1946 Report of Major League Steering Committee, which noted: A situation might be presented, if Negroes participate in Major League games, in which the preponderance of Negro attendance in parks such as Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds and Comiskey Park could conceivably threaten the value of the Major League franchises owned by these clubs.²⁶ This contradicted another part of the same report that noted sports fans want to see the best athletes possible perform, regardless of race. Racism, in the minds of most of the major-league owners at the time, was good for business.

So how successful were the major-league owners in protecting their businesses? Well, no teams went bankrupt during the war, nor did any relocate to another city, though the Browns were on the verge of moving to Los Angeles before Pearl Harbor ended that plan. One owner, however found himself forced to sell after six consecutive years of losing money. Gerald Nugent’s Philadelphia Phillies were terrible on the field and terrible in the stands, finishing at the bottom or second from the bottom in the National League standings every season between 1933 and 1942 (and continuing to do so throughout the war) and having the lowest attendance in the National League every season since 1932. Eventually the National League purchased the team in February 1943 before selling it to a group led by William D. Cox — who lasted all of one season before a gambling scandal forced the team’s third sale in 1943 when it was purchased by Robert R.M. Carpenter, Sr. Despite the near failure of the franchise, it would be inaccurate to say that the war was a driving factor in what happened to the Phillies, who had been losing money for years.

In terms of overall major-league profits, in 1951 the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Study of Monopoly Power undertook an in-depth study on Organized Baseball and its status as a monopoly. Based on its findings, the majors as a whole lost money only once during World War II, suffering a 2.7 percent deficit in 1943. However, even in that year 10 of the 16 major-league clubs turned a profit, and during all four war years (1942 to 1945), each season a minimum of 10 teams turned a profit. In looking at the 1942-45 period as a whole, 12 of the 16 teams came through the war profitable, with five in the black every single season. In fact only two cities saw their franchises lose money during the war era, as both Philadelphia teams and both Boston clubs finished in the red, which may speak to the situations in those cities as much as it does to the quality of the ballclubs.²⁷ So despite the complaints and hand-wringing by the owners, at the end of the day the war years represented a profitable period, at least for the majors.

This is not to imply that the owners were confident in their ability to weather the storm. When the game hit its low point with the money-losing 1943 season, there were some who privately hoped that McNutt would force Landis to shut down the game for the remainder of the war. This was not just a short-term reaction to a challenging financial situation, however; after all, nothing prevented the majors from deciding to shut down on their own, just as many of the minor leagues had, without government involvement. So why indicate it would be better if McNutt forced the decision onto them? Because that would protect the reserve clause. If the majors unilaterally made the decision, the players would have a valid argument that the one-year continuation provision of their contracts had in effect come and gone without their clubs offering them new contracts, making them all free agents. If the government ordered the shutdown, the contracts would effectively be frozen and the reserve clause would remain intact and in force. Maintaining long-term power over the game was paramount, and so the majors continued on into what turned out to be a profitable 1944.²⁸

The owners’ power reared its head as former professional ballplayers began to return home after their time in the service. A 1944 amendment to the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 allowed returning vets the right to return to the job they left to enter the service, and they were guaranteed that position at their prior level of pay for a minimum of one year. But Organized Baseball had its own idea as to what was fair, ultimately deciding under new commissioner Albert Happy Chandler that a 30-day training period and two weeks of paid time was more than sufficient for returning players, hanging their hat on the provision of the statute that indicated the employer had to bring the employee back unless the employer’s circumstances have so changed as to make it impossible or unreasonable to do so…, in effect arguing that if the player isn’t good enough to crack the team’s roster, then it would be unreasonable for the team to retain him.

Many former players never went back to baseball upon their return home. Others did, and while some retained their positions on the diamond, many were demoted, reassigned, or cut outright. While most of those who couldn’t stick with their clubs exited quietly and went on with their lives, a handful felt strongly enough about the injustice of the situation to make an issue of it. Perhaps the most notable example was minor leaguer Al Niemiec, who sued his club, the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League, and won a favorable decision from the court, though the judge acknowledged that the Rainiers were only required to pay Niemiec one year’s salary and did not have to carry him on the roster or play him.²⁹ As a result a number of other PCL players were quietly paid to go away. Others, however, were not so fortunate. Some found the very prosecutors who should have helped them suggesting that they drop the matter, while others pushed the issue and lost their cases. Pitcher Steve Sundra took the St. Louis Browns to court when the team cut him after a 0-0 start (11.25 ERA) to the 1946 season. Three years later when his lawsuit finally made it to trial, the judge, while acknowledging the Niemiec case in his decision, found against Sundra, noting that baseball isn’t like other businesses and that players’ skills can erode over time, leaving them undeserving of a roster spot.³⁰ Despite baseball’s having entered an unparalleled period of prosperity immediately following World War II, the owners were more concerned about profits than they were about doing what was right by their returning veterans.

Professional baseball survived World War II and emerged from the conflict stronger than ever. In 1945, the war’s last year, the majors set an all-time attendance record of 10.8 million fans through the turnstiles, and the following year they nearly doubled that, drawing 18.5 million. The rebound took a year longer for the minors, which exploded in size from 13 leagues in 1945 to 43 just a year later as millions of servicemen returned home and millions more were released from their war-industry work. Landis and the owners, while they surely made some missteps along the way, learned some of the hard lessons from World War I and kept themselves in a position to continue to be profitable while also maintaining a positive public image. Ultimately, what they did was done for the sake of their business, which is just what many other businesses did in an effort to survive in the wartime economy. And their success helped usher in what many consider to be baseball’s Golden Age in the 1950s, a decade of tremendous success at the gate (though notably impacted by the effect of the Korean War early in the decade), expansion to the West Coast, and the rise of television.

Notes

1 Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, et al., 259 U.S. 400 (Supreme Court of the United States, 1922).

2 Jeff Obermeyer, Baseball and the Bottom Line in World War II: Gunning for Profits on the Home Front (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2013), 19-30.

3 House Subcommittee on Study of Monopoly Power of the Committee on the Judiciary, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Study of Monopoly Power ofthe Committee on the Judiciary, Organized Baseball, Serial No. 1, Part 6, 82nd Cong., 1st Session, 1951, 1599-1610.

4 The figure includes the independent Mexican League, as does the number of leagues cited in 1945.

5 Dan Daniel, ’Smile and Take It’ Policy on U.S. Draft, The Sporting News, November 14, 1940, 6.

6 Greenberg and Briggs Do Their Bit, The Sporting News, May 1, 1941, 4.

7 Letter, Kenesaw M. Landis to Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 14, 1941; Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.

8 Letter, Franklin D. Roosevelt to Kenesaw M. Landis, January 15, 1941; Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.

9 Service Men to Get Bat and Ball Kits, New York Times, December 31, 1941.

10 Baseball May Ask Government Help, New York Times, February 4, 1945.

11 George Gallup, Pro Sports for Duration of War Heavily Favored in Poll of Public, New York Times, April 15, 1942.

12 Favor Baseball in Poll, New York Times, March 25, 1943.

13 John Drebinger, Dodgers Defeat Giants in Twilight Game Raising $59,859 for Navy Relief, New York Times, May 9, 1942.

14 John Kieran, Sports of the Times: A Bad Play for Baseball, New York Times, May 21, 1942.

15 War Relief Figures Given," New York Times, February 8, 1945.

16 House Subcommittee on Study of Monopoly Power of the Committee on the Judiciary, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Study of Monopoly Power of the Committee on the Judiciary, Organized Baseball, 41.

17 Dan Daniel, Drafting of Fathers Builds Major Manpower Problems for Big Leagues, Baseball magazine, December, 1943, 247.

18 Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, Baseball: An Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 242.

19 L.H. Addington, Let’s Go! Baseball magazine, March, 1942, 456.

20 Richard Goldstein, Spartan Seasons: How Baseball Survived the Second World War (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1980), 197.

21 Baseball’s Role Praised, New York Times, January 11, 1945.

22 WMC Decision Lets Baseball Players Leave War Plants, New York Times, March 22, 1945.

23 Griff Visits Roosevelt, The Sporting News, March 15, 1945, 12; George Zielke, Game Okayed by FDR in ‘Pinch-Hitter’ Form, The Sporting News, March 22, 1945, 8.

24 Landis on Negro Players, The Sporting News, July 23, 1942, 11.

25 Dan W. Dodson, The Integration of Negroes in Baseball, Journal of Educational Sociology 28, No. 2 (October 1954), 74-5.

26 Major League Steering Committee, Report of Major League Steering Committee for Submission to the National and American Leagues at Their Meetings in Chicago, August 27, 1946, 18-20.

27 House Subcommittee on Study of Monopoly Power of the Committee on the Judiciary, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Study of Monopoly Power of the Committee on the Judiciary, Organized Baseball, 1599-1601, 1615.

28 Obermeyer, Baseball and the Bottom Line in World War II: Gunning for Profit on the Home Front, 138-39.

29 Niemiec v. Seattle Rainier Baseball Club, Inc., 67 F. Supp. 705 (U.S. Dist. Ct. 1946).

30 Sundra v. St. Louis American League Baseball Club, 87 F. Supp. 471 (U.S. Dist. Ct. 1949).

war-related%20advertising%20Braves_0001.jpeg

A portion of the Braves Field outfield fence displays an advertisement for war bonds and stamps.

war-related%20advertising%20Braves_0003.jpeg

Another Braves Field photo. See the J.A. Cigar ad promoting war bonds.

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Another patriotic message from J.A. graces part of the Braves Field fence.

But Where Is Pearl Harbor?

Baseball And The Day The World Changed, December 7, 1941.

By Bob LeMoine

I Must Go Dear and Talk to Father

She had just finished saying goodbye to some luncheon guests and was walking past her husband’s study. She realized something was terribly wrong. His secretaries were scrambling, and two phones were in use. She overheard the phone conversations, and knew there had been an attack. She returned to her room to finish a letter to her daughter. The news of the war has just come. … I must go dear and talk t o father.

Eleanor Roosevelt did indeed talk to Anna’s father, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and America was now officially thrust into World War II in a day which will live in infamy, December 7, 1941. The attack came at 7:48 A.M. Honolulu time, while soldiers were sleeping, eating breakfast, or glancing at the morning paper. A fleet of 189 Japanese planes destroyed 18 American naval vessels, killing nearly 2,500 military personnel and civilians and etching into the memories of Americans where they were on that fateful day.¹ America was no longer a spectator in World War II.

Many feared an imminent attack on the West Coast. There were four air-raid alerts in San Francisco the evening after the Pearl Harbor attack. The San Francisco Chronicle’s next-day headline read, Japan Planes Near S.F., and citizens were clearly on edge, claiming to spot enemy aircraft and submarines. Ships began arriving with military and civilian personnel from Pearl Harbor, and fears abounded that nearly anyone of Asian descent could be a spy and should be questioned.²

Meanwhile, a game was being played at the Polo Grounds between the Giants and Dodgers — the football teams. Long before there was instant access to information, a buzz began in the crowd. The public-address announcer gave an urgent call for Colonel William J. Donovan to call his office immediately. More announcements were soon made for other government and military personnel. Those in the press box saw the bulletin many fans never heard until they arrived home and realized their world had forever changed.³

Washington would soon begin practicing air-raid drills, and the lights of the Capitol would be turned off. People bought blackout curtains for their houses. The Library of Congress moved the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and copies of the Gutenberg Bible and Magna Carta to a more secure location. Fear and panic filled the country as planes flying overhead gave jitters to those dreading attack.⁴

People reacted in shock, fear, and anger. Julia Ruth Stevens, daughter of Babe Ruth, remembered the Babe’s reaction to the Pearl Harbor attack. Ruth loved being in Japan on a baseball tour in 1934, but now, He was furious. Mother and Daddy had brought back mementos from Japan. But Daddy started throwing them out of the window of our apartment at 110 Riverside Drive. Mother was so concerned that he was going to get arrested for throwing objects out the window that she began to grab things before Daddy could get to them.⁵

This dreadful event forever changed the course of world history, and talking about the disruption of baseball is a minor sidebar in comparison. However, baseball is about people whose lives and livelihoods were also disrupted that day. By remembering where they were and what they experienced, we catch a glimpse of America’s story. As Tom Brokaw articulated:

Farm kids from the Great Plains who never expected to see the ocean in their lifetimes signed up for the Navy; brothers followed brothers into the Marines; young daredevils who were fascinated by the new frontiers of flight volunteered for pilot training. Single young women poured into Washington to fill the exploding needs for clerical help … learned to drive trucks or handle welding torches … Millions of men and women were involved in this tumultuous journey through adversity and achievement, despair and triumph.⁶

The nation was stirred to patriotism and a sense of duty in the wake of this attack, and people rushed to enlist. Hitler’s declared war on the United States on December 11 also ignited a spark of American pride. Americans now needed to work together in unity as never before, as Gary Bedingfield noted:

Industrial giants across the nation — including factories, workshops, mills, and mines — swung into action to produce the necessities of war. The vast automobile industry unhesitatingly switched to the production of military vehicles, turning out a steady stream of military trucks, jeeps, tanks, and airplanes, while manufacturers that were more accustomed to handling refrigerators and vacuum cleaners turned their straight-line production techniques to the manufacturing of ammunition, guns, and other essential war commodities.⁷

Some questioned whether baseball should even have continued during this national crisis. Others turned to baseball for a glimmer of hope and support. President Roosevelt’s letter to Commissioner Kenesaw M. Landis — his Green Light Letter — affirmed his support that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.⁸

The game would continue with its stars overseas and replacement players filling in the lineups. When The Sporting News in April 1942 asked for the opinion of servicemen on whether baseball should continue, they were swamped with replies, including that of Pvt. John E. Stevenson, who declared, Baseball is part of the American way of life. Remove it and you remove something from the lives of American citizens, soldiers, and sailors.⁹

While this book focuses on baseball replacement players of World War II, this chapter recalls the stories of some who left the green grass of baseball diamonds to serve the country at sea, in the air, and in hostile territory. They replaced the roar of the crowd with the fire of weapons. Spikes were replaced with fatigues. They left behind a game and risked their lives for people’s freedom to play it. Many heroes didn’t come home, but these men came back to the ballparks forever changed, and told us their stories.¹⁰

You’ve All Been Swell

Cecil Travis was probably on his way to a Hall of Fame career with the Washington Senators (1933-1941; 1945-1947) when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Travis played some outfield and third base for the Senators, but the majority of his career was spent at shortstop. It was his bat that would have propelled him to Cooperstown. A career .314 hitter, he had his greatest season of 1941 but it was overshadowed by the historic feats of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. Travis batted .359, second only to Williams (.406) and ahead of DiMaggio (.357), while his 218 hits led the league. His 24-game hitting streak understandably received little fanfare in a season dominated by DiMaggio’s 56-game streak.

Travis was on a hunting trip with teammate Buddy Lewis when he heard the news of Pearl Harbor. Seventeen days later, on the day before Christmas, he received his induction notice and reported for duty in January, 1942.¹¹ Travis became a member of the Special Forces in the 76th Infantry Division, which pursued Hitler’s forces as they retreated after the Battle of the Bulge. They battled the frigid cold winter, which cost Travis two toes to frostbite.¹² While part of the greater victory in war, his baseball career would never be the same.

Travis played until the end of the 1947 season. That summer he was bestowed with gifts, monetary contributions, and appreciations fit for a hero. Fans, ballplayers, umpires, and civic groups celebrated him on Cecil Travis Night at Griffith Stadium. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was on hand, as were the VFW honor guard and a Scottish bagpiper. Connie Mack and Clark Griffith presided over the ceremonies, and the soft-spoken Travis came to the microphone and said, I’ll never forget this night. You’ve all been swell.¹³

We Sure Grew up in a Hurry

Ned Martin, a future Red Sox broadcast (1961-1992), was a freshman at Duke University in 1941, and recalled 50 years later where he was when word of the Pearl Harbor attack spread.

The Depression was over and we were pretty much just concerned with growing up and enjoying ourselves. None of us had much interest in what was happening outside our own little worlds — but, man, we sure grew up in a hurry. Martin had taken his girlfriend to a movie and when he returned to the dorm, everyone clustered around a radio. One guy turned to me and said, ‘Isn’t it awful what the Japanese did? They bombed Pearl Harbor!’¹⁴

Martin responded, ‘Pearl Harbor? That’s in the Hawaiian islands, isn’t it?’ I figured it was a possession of ours, but what did it mean? I didn’t know. We were just kids, away from home at a big university, with a football team on its way to the Rose Bowl, and the most important thing in the world was having a date for the Saturday night dance. I guess you could say we were kind of dumb.¹⁵

World War II had come to Duke University. I think that’s when we finally understood it was all over, the whole thing, that our lives were about to change, that things were going to be very different now for people our age, Martin said. My time, I knew, was coming. ¹⁶ He enlisted in the Marines in 1942 and later was with the 4th Marine Division in the landing at Iwo Jima in February 1945. "Sad to say, however, I’m not one of the guys who raised the flag that you see in the monument, he quipped. I was a radio lineman, stringing wire from our radio emplacement out to the forward lines where we were calling naval gunfire on caves and pillboxes and things like that. I remember being told to be sure we used the right passwords, or else we’d be fired on by our own people."¹⁷

It wasn’t long before Martin realized the horrifying reality of war. I don’t think we were there 30 minutes when we came upon a shellhole. I looked in and saw it was filled with dead Marines. I mean blown-up Marines, with entrails and ... oh, God, I’d never seen anything like that before. Then I started looking around and saw Japanese dead, and pretty soon death got to be common. Corpsmen were so busy ticketing bodies they just couldn’t keep up.¹⁸

An expected nine-day tour on the island became 26, but finally victory came. I remember the day the word spread: ‘The flag is now flying on Mt. Suribachi.’ Our flag! What a feeling, Martin recalled.¹⁹

Where is Pearl Harbor?

For Johnny Pesky, 1942 would be his rookie year in a 10-year career with the Red Sox, Tigers, and Senators (1942, 1946-1954). On December 7, 1941, returning home from church in Portland, Oregon, Pesky walked in the door to see his brother sitting in front of the radio. Pesky would be battling fellow rookie Eddie Pellagrini for the Red Sox’ starting shortstop job in the spring. Pellagrini was at the Strand Theater in the Dorchester section of Boston getting popcorn when he heard a couple of guys talking about Pearl Harbor. Bombed Pearl Harbor! Wow! Pellagrini exclaimed. But where is Pearl Harbor?²⁰

Pellagrini didn’t see the rest of the movie. Everything changed that day. Pellagrini was drafted first and went to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station while Pesky played his first season with the Red Sox. As he watched players leave for service, Pesky knew his time was coming. Ted (Williams) and I knew it and we had become good friends. In the middle of the season, we joined the V-5 program for pilots.²¹ Ted became a pilot, while Johnny became an operations officer. Pellagrini (1946-1949; 1951-1954), the kid from nearby Dorchester, hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat for the Red Sox. Pesky’s career continued well beyond his playing years with 73 years in baseball, 61 of them with the Red Sox organization.

Williams had just finished season three of his Hall of Fame 19-year career for the Red Sox (1939-1942; 1946-1960), and had batted .406, the last .400 hitter in the major leagues. On December 7, 1941, he was duck hunting in Minnesota. He heard the news on the radio. He later confessed, Frankly, none of this war talk had meant a damn to me up to then. … Hitler had been giving Europe fits, and things were looking bad all over, but it hadn’t sunk in on me yet. All I was interested in was playing ball, hitting the baseball, being able to hunt, making some money.²² Ted was able to be deferred from