Wartime Baseball

    The summer of 1941 was one for the ages. On May 15^th, Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio began his famed 56-game hitting streak that would place him forever in the hearts of Yankee fans and forever in the record books as having accomplished a feat that may never be duplicated. DiMaggio’s streak would last until July 16^th, when Ken Keltner, the Cleveland Indians third baseman, grabbed two sure hits, robbing Joe and ending the streak. Interestingly enough, the next day Joe began another 16-game hitting streak. When it was all said and done, DiMaggio had hit safely in 72 of 73 games.

Perhaps an even bigger story that summer began to take shape as DiMaggio’s streak was ending. A 22-year-old San Diego native was creeping closer and closer to the magical .400 batting average mark. Ted Williams, the great left fielder for the Boston Red Sox, was still relatively unknown to most of the baseball world in 1941. In Boston he was considered a spoiled brat who threw tantrums and complained about not getting paid enough. The fans booed him. The press took every opportunity to chastise him about his play and his attitude. Toward the end of the 1940 season, Williams asked to be traded. He was denied.

As the 1941 season waned, Ted’s batting average continued to rise. He felt more and more like part of the team and the team increasingly depended on him as the talents of other stars such as Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx began to diminish with age. On July 19^th, he was batting .393 and by the 2^nd of August it was up to .412. But as the season drew to a close, Ted’s average began to slowly drop. On the last day of the season, with only a double-header remaining to play, Ted’s average was sitting at .39955, which would round up to .400.

Williams’ manager Joe Cronin confronted Ted and offered to let him sit out the last two games and keep the .400 mark. Ted said that he “didn’t care to be known as a .400 hitter with a lousy average of .39955. If I’m going to be a .400 hitter, I want to have more than my toenails on the line.” Williams played both games that day and went 6 for 8, ending the season with an average of .406. It was the first time a player had hit .400 since the Giants’ Bill Terry passed the mark in 1930 by batting .401. No one has done it since. Ted’s 1941 season on-base percentage was .551, which is a mark that stood for over 60 years. His batting average for the entire season was only two points lower than DiMaggio’s during his hitting streak.

At the time, however, it seems that DiMaggio’s streak was viewed as being the more magnificent feat. Not only due to the length of the streak, but the sudden turnaround of Joe’s season. In the 20 games leading up to the beginning of the streak, DiMaggio was batting .194 and the Yankees were a .500 ball club. When the streak ended, the team’s record was 56-27. The Yanks would finish the season with 101 wins and claim their fifth World Series title in six years. 

These events are now part of the repertoire of any baseball raconteur worth his salt, and they represent some of the best of times in Major League history. The summer of 1941 was not all joyful, however. On June 2^nd, the baseball world lost one of its true legends as Lou Gehrig passed away from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Gehrig had retired in 1939 and DiMaggio would soon be looked to as a replacement icon for the Iron Horse.

       Throughout 1941, the rumblings of war were beginning to be felt across the United States. On April 6^th, the Germans invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. On June 22^nd, as Joltin’ Joe was hitting a home run off Hal Newhouser, the Nazis were invading Russia. In Detroit, future Hall of Fame first baseman Henry Benjamin “Hank” Greenberg (January 1, 1911-September 4, 1986) enlisted in the army on May 6^th. He gave up a $50,000 yearly salary for a $21/month salary in the military. Greenberg, the first Jewish baseball star, was the first Major Leaguer to enlist. He was one of the top hitters in the late ‘30s hitting 58 home runs in 1938. He had won the MVP of the American League in 1935 and was poised to become one of the all time greats, but like many good men of this era, he chose to honor his country by serving in the military. On December 5^th, Greenberg was released from the army because he was beyond draft age. Just 48 hours later came the attack on Pearl Harbor and Hank decided to re-enlist. He is quoted as saying “we are in trouble, and there is only one thing for me to do – return to the service…this doubtless means that I am finished with baseball, and it would be silly of me to say that I do not leave it without a pang. But all of us are confronted with a terrible task – the defense of our country and the fight for our lives.”

Hank wasn’t quite done with baseball but he would lose three full seasons and most of two more while in the military. He would return to the game at the age of 34 in 1945 and win a World Series.

      Bob Feller, a 22-year-old pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, was at the top of his game in 1941. In the previous four seasons he had accumulated a record of 93-44 and had placed three times as a top five vote-getter for league MVP. Feller was made famous when he struck out 15 batters in his first game in 1936, and in September of that year when he struck out his age, fanning 17 batters in a game at the age of 17. He pitched a no-hitter on opening day in 1940 and the future looked very bright for this stellar young athlete. Feller enlisted in the navy on December 8^th, 1941. Although he could have beaten the draft with his 2-C (farmer) classification, he was the first professional ballplayer to enlist after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Feller served as a gun captain on the U.S.S. Alabama at Tarawa, Kwajlein, and Iwo Jima while receiving six battle citations. Feller would miss virtually all of the next four seasons, but would return to form in 1946 and continue his hall of fame career.

      Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams would also see their share of action ­– Williams instructing young pilots how to fly the latest planes and DiMaggio working as a physical education trainer all over the United States while rising to the rank of Sergeant. Williams, whose father was a WWI veteran, would remain in the reserves after the end of the war and would eventually fly 38 combat missions over Korea in the early 1950′s. He would have the honor of being John Glenn’s wingman during the Korean War. Williams was awarded the Air Medal by President Harry Truman, and Douglas MacArthur sent Ted an oil painting of himself with the inscription “To Ted Williams – not only America’s greatest baseball player, but a great American who served his country. Your friend, Douglas MacArthur. General U.S. Army.”

       In January of 1942, as millions of Americans began to realize the implications of their nation joining the devastating war raging overseas, the commissioner of baseball, former federal judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, sent a letter to the President of the United States requesting guidance on whether the 1942 baseball season should be played considering the coming trials. The President’s response, known as the “Green Light Letter”, shows how ingrained the game had become in American culture by the early 1940′s. The letter read:

                                                                                                                 January 15, 1942

My dear Judge:

           Thank you for yours of January fourteenth. As you will, of course, realize the final decision about the baseball season must rest with you and the Baseball club owners – so what I am going to say is solely a personal and not an official point of view. I honestly feel 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.

           Baseball provides a recreation which does not last over two hours or two hours and a half, and which can be got for very little cost. And, incidentally, I hope that night games can be extended because it gives an opportunity to the day shift to see a game occasionally. As to the players themselves, I know you agree with me that the individual players who are active military or naval age should go, without question, into the services. Even if the actual quality to the teams is lowered by the greater use of older players, this will not dampen the popularity of the sport.

           Of course, if an individual has some particular aptitude in a trade or profession, he ought to serve the Government. That, however, is a matter which I know you can handle with complete justice. Here is another way of looking at it – if 300 teams use 5,000 or 6,000 players, these players are a definite recreational asset to at least 20,000,000 of the fellow citizens – and that in my judgment is thoroughly worthwhile.                                                            With every best wish, Very sincerely yours,
                                                                                                    Franklin D. Roosevelt

           Although Major League Baseball would continue in the war years, it wouldn’t escape some major, if only temporary, changes. Night games which began in 1935 would become a rare sight due to energy rationing and blackout restrictions. Spring training camps would be located much closer to the team’s cities to save fuel. In 1943, the Dodgers trained just north of New York City in Bear Mountain, NY. The White Sox worked out in French Lick, Indiana. By 1943, over 4,500 major and minor league players were in the military. Kentucky senator and future baseball commissioner Albert (Happy) Chandler would declare “Baseball should have the right to use rejects if that would mean keeping the game going. Playing baseball is the most essential thing most of those fellows can do.” Many players who would never have made the big leagues were becoming sought-after additions to the clubs. Players who couldn’t even make the minor leagues and men who had been retired for years began to make appearances in games. Pepper Martin had been retired for four years when he rejoined the Cardinals in 1944. Babe Herman, former great and the man who hit for an aging Babe Ruth in the 1939 film “Pride of the Yankees”, was called back to play after seven years of retirement. Hod Lisenbee would return to the game after nine years at the age of 46.

            Some of the strangest characters in baseball history emerged during the war. In 1944, the Cincinnati Reds sent 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall to the mound to pitch. He was the youngest player in Major League history and played like it as well. Not lasting even an inning, he gave up five earned runs and faced only nine batters. Eight years later, he would re-emerge as a very good pitcher and play until 1966. Probably the most storied case of a has-been or never-should-have-been making it to the majors was that of Pete Gray. Pete was right-handed until he lost his right arm, at age 6, when he slipped while riding on a farmer’s wagon and his right arm was caught in the spokes. The arm had to be amputated above the elbow. Gray played in the Majors for only one season with the St. Louis Browns, but racked up 51 hits in 234 at-bats. He hit two triples and carried a batting average of .218. Interestingly, he only struck out 11 times all season. In 61 games in the field, he only allowed seven errors.

            Many players spent their time overseas playing baseball for service teams. They were given easy duties and played to raise morale. Some, however, saw active duty and  two players, Elmer Gedeon and Harry O’Neill, were killed in France and Iwo Jima respectively. Cecil Travis, the man who finished second to Ted Williams for the batting crown in 1941, fought in the Battle of the Bulge alongside Warren Spahn, and had terrible frostbite which caused him to retire in 1947. He was on the path to the Hall of Fame as a career .327 hitter. One of the most telling stories of the war is the struggles of Lou Brissie. Brissie was hit by shrapnel in Northern Italy in 1944 and he begged for surgeons not to remove his foot. After 23 operations, Lou made his way to the major leagues winning 44 games as a member of the Athletics and the Indians. Brissie was elected to the 1949 All-Star game.

            As the British troops were landing in Greece on October 4^th, 1944, the St. Louis Browns were winning game one of the World Series.  That within itself is a testimony to the lowering of talent standards in the majors. The Browns were considered the worst team in baseball history at the outbreak of the war. The perennially bad team hadn’t had a winning season since 1929 and had only finished with a winning percentage over .500 nine times in their 41-year existence. Now here they were in the World Series only one year away from adding Pete Gray to their outfield. The lack of talent got worse as the war raged on. On September 7^th, just weeks after the war ended, Joe Kuhel hit an inside-the-park home run for the Washington Senators at Griffith Park. It was to be the only home run hit by a Senators player in all 77 home games that season.

            The game had gained much popularity in Japan throughout the first half of the 20^th century, but before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese government officially abolished the game and in the jungles of the Pacific, Japanese soldiers would try to anger American GIs into revealing their positions by hurling insults and cursing Babe Ruth. In 1949, the minor league San Francisco Seals would tour occupied Japan in an attempt to revive the game. Douglas MacAurthur called the attempt “the greatest piece of diplomacy ever.”

            In 1942, with the attendance of Major League games steadily decreasing, Philip Wrigley, owner of the Cubs and Wrigley chewing gum Company, came up with the idea to begin a new league. At the time, there were some 40,000 women playing semi-professional softball across the Midwest, and Wrigley figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to make the switch to hardball. Tryouts were held in Chicago and several teams were established. Players were to be good, but also consummate ladies. In fact, some of the farm girls that came to the tryouts had been doing the same farm work as their brothers and fathers their entire lives. Wrigley knew that he would have to find a solution to convert these girls into proper ladies. Wrigley hired the Helena Rubinstein cosmetics firm to open a charm school for the players. The ladies were to wear skirts, makeup, and high heels at all times off the field.

     The league soon blossomed into a ten team format with clubs in Racine, Kenosha, Rockford, South Bend, and Minneapolis among others. Former MLB players took to the field as managers including the great Jimmie Foxx and Hall of Famer Max Carey. Branch Rickey, the man who would soon break the color barrier in the Majors by signing Jackie Robinson, agreed to finance two teams. In 1948, the league played an exhibition game in Yankee Stadium. The league lasted from 1942 until 1954 and in some seasons pulled an attendance of over a million. From 1943 to 1954, the AAGPBL allowed talented women athletes a chance to play professional baseball. Although the league continued after World War II, intraleague changes, a diminished publicity budget, and the failure to

interest television owners in the economic feasibility of covering games contributed to the AAGPBL’s demise. The league inspired the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own”. As early as 1943, Mr. Wrigley stated that photos of these women would eventually end up in Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. In November, 1988, a permanent display was installed amidst much fanfare.

The fact of the recalling of retired players, young unknowns, handicapped players and even leagues sprouting up of women was certainly not lost on the American blacks. They saw the careers of greats like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and scores of other young extremely talented players going to waste while 15-year-olds were getting a chance. The worst hypocrisy was that at the same time that blacks were outlawed on the field, they were drafted by the military and expected to fight with honor for their country. Yankee Stadium crowds began to notice the signs of fans that read, “If we are able to stop bullets, why not balls?”  Commissioner Landis and the owners had all taken part in the “gentleman’s agreement” that blacks were not welcome in the league. On November 25^th, 1944, Landis died, and Happy Chandler was chosen as his successor. Chandler’s stance on integration was, “If a black boy can make it on Okinawa or Guadalcanal, hell, he can make it in baseball.” Less than a year later, Jackie Robinson was signed to a minor league contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The war meant many things to America. As one threat ended in a bunker in April of ’45, the threat of the Cold War was beginning. The view of war by the average American would never be the same in subsequent wars as it was in World War II. The end of the conflict meant the end of traditional warfare as the new threat of nuclear holocaust lay ahead. FDR was gone and the nation had worked its way out of the Great Depression. A new America was on the horizon, for better or worse.

Baseball has always prided itself on leading rather than following the country. Whether it is women’s rights or those of blacks, baseball has proven to be a reflection not of what we are, but of what we wish to one day achieve in our melting pot. Cultures mixing together to make one product, an American culture that, hand in hand with baseball, has made and kept America great.