Runs and Bases: The 1940's, Part 1

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BASEBALL DURING THE WAR

Bill James, from both of his Historical Baseball Abstracts:: “In 1941, as you probably know, unless you failed a number of history classes, America went to war. During wartime, the quality of the baseballs used was inferior, as there was something in regular baseballs that was needed to make explosives or O. D. green paint or something and the balls manufactured were rather lifeless. The quality of play wasn’t too lively, either. With most of the good players in the service, a collection of old men and children gathered regularly and batted around a dull spheroid and this was called “major league baseball” for three years. This baseball was characterized by low batting averages, low home run totals and an unusual number of bases being stolen by anyone aged 37 or younger. Strategy came to the fore, as it always does when talent is short, plus there were some terrific pennants races and an unlimited supply of fresh human interest stories. On that basis, the baseball of the war years was probably, in its own way, as enjoyable as any…..At a guess, about 40% of the major league players of the wartime period were fully of major league quality. Of the 64 National League regulars of the 1945 season, only 22 played a hundred or more games the next season and only 11 played in hundred or more games in the majors four years later.”

Wartime baseball is known for its oddities. The most famous is Pete Gray, who lost his right arm above the elbow at age 6 in a truck accident. He loved baseball so much he learned to bat one-handed and to catch the ball in his glove and quickly remove the glove and put it in his hand to throw it with one motion and sought a career in professional baseball despite his handicap. He had a remarkable year with the Memphis Chicks of the Southern Association in 1944, hitting .333 with 21 doubles, 9 triples and even 5 home runs and stealing 63 bases. He was named the MVP of the Association, a fairly high-level minor league. The next year, the St. Louis Browns acquired his services and, in his only big league sea

“As the season progressed, it became apparent that Gray could not hit breaking pitches. Once he started his swing, he could not change his timing because he had no second hand to check the swing. Opposing pitchers discovered that fact and threw curve balls…Gray's on-field exploits set an inspirational example for disabled servicemen returning from World War II, as was portrayed in newsreels of the period. He visited army hospitals and rehabilitation centers, speaking with amputees and reassuring them that they too could lead a productive life.” (Wikipedia). When the regular major leaguers returned in force, Pete Gray found himself in the minors and by 1950, was out of baseball. “Gray returned home to Nanticoke, (Pa.) where, although a local hero/celebrity, he struggled with gambling and alcohol, and lived in near poverty.” Keith Carradine played Pete in the 1986 TV movie, “A Winner Never Quits.” Pete Gray became a symbol of wartime baseball: limited but still persevering.

Wartime baseball provided other opportunities for players who would not normally have been in the big leagues, or no longer in the big leagues. Players like Jimmy Foxx, Paul Waner and Al Simmons got to extend their careers well past their prime. Meanwhile the Brooklyn Dodgers brought up a 16 year old shortstop in 1944 named Tommy Brown, who batted .208. But Tommy remained with the team until 1951 and played for a couple more teams as a reserve infielder until 1953, (when he was still only 25) and he batted .241 lifetime. In Cincinnati 15 year old Joe Nuxhall pitched for the Reds the same year in a single game against the Cardinals. He got two guys out but walked 5 and gave up 2 hits and 5 earned runs, earning him an ERA of 67.50. Joe then spent the next eight years in the minor leagues, (including a stop in Syracuse), before returning to the Reds in 1952. He then pitched for them until 1966, (except for a brief period with the Athletics and Angels), winning 135 games. He then became a member of the Reds broadcast crew for another 38 seasons, describing the exploits of the Big Red Machine.

There were a number of players who achieved a measure of stardom during the war years who were not able to maintain their level of play when the regulars came back from the war.

Bill “Swish” Nicholson is often included in this group but, to be fair, he actually got his start just before the war, hitting .297 with 25 homers and 98 RBI’s for the 1940 Cubs. But he hit his peak in 1943-44 when the led the NL with 29 and then 33 home runs and in RBIs with 128/122, the top performances by any player in the war era. Bill had grown up in the same Maryland farm country that Jimmie Foxx did and Foxx was his idol. But his great desire was to get into the Naval Academy. When the took the physical, it turned out he was color blind, (he apparently didn’t know until then that the world looked differently to some people). Bill James: “It is a perfect irony: while dozens of athletes who dreamed of nothing but being baseball players were busy fighting a war, perhaps the best player left in the National league was a man who had grown up dreaming of being a Navy officer.” Bill dropped from .287BA, 33HR, 122RBI,116RS, (the latter three stats leading the league), in 1945 to .243-13.-88-82 in 1946 but this was probably due as much to failing eyesight, (he had diabetes) as to the return of major-league quality pitchers. He played until 1953 but never approached his wartime numbers again. His nickname means what you think it means, although he only led the league in strikeouts once, in 1947, with 83. He’s not related to Dave Nicholson, who in 1963,hit 22 homers for the power-starved White Sox at the cost of 175 strike-outs, which was the major league record for a long time. Now THAT guy should have been called “Swish”!

Nick Etten had bounced around the minors for years before the Phillies picked him up in the late 1930’s He was productive but not a star until the war. The Yankees got him in 1943 and was arguably their best player with DiMaggio in the service. He had 107 RBIs in 1943, led the league with 22 home runs in 1944, (the days of Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx and Greenburg must have seen far off), and in RBIs with 111 in 1945. In 1946 when the top pitchers were back, his batting average fell from .285 to .232 and he hit 9 homers with 49RBI. By 1948 Nick was back in the minors, hitting 43 homers for Casey Stengel’s PCL champion Oakland Oaks.

Dick Wakefield was the chairman of the “I lost it in the service” club. He got the largest signing bonus ever issued to that point when he signed for $55,000 with the Tigers in 1941. He immediately bought a cat, even though he didn’t yet know how to drive. His big league career started out big with .316 and a league-leading 38 doubles in 1943.He was patriotic enough to join a Naval aviation cadet program after that season but the program was discontinued. He returned to the Tigers and hit .355 with a dozen homers in 78 games. But the Navy called him back in November and he spent the next 14 months in the service. There he met Ted Williams and bet Ted $1,000 per stat that he’d have a higher batting average, more homers and more RBIs than Ted after the war. From 1946-60, Ted Williams hit .340 with 394 home runs and 1324 RBIs. Dick Wakefield , from 1946 to 1952, hit .268 with 37 homers and 183 RBIs. Dick was out $3,000. ". . . if I had my life to live over again, I’m inclined to think that I’d have to try and do something that’s more fundamental for humanity than a professional athletic career." - Dick Wakefield

George “Snuffy” Stirnweiss was a poor man’s Ty Cobb for two years during the war. In 1944, he hit .319 with 205 hits, 35 doubles, 16 triples 55 steals and 125 runs scored for the Yankees. The next year he was .309-195-32-22-33-107. Reality bit in 1946 when he hit .251-122-19-7-18-75. Per Baseball Reference.com, “Gastric ulcers and hay fever prevented him from being in the military.” He also had sinus problems he treated with snuff, thus his nickname. He’s been an All-American halfback at UNC in 1939. He died in 1958 when the train he was on crashed over a bridge.

Roy Cullenbine had bounced around, actually batting .317 for the Browns in 1941, (with 9 home runs). He suddenly developed something of a power stroke for the Indians in 1944, hitting 16 home runs and scoring 98 runs. The next year he was traded to the Tigers and hit 18 homers with 93 RBIs for the World Series champions. He also led the league in walks with 113. But Roy actually kept it going, hitting .335 with 15 homers in 115 games in 1946. The next year the bottom fell out of his batting average, (to .224) but he hit 24 homers and walked 137 times, giving him a .401 on base percentage. But they weren’t playing Moneyball back then. The Tigers released him and so did the Phillies during 1948 spring training and his career was suddenly over. Bill DeWitt, the GM of the Browns when Roy played there: “Cullenbine wouldn’t swing the bat. Sewell would give him the hit sign and he’d take it, trying to get the base on balls. Laziest human being you ever saw.”

DeWitt’s team was another symbol of the era. The St. Louis Browns evented the war era as the only major league team never to have won a pennant or appeared in the World Series. Their presence in the 1944 Series seemed to put the stamp on the period. Per Bill Hageman’s “Baseball Between the Wars”, the Browns, had “an all-4f infield, the majority of their players over 30 and a number of athletes salvaged from baseball’s scrap heap”.

But some have questioned this image of the war years. Bill Nicholson, in interviews, claimed that the quality of war-time ball was better than it was after expansion. Bill James: “While I don’t believe that the quality of baseball in World War II was better than it was post-expansion. I do believe that what could be called the historic mark-down of the war-time seasons had been disproportionate…Yes, a lot of the good pitchers were not there but on the other hand, the balata ball used during the war was not easy to drive . Many of the players who played through the war failed to match their pre-war power numbers.”

In “The Ultimate Baseball Book” (Daniel Okrent and Harris Lewine), it says “”After being exposed to Williams and DiMaggio, who could be aroused by Bill Nicholson and Nick Etten, to name only two performers who had done little before the war but were now suddenly stars? It was thought that if Williams were still around, he would hit not .400 but an easy .500. What was not a cause of much speculation and certainly should have been, was the reason why so many greats whose careers were not interrupted by the service failed to dominate the game during the war years. Mel Ott, Joe Medwick, Ernie Lombardi, Rudy York, Stan Hack, Bob Elliott, Lou Boudreau and Frank McCormick all played throughout the war and none did any better than the Nicholsons or Ettens, who were regarded as worthy of major league uniforms only by default. It is possible that the game was not as diluted as generally believed.” Ott, Medwick, Lombardi, Hack and McCormick were all in their 30’s and on the downside of their careers when the war began: the war probably extended their careers. York had his best year in 1943. Elliott and Boudreau were young players whose careers were just starting.

Bill James made a list of players whose military service might have deprived them of Hall of Fame careers. Some were on their way to a Hall of Fame career like Cecil Travis, who went to war with a .333 lifetime batting average in eight full seasons with the Senators. He emerged from the battle of the Bulge with trenchfoot and frostbite and hit .218 in 226 post-war games. He still wound up hitting .314 lifetime but his career was apparently deemed too short by the voters. Johnny Pesky hit .331 with 205 hits and 105 runs scored in his only pre-service season. When he came back he performed at that level or close to it through 1951, then tailed off in his mid 30’s. The voters also didn’t think that was enough. Joe Gordon and Tommy Henrich had multiple good seasons on either side of their service but they needed those years to put them over the top. Hank Sauer didn’t become a major league regular until age 31, partially due to the war and partially due to the enmity of Cincinnati manager Bill McKechnie, who valued fielding over hitting. Others on James’ list: Dick Wakefield, Mickey Vernon, Dom DiMaggio, Alvin Dark, Sam Chapman, Buddy Lewis, Sid Gordon, Virgil Trucks, Hank Bauer, Barney McCoskey, Wally Judenich, Ferris Fain and Eddie Robinson, (no, not Edward G.). But there was a war on….

 

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WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE WAR?

This site is an excellent one about baseball players who saw military service:
http://www.baseballinwartime.com/player_biographies/player_biographies.htm

It contains this list of casualties:
http://www.baseballsgreatestsacrifice.com/table_of_all_players.html

Only two major leaguers were actually killed in the war. Both were former major leaguers. Elmer Gedeon had played five games as an outfielder for the Senators in 1939. He was a bomber pilot whose plane was shot down over France in 1944. Harry O'Neill was a catcher for the A’s for one game the same year. He was killed on Iwo Jima in 1945. 144 minor leaguers died, including the son of Cardinals Manager Billy Southworth, who had told his father “I think it’s my duty to enlist, because they are going to need us.”

You don’t see big names on the list. This somewhat angry web page seems to have some answers:
http://www.historybanter.com/baseba...th-of-major-league-baseball-in-world-war-two/

Regarding myth #1, if the government “refused to accept volunteers and went to a draft system”, that doesn’t mean that the draftees were unpatriotic or that they wouldn’t have volunteered. It’s true, per myth #2 that major leaguers played a lot of service ball. But some of them saw combat and some who played service ball saw combat. And what they were told to do was not up to them, (as is noted). Regarding myth #3, I’ve never heard anyone say that the major leagues shut down during WWII. Commissioner Landis asked President Roosevelt how baseball could best serve the country. FDR said that it should continue to keep up morale, but refused to exempt players from military service or give them the option of working in defense industries as Wilson had allowed during WWI. The other points seem well-taken.

Some highlights of what certain noted players did during the war - which is not to say that their contributions were in any way more important than those of less noted players, (the quotes are from the “Baseball in Wartime” website unless otherwise noted):

Luke Appling, the White Sox Hall of Fame shortstop, (and the guy who hit that home run in a nationally televised old timer’s game in 1983 at age 75), was the American League batting champion in 1943 at .328. He was called into the military service in January, 1944 and discharged in August 1945. He spent the entire period stateside playing baseball on camp teams.

Hank Bauer, a noted member of the 1950’s Yankees steamrollers, was in the minors when he enlisted in the Marines in January, 1942. “He fought on New Georgia, was hit in the back by shrapnel on Guam. Next came Emirau off New Guinea, then Okinawa. Sixty-four men were in Platoon Sergeant Bauer's landing group on Okinawa; six got out alive. Hank himself was wounded again on June 4, 1945. "I saw this reflection of sunshine on something coming down. It was an artillery shell, and it hit right behind me." A piece of shrapnel tore a jagged hole in Bauer's left thigh. Also wounded that day was Richard C Goss, who was serving with Bauer. "There goes my baseball career," Bauer told Goss as they were evacuated together. Bauer's part in the war was over —after 32 months of combat, eleven campaign ribbons, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts.” He also contracted malaria and had 24 different attacks of it over the years. He went on to a 14 year career in the big leagues, 12 with the Yankees. He was also manager of the 1966 champion Baltimore Orloles. He was said to have “a face like a clenched fist”. You would, too.

Yogi Berra “served in the US Navy during World War II. In February 1944, he sailed for the British Isles on the USS Bayfield, where he was as a gunner's mate on board a rocket-launching landing craft in the D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach, "It was just like a Fourth of July celebration," he later recalled. Berra also served in North Africa and Italy, and was sent home to the United States after suffering a hand wound. He was then stationed at the New London Sub Base until his discharge.” Was it like the Fourth of July or was it like “Saving Private Ryan”?

Ewell Blackwell, famous for his whip-like arm, played baseball for his camp team when not cooking for them, (“I’d never boiled an egg before in my life”). He was sent to France and wound up playing on a service team that played its games in the same Nurmberg arena where Hitler had held hi mass rallies in the 30’s. The service teams were sometimes integrated and Blackwell’s team lost the service championship to a team that had Negro League stars Willard Brown and Leon Day.

Dom DiMaggio served as an aircraft spotter while still playing for the Red Sox, (from center field?). “He failed an Army physical due to poor eyesight but requested an examination by Navy doctors and was called to active duty with the Navy in October 1942. DiMaggio served at Norfolk Naval Training Station during 1943, where he played baseball regularly.He was sent to Australia in 1944 where he remained for the duration of the war, managing the Naval Depot Supply team in Brisbane. In addition to managing the team and playing outfield, he also played shortstop, did a little pitching and had to lay out the field before the games. In September 1944, the Service World Series was scheduled between the Army and Navy in Hawaii. The Navy pulled out all the stops to make their team the best possible for this prestigious event. Dom DiMaggio and Phil Rizzuto were flown in from Australia, while others were recruited from Great Lakes in Illinois and Sampson Naval Training Station in Maryland. The Navy easily clinched the series title winning nine of the eleven games played.”

Of Joe DiMaggio, “He is built for the soldier,” wrote Dan Daniel in Baseball magazine. “He has the temperament for the soldier. He has gone into the Army looking for no favors, searching for no job as a coach. He wants to fight, and when he gets his chance, he will prove a credit to himself and his game and the Yanks and his family. This DiMaggio guy really has it.” But Joe spent the war on the West Coast and in Hawaii, playing ball and then being hospitalized for an ulcer. “"Though he never came within a thousand miles of actual combat," wrote David Jones in “Joe DiMaggio: a Biography”, "DiMaggio resented the war with an intensity equal to the most battle-scarred private. It had robbed him of the best years of his career. When he went into the Army, DiMaggio had been a 28-year-old superstar, still at the height of his athletic powers. By the time he was discharged from the service, he was nearly 31, divorced, underweight, malnourished, and bitter. Those three year, 1943 to 1945, would carve a gaping hole in DiMaggio's career totals, creating an absence that would be felt like a missing limb."

Bill James notes that “Joe DiMaggio’s batting streak ended on July 17, 1941. That same day, numbers were being picked out of a fishbowl in new York City to see who would be drafted into the US Army. Each number picked, unlike the Vietnam era draft that you may remember, represented just one young man. The second number chosen, number 90, belonged to a twenty one year old kid named Joe DiMaggio. You can imagine the resulting publicity the media just loves that kind of thing. The kid welcomed the publicity but said that he felt awful that Joe’s streak had come to an end.”

Larry Doby “served with the Navy at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois, where he played with the Negro baseball team. He was later stationed at Ulithi Atoll in the Pacific.”

“On December 8, 1941 – the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - Bob Feller enlisted in the Navy. He was sworn in by former heavyweight boxing champion, Gene Tunney, at the Chicago courthouse. He was assigned to the Norfolk Naval Training Station in Virginia, as part of Tunney’s physical fitness program, and pitched for the baseball team. …But Feller was not happy. “I wanted to get out of the Tunney program and in to combat,” he told author William B Mead. “So I went to the gunnery school there. And I went on the USS Alabama that fall.”…Feller then spent 26 months as chief of an anti-aircraft gun crew on the USS Alabama (BB-60), a South Dakota-class battleship. “We spent the first six or eight months in the North Atlantic. I was playing softball in Iceland in the spring. We came back in the later part of the summer, and went right through the Panama Canal and over to the South Pacific. We hung around the Fiji islands for a while, and then when we got the fleet assembled, and enough men and equipment to start a successful attack, we hit Kwajalein and the Gilberts and the Marshalls and then across to Truk.” Feller wrote home: “We have been in about every 'hellhole' on the face of the earth. My present set-up has me in anti-aircraft gunnery, which at present is quite active.” When not in a hellhole, Bob did a fair amount of pitching for Navy teams.

Joe Garagiola was drafted 4/24/44 and started out at Fort Riley, Kansas but “was sent to the Philippines in 1945 where he played ball for Kirby Higbe’s Manila Dodgers”.

Tommy Henrich “entered service with the Coast Guard on August 30, 1942. He was stationed at the US Coast Guard Training Station in Grand Haven, Michigan for the duration of the war allowing him the opportunity to continue to play ball with service teams.”

Nineteen year old Gil Hodges played one game for the Dodgers in 1943. “Eleven days later, Hodges entered service with the Marine Corps. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor and then Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands where he played baseball with the 16th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion. From there he went to Tinian. In April 1945, Sergeant Hodges landed with the assault echelon at Okinawa and was assigned to his battalion's operations and intelligence section. His Bronze Star citation states that he "was entrusted with the safeguarding and stenographic preparation of highly classified documents" through "extensive periods of enemy aerial alerts and extensive bombing attacks. Hodges remained on Okinawa until October 1945 and says that he started smoking "to have something to do sitting in those [fox] holes." After the war, whenever Hodges was in a theater watching a war movie he could be seen crossing himself whenever someone on the screen was killed.

Monte Irvin “was drafted by the Army in 1942. He spent three years with the GS Engineers, 1313th Battalion. The battalion was first sent to England, then after D-Day to France and Belgium, where they built bridges and repaired roads. In late 1944, his unit was deployed in Reims, France, as a secondary line in case the Germans broke through at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

Irvin recently explained that black soldiers had a rough time in the Army because white soldiers treated them badly. "The black troops were treated better in Europe than they were in the US," Irvin said. "They got a taste of freedom over there." He agrees, however, that many white American soldiers realized the incongruity of fighting in Europe to free oppressed people while blacks were oppressed at home, and that may have made things a little easier for the black soldiers when they returned.

In addition to the psychological trauma Irvin faced in combat, he also developed tinnitus, a ringing in the ears that affected his dexterity. That and three years away from baseball made his return to the game difficult. When he returned to the Negro Leagues in 1946, he was approached by Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers, but having been away from baseball for three years, Irvin felt he was not ready and needed to get into shape. Had he accepted Rickey's offer he may have been the first black major leaguer.”

Ralph Kiner, as a 21 year old “was inducted in the Navy. As a cadet he attended St Mary's Pre-Flight School in California and earned his pilot's wings and commission at Corpus Christi in December 1944. He flew Martin PBM Mariners from Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station in Hawaii on submarine patrols, accumulating 1,200 flying hours and playing hardly any baseball during that time.”

“On March 25, 1943, Johnny Mize passed his physical at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri and entered the Navy. Based at Great Lakes he played for the Bluejackets baseball team with Frankie Baumholtz, Joe Grace, Johnny Lucadello, George Dickey and Tom Ferrick.

In 1944, Specialist First Class Johnny Mize was sent to Hawaii with the Navy’s major league baseball all-stars. Based at the Naval Air Station Kaneohe, he blasted a 425-foot home run against the 7th Army Air Force team before embarking on a tour of the Pacific with the Navy's Fifth Fleet team including stops at the Marshall Islands, Guam, Saipan, Palau and Leyte. "Mize hit several right over the palm trees into the ocean," recalled Virgil Trucks to author Richard Goldstein. Mize was discharged from the Navy in October 1945.”

You’ve probably never heard of Hugh Mulcahy but he was famous in the 40’s for two things. He pitched for some horrible Phillie teams and was given the nickname of “Hugh “Losing Pitcher” Mulcahy because he usually was. In 1941 he finally won a game, breaking a 12 decision losing streak. He then became the first major league baseball player to be drafted under the new selective service act. "I wasn't worried about how it would affect my baseball career. I was more concerned about how I would pay off a mortgage on a new home I had bought."…” But on December 5, 1941 – after ten months of service - Mulcahy was honorably discharged after Congress released men aged 28 years and older from service. Two days later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Mulcahy was back in military fatigues.“ He stayed in for four years, winning a bronze star, although the articles about him discuss his baseball playing, including a 5-0 win over a service team led by Bob Feller. But ihat didn’t change his nickname.

“By August 1944, Master Sergeant Mulcahy was in the southwest Pacific playing for a hand-picked ball team that toured military bases in New Guinea and the Philippines entertaining troops. The squad included major leaguers Ken Silvestri, Al Flair, Al Kozar and Irv Dusak. Many of the games took place in war-torn Rizal Stadium in Manila where outfield walls were scarred with mortar blasts and bleachers damaged by falling bombs. But, in the shadow of a plaque dedicated to a Lou Gehrig home run, Mulcahy pitched well until he suffered a debilitating case of dysentery and lost 35 pounds.”

He tried to get his career going again after the war but went 3-7 for the Phillies and Pirates to finish his big-league career at 45-89. He continued to pitch in the minors until 1951. “Reflecting on his wartime service, Mulcahy told writer William B Mead, “I never felt really bad about it. It never shook me up; I never think back on what might have been. I’m very thankful that I came back.” An article on SABR’s website says “Rather than lament his fate pitching for the downtrodden Phillies of the late 1930s and his early induction into the military, Mulcahy chose to view his glass as half full rather than half empty. On the latter issue, he noted, “A lot of guys went to the war and didn’t come back. I came back and had a long career in baseball. I feel I was fortunate, not cheated.”

Stan Musial played through the 1944 season before enlisting in the Navy. SABR: “During the off-season, Musial took part in the war effort, working for the American Steel & Wire Co. back in Donora. In addition, he and some other players went on a goodwill trip to the Aleutians to visit the troops. The War Department had canceled a scheduled trip to the Pacific in September of 1943. Although no evidence suggests that Musial sought or received any special treatment concerning the draft, coming from an area that had a large number of draft-age males along with being a father kept him out of military service for most of the war.” Baseball Banter: “Hall of Famer Stan Musial is often credited as volunteering for service, when in reality, he enlisted at the end of the war only when told he was about to be drafted.”

Baseball in Wartime: “When it became obvious that Musial would be inducted, Pete Reiser tried to convince him to sign up with the Army. That way, Reiser could get Musial to Fort Riley where he could play with the service team. "I told Pete, 'Naw, I'm going into the Navy'," he explained to author Frederick Turner. "I just liked the Navy for some reason - the water and all. You know where a lot of those guys wound up who were at Fort Riley? At the Battle of the Bulge."

In 1944, Musial was 23 years old and batted .347 to guide the Cardinals to the World Series. He

passed his Naval physical examination in June 1944 and reported for induction on January 23, 1945. Musial was assigned to Bainbridge Naval Training Center in Maryland on March 17, and played for the Bainbridge NTC Commodores baseball team. The Commodores line-up included Lum Harris, Dick Wakefield, Thurman Tucker, Stan Spence and Dick Sisler, and Musial credits his time at Bainbridge with helping him develop as a power hitter, stating that he altered his stance to pull the ball so he could hit more home runs to entertain the servicemen.

In June 1945, he was assigned to Special Services and sent to Hawaii. Attached to a ship launch unit at Pearl Harbor, he ran a launch out to battle-damaged ships that came in, ferrying personnel back to port. Three or four afternoons a week he played baseball for the Ship Repair Unit in the 14th Naval District League. "Ten thousand every game," he recalled. "You know, there were so many men around Hawaii, goddamn thousands and thousands of guys, so this was good diversion for them." In August 1945, he even resurrected his pitching career, blanking an Army all-star team with a four-hitter in a game at Maui.

In the fall of 1945, Musial's father fell seriously ill at home in Donora. Stan was granted emergency leave orders to visit home. After his father recovered he was assigned duty in Philadelphia and back at Bainbridge.”

Johnny (Paveskovich) Pesky “Pesky, whose father had been an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy before World War I, served at Amherst, Massachusetts in 1942. He was later at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he played shortstop for the Cloudbusters, and Atlanta Naval Air Station, where he met his wife, Ruth Hickey, who was also serving with the Navy. On June 13, 1943, Pesky graduated as an ensign from the assistant operations officers’ school at Atlanta.

In 1945, Pesky was in Hawaii, where he played shortstop and managed the Honolulu Naval Air Station baseball team. When the season closed in October 1945 he was runner-up Most Valuable Player in the 14th Naval District league. Pesky later said, "I think that if I didn't have baseball to come back to, I'd have stayed in the Navy because it was clean and I kind of liked the atmosphere."

Pee Wee Reese: “By 1942, the 24 year-old was a National League all-star but that was to be his last season in the major leagues for the duration of the war as he joined the Navy. Reese was stationed at Norfolk Naval Air Station in 1943, where he regularly played baseball. In 1944, he was sent to Hawaii and played for the Aiea Hospital team. He joined the Third Fleet team for the US Navy's Pacific tour and was then assigned to Guam where he was shortstop and assistant coach for the 3rd Marine Division baseball team.”

Pete Reiser “tried to join the Navy after the 1942 season, but baseball injuries had lefty him 4-. On January 13, 1943, he was given a physical examination by the Army. He was again rejected but an Army captain - recognizing Reiser as a baseball player - inducted him. Two days after being assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas, Private Reiser caught pneumonia following a 50-mile forced march in weather that was 15 degrees below zero. He was awaiting his medical discharge when the commanding officer at Fort Riley decided he would like the Dodgers' centerfielder to play for the camp team. "He writes out a pass for me, from 0600 to 0600 daily," Reiser told Donald Honig. "I can go anyplace I want. I also get a private room in the barracks - which made my hard-assed sergeant turn blue in the face - and no duties. I stayed there for a couple of years, playing center field for Fort Riley. We ended up with a hell of a club. We had Joe Garagiola, Lonny Frey, Creepy Crespi, Harry Walker, Al Brazle, Murry Dickson, Rex Barney, Ken Heintzelman. We whomped everybody we played.

It was during this time that Reiser first saw future teammate Jackie Robinson. "One day a Negro lieutenant came out for the ball team," he explained to Donald Honig. "An officer told him he couldn't play. 'You have to play with the colored team,' the officer said. That was a joke. There was no colored team. The lieutenant didn't say anything. He stood there for a while, watching us work out. Then he turned and walked away. I didn't know who he was then, but that was the first time I saw Jackie Robinson. I can still remember him walking away by himself."

Phil Rizzuto “Rizzuto served with the Navy at Norfolk Naval Training Station in 1943 where he played baseball on a regular basis. He was later in charge of 20mm gun crew on a ship in the Pacific, but contracted malaria while in New Guinea. Rizzuto was sent to Australia to recover and coached the US Navy baseball team while there.”

On April 3, 1942, Robinson entered the US Army, attended officer candidate school, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1943. He served at Fort Riley, Kansas in 1943 and then Fort Hood, Texas. Robinson was one of the few African-American officers at Fort Hood and when he refused to sit in the back of a military bus in 1944, he was subsequently court martialed, but acquitted because the order was a violation of War Department policy prohibiting racial discrimination in recreational and transportation facilities on all US Army posts.“

In the summer of 1944, when Jackie Robinson was a lieutenant in the 761st Tank Battalion at Fort Hood, a broken ankle he had suffered playing football back in 1932 kept him from going overseas with his outfit. "My CO sent me to the hospital for a physical checkup," he told Yank magazine on November 23, 1945, "and they changed my status to permanent limited service. After that I kicked around the tank destroyers doing a little bit of everything. Then I wound up as a lieutenant in an infantry battalion at Camp Breckinridge. In October 1944 I was given a 30-day leave and put on inactive duty. I'm still on inactive duty. What I'd like to know is, do I have to go back into active duty to get separated or will they just notify me that I'm out?" He received a medical discharge on November 28, 1944.”

“Charles H “Red” Ruffing was born on May 3, 1904 in Granville, Illinois. He dropped out of grammar school in Nokomis, Illinois and took a job tending a mine ventilation system. Ruffing lost four toes on his left foot when it was caught between two coal cars….. In January 1943, Ruffing was drafted despite having only one toe on his left foot and being 39 years old.” SABR: “On his first day of basic training, as he told it, "A sergeant said to me, ‘Ruffing, I understand you can pitch.’ "‘That’s right,’ I answered. And the sergeant said, ‘Okay, Buddy, let’s see how fast you can pitch this tent.’" The accounts of Ruffing’s wartime activities, however, only seem to talk about his playing baseball, although he was assigned to the Sixth Ferrying Group of the Air Transport Command of the United States Army Air Forces. BIW: “ He was 41 years old when he returned to the Yankees in July 1945, but still posted a 7-3 record in 11 starts. He suffered from a flying phobia as a result of experiences during WWII and was the only player on the Yankees squad excused from traveling on the team plane. Ruffing ended his major league career in 1947 with the Chicago White Sox.” He was 43 years old at the time.

Johnny Sain entered the service in 1943 and spent the war training to be a naval aviator and playing baseball. He seems not to have left the country. But “He firmly believed that his time with the Navy helped his baseball career. “I think learning to fly an airplane helped me as much as anything,” he said. “I was 25 years old. Learning to fly helped me to concentrate and re-stimulated my ability to learn.”

Red Schoendienst “reported to Camp Blanding in Florida in May 1944. “Joining the Army was not something I was real excited about,” he explained in his autobiography Red: A Baseball Life, “but I knew I didn’t have any choice. Training for the infantry, we were exposed to just about every situation you can imagine – how to wire for mines, how to blow up bridges, how to set booby traps and dig up mines.”

He was later transferred to Pine Camp, New York – a prisoner of war camp for Italian prisoners. “One of our jobs was to build ballfields so we could keep the prisoners entertained and give them something to do. We also put together a camp team. We played on weekends, traveling to some of the nearby Army bases.”

Enos “Country” Slaughter was assigned to the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center (SAACC) for what he hoped would be flight school. “I wanted to be a pilot,” he told author Frederick Turner, “but they said I was color blind. They wanted me to be a bombardier, but I said if I couldn’t be the one flying the plane, I’d just as soon not be flying. So, I became a physical education instructor in charge of about 200 troops.” Slaughter was assigned to the 509th Base Headquarters Squadron at SAACC, where he led the base team in hitting with a .498 average in 75 games during 1943.

On August 26, 1943, he was involved in a war bonds game that raised $800 million dollars in war bond pledges. Held at the Polo Grounds in front of 38,000 fans, the three New York teams combined as the War Bond All-Stars against an Army all-star line-up that featured Slaughter, Hank Greenberg and Sid Hudson. The War Bond All-Stars won 5 to 2.

Slaughter was based at Camp Kearns, near Salt Lake City, Utah in March 1945, and was told that if he would go with other players to the South Pacific he would be guaranteed a quick discharge when the war ended. He accepted the deal and was part of a contingent of 94 ballplayers that arrived in Hawaii in June 1945.

Representing the 58th Wing, along with teammates Bobby Adams, Joe Gordon, Birdie Tebbetts and Howie Pollet, the ballplayers island-hopped towards Japan following American forces. On Tinian, the Seabees bulldozed out a ball field on top of a coral reef and made bleacher seats out of bomb crates. Exhibition games were also staged at Saipan, Guam and Iwo Jima with an estimated 180,000 soldiers getting the chance to witness major league baseball players in action. Twenty-seven games were played on the tour and Slaughter batted .342 with five home runs and 15 RBIs. The tour concluded in October and the players returned to the United States in early November.”

In 1944 an 18 year old Dodger prospect named Duke Snider was called in for his induction physical. “"They checked us just enough to make sure we were warm and upright," he explained in his autobiography The Duke of Flatbush, "and a guy handed me some papers I didn't want to know about and screamed 'NAVY!' in my face at the top of his lungs. I was headed for the high seas. I wondered why they took me if they thought I was deaf."

Snider served as a fireman, third class on the submarine tender USS Sperry at Guam. Snider used to win bets against other sailors and servicemen by throwing a baseball the length of submarines that arrived at Guam: that's about 300 feet. "I'd throw the ball the length of their sub, my crewmates would win $300 or so, and I'd pick up my guarantee - $50," he recalls. “We played lots of baseball and basketball on Guam. Pee Wee Reese was stationed there, too, but I never bumped into him.” Snider moonlighted for the 2nd Marine Division team while on Guam as well as playing for the USS Sperry team. In between playing baseball, Snider's main duty on the USS Sperry was dishwashing detail. "There was a porthole behind the sink and any time we came across a chipped glass or dish that wouldn't come clean in less than a second we fired the sucker into the Pacific Ocean."

Snider felt he had a very comfortable and safe war while his father - also serving with the Navy - was involved in many of the island invasions in the Pacific. "There was one close call when it looked as if I was going to find myself in combat after all," he explains in The Duke of Flatbush. "I was on watch duty on the number one 5-inch gun when we sighted an unidentified shop ahead. The command came down from the bridge to load the gun with a star shell that would be fired if the ship did not respond to our signal requesting identification.

"No World Series moment ever scared me as much. I was no authority on loading or firing shells. All I had been told in our drills was that you press this lever, a shell comes up, you put it in and press another lever, and the shell goes 'Boom!' I pressed the first lever, the shell came up, and I put it into the loading chamber. I was actually shaking while waiting for the command to fire. Two ships might start firing at each other in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as a small part of World War II, and I was going to be the one to start the firing. Seconds before the command to fire would have come, the other ship identified itself as friendly. I needed an immediate change of underwear."

Warren Spahn entered the Army in 1942. For two years his services were part training, part pitching for the camp team. Then his unit got sent to Europe. “He was sent to Europe in December 1944 with the 1159th Engineer Combat Group's276th Engineer Combat Battalion. "Let me tell you," Spahn said, "that was a tough bunch of guys. We had people that were let out of prison to go into the service. So those were the people I went overseas with, and they were tough and rough and I had to fit that mold."

Spahn soon found himself in the Battle of the Bulge. "We were surrounded in the Hertgen Forrest and had to fight our way out of there. Our feet were frozen when we went to sleep and they were frozen when we woke up. We didn't have a bath or change of clothes for weeks….In March 1945, the 276th were responsible for maintaining the traffic flow across the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, the only remaining bridge to span the Rhine. The bridge was under almost constant attack from the Germans who were desperate to stop the flow of Allied forces into Germany. At the same time they were to build a 140-foot Double Bailey bridge nearby. On March 16, Spahn was wounded in the foot by shrapnel while working on the Ludendorff. The following day he had just left the Ludendorff when the entire structure collapsed into the river with the loss of more than 30 US Army engineers. The 276th received the Distinguished Unit Emblem and for his efforts to keep the bridge operating, while under constant enemy fire, Staff Sergeant Spahn received a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and a battlefield commission as a second-lieutenant."

“In May 1944, Sergeant Cecil Travis was assigned to the 76th Infantry Division’s combat training facility at Camp McCoy,Wisconsin, where he played baseball with the 76th Infantry Division team. Teammates includes major leaguers Bama Rowell and Bill Evans. The 76th Infantry Division captured the Wisconsin State semi-pro championship in 1944.

The 76th Infantry Division was sent to Europe in late 1944 and entered combat on January 19, 1945, during the final stage of the Battle of the Bulge. Travis suffered a bad case of frostbite during that time that necessitated an operation. "Heck, you was in that snow," he recalled some years later, "and you was out in that weather, and you was lucky you got to stay in an old barn at night. The thing about it, you'd sit there in those boots, and you might not get 'em off for days at a time. And cold! You'd just shake at night. Your feet would start swelling, and that's how you'd find out there was something really wrong - you'd pull your boots off, and your feet is swelling."

The 76th Infantry Division advanced more than 400 miles against hostile resistance in 110 days of combat. It captured more than 33,000 prisoners and teamed up with the 6th Armored Division to form the spearhead of the Third Army’s plunge across Germany toward Czechoslovakia. The division was within 50 miles of the Czech border when the war in Europe ended. Travis received a Bronze Star and four battle stars during his time in Europe. He briefly played baseball with the Division team but took an option to serve in the Pacific in return for leave to visit his wife and newborn baby in Georgia. While at home, Japan surrendered and Travis applied for his discharge. Working out with the Atlanta Crackers at Ponce de Leon Park while stationed at Camp McPherson, Georgia, Travis had accumulated 97 discharge points and was honorably discharged on September 6, 1945.”

Virgil “Fire” Trucks: “On February 15, 1944, his career was put on hold when he entered military service with the Navy. Serving at Great Lakes in 1944, Trucks went to the Pacific at the end of the year and played in the Army-Navy Service World Series in Hawaii. He was the winning pitcher in Game 1 and Game 4 of the series. "The Army out in Hawaii,” he commented some years later, “had DiMaggio and all those ballplayers and the Navy didn't have as much. The Navy was looked down on and Admiral [Chester] Nimitz didn't go for that. He brought out all those major league ballplayers who were in the Navy back in the States and challenged the Army to that World Series."

Trucks later played for the Fifth Fleet team on the Navy’s Western Pacific tour and was then stationed on Guam where he found a novel way to keep occupied. "We took rides,” he says. “We took one in a B-29 and some in B-24s. We didn't go along on any bombing runs, we'd just fly around the islands with the pilots and come back in and land. But we signed some baseballs they would take out and drop on their bombing missions. We had some on a B-29 that went to Japan. The balls were completely filled with autographs."

I’ve discussed Ted Williams before. Baseball Banter: “Ted Williams had no plans to join the military, requested a deferment by falsely stating that he didn’t have enough money to care for his mother, and signed a contract to play with the Boston Red Sox for the upcoming season. When the public found out about Williams’s dishonesty, he became a pariah and sponsors pulled endorsement deals. Only then did Williams “enlist,” by removing his request for deferment.” Other sources do not say that he falsely claimed to be supporting his mother but acknowledge that after public criticism, he announced that he’d set up a trust fund for her and was now ready to serve. He proved to be so talented a pilot he became a flight instructor but never saw any actual service during WWII. It was when he was called back for the Korean War, (which was said to make him “furious”) that he served with distinction in 39 combat missions as John Glenn’s wingman.

Gene Woodling “joined the Navy in October 1943.”I was drafted into the Navy in the fall of 1943 and sent to Great Lakes," Woodling explained. "I was just going through regular basic training, and word had gotten out that I was a professional ballplayer. So they called me over to mainside."A fellow named Tom Hinkle, who was quite a basketball coach at Butler, was the athletic director at Great Lakes. He asked me if I would like to stay the next year in ship's company, as they called it, and play for Great Lakes. Well, would I like to! Yeah! And that was not realizing the type of ball club we were going to have. My Lord, all the great ones were there.”

Woodling played baseball under Lieutenant Commander Mickey Cochrane in 1944. With a line-up that included Billy Herman, Al Glossop, Schoolboy Rowe and Si Johnson, the Great Lakes Blue Jackets were a formidable team that compiled one of the most impressive records of all service teams in 1944, 48 wins in 50 games, including a number of major league teams among its victims. Surprisingly, Woodling had the lowest batting average among the regulars at .342 (Whitey Platt led the team at .428). Woodling was sent to Hawaii in February 1945, and then embarked on the Navy’s Pacific Tour with the Third Fleet team, taking in the Marshalls, Guam, Saipan and Leyte. When the tour came to an end, Woodling was assigned to Saipan where he helped organize athletics for the servicemen. Woodling was discharged from the Navy in January 1946.”

So it seems that a lot of ballplayers who were “in the service” continued playing baseball during the war. One would think that, if they were going to do that, they may as well have continued in the major leagues. But sometimes military officers wanted to win baseball games as much as they wanted to win the war. And in the military service, you have to do what you are ordered to do. You can’t really blame players who preferred playing baseball to getting shot at. I recall reading about the war-time Army football teams that were so powerful. Glenn Davis said he went to the Academy because he figured the war would be over before he graduated. Doc Blanchard was at North Carolina when he got drafted and assigned to West Point. My own father received a slight wound on Iwo Jima from some shrapnel and was evacuated. He told me he didn’t mind leaving that place at all. Not everyone wanted to be John Wayne, (not even John Wayne).

Still, some players, including some who were already prominent, saw real action in the war. You wonder What it took to get re-assigned from a baseball team to real action and how many of our baseball playing soldiers and sailors pushed hard in that direction.

 

[SWC75]

RUNS AND BASES

1940 National League

Runs Produced
Johnny Mize STL 205
Frank McCormick CIN 201
Arky Vaughn PIT 201
Maurice Van Robays PIT 187
Elbie Fletcher PIT 182
Dolph Camilli BRO 165
Babe Young NY 159
Chet Ross BOS 156
Enos Slaughter STL 152
Joe Medwick STL 152

Bases Produced
Johnny Mize STL 457
Dolph Camilli BRO 369
Arky Vaughn PIT 369
Stan Hack CHI 361
Frank McCormick CIN 352
Mel Ott NY 351
Elbie Fletcher PIT 347
Billy Werber CIN 327
Chet Ross BOS 325
Enos Slaughter STL 318

1940 American League

Runs Produced
Hank Greenberg DET 238
Ted Williams BOS 224
Rudy York DET 205
Joe DiMaggio NY 195
Joe Cronin BOS 191
Jimmie Foxx BOS 189
Lou Boudreau CLE 189
Joe Gordon NY 185
Charlie Gehringer DET 179
Joe Kuhel CHI 178

Bases Produced
Hank Greenberg DET 483
Rudy York DET 435
Ted Williams BOS 433
Jimmie Foxx BOS 404
Joe Kuhel CHI 393
Joe Gordon NY 385
Joe DiMaggio NY 380
Barney McCosky DET 369
Charlie Keller NY 368
Joe Cronin BOS 365

1941 National League

Runs Produced
Pete Reiser BRO 179
Dolph Camilli BRO 178
Joe Medwick BRO 170
Babe Young NY 169
Elbie Fletcher PIT 158
Cookie Lavaghetto BRO 152
Dom Dallessandro CHI 152
Vince DiMaggio PIT 152
Mel Ott NY 152
Dixie Walker BRO 150

Bases Produced
Dolph Camilli BRO 401
Mel Ott NY 365
Elbie Fletcher PIT 361
Stan Hack CHI 359
Pete Reiser BRO 349
Nick Etten PHI 336
Babe Young NY 332
Johnny Mize STL 327
Dom Dallesandro CHI 324
Vince DiMaggio PIT 319

1941 American League

Runs Produced
Ted Williams BOS 218
Joe DiMaggio NY 217
Cecil Travis WAS 200
Charlie Keller NY 191
Jeff Heath CLE 188
Bob Johnson PHI 185
Sam Chapman PHI 178
Joe Cronin BOS 177
Rudy York DET 175
Harlond Clift STL 175

Bases Produced
Ted Williams BOS 484
Joe DiMaggio NY 426
Jeff Heath CLE 411
Charlie Keller NY 402
Cecil Travis WAS 370
Harlond Clift SLB 370
Rudy York DET 364
Tommy Henrich 363
Roy Cullenbine SLB 360
Joe Gordon NY 356

1942 National League

Runs Produced
Enos Slaughter STL 185
Johnny Mize NY 181
Mel Ott NY 181
Dolph Camilli BRO 172
Joe Medwick BRO 161
Bob Elliott PIT 155
Stan Musial STL 149
Jimmy Brown STL 145
Pete Reiser BRO 143
Bill Nicholson CHI 140

Bases Produced
Enos Slaughter STL 389
Mel Ott NY 388
Bill Nicholson CHI 364
Dolph Camilli BRO 354
Johnny Mize NY 345
Stan Hack CHI 329
Elbie Fletcher PIT 304
Stan Musial STL 297
Pete Reiser BRO 290
Bob Elliott PIT 287

1942 American League

Runs Produced
Ted Williams BOS 242
Joe DiMaggio NY 216
Charlie Keller NY 188
Joe Gordon NY 173
Stan Spence WAS 169
Chet Labbs STL 162
Vern Stephens STL 162
Bobby Doerr BOS 158
Harlond Clift STL 156
Johnny Pesky BOS 154

Bases Produced
Ted Williams BOS 486
Charlie Keller NY 407
Joe DiMaggio NY 376
Dom DiMaggio BOS 358
Joe Gordon NY 355
Stan Spence WAS 354
Les Fleming CLE 349
Chet Laabs STL 347
Bob Johnson PHI 333
Harlond Clift STL 328

1943 National League

Runs Produced
Bill Nicholson CHI 194
Bob Elliott PIT 176
Stan Musial STL 176
Billy Herman, BRO 174
Arky Vaughn BRO 173
Phil Cavarratta CHI 158
Elbie Fletcher PIT 152
Dixie Walker BRO 149
Lou Klein STL 146
Augie Galan BRO 141

Bases Produced
Stan Musial STL 428
Bill Nicholson CHI 398
Arky Vaughn PIT 332
Bill Elliott PIT 318
Lou Klein STL 316
Vince DiMaggio PIT 315
Elbie Fletcher PIT 311
Augie Galan BRO 310
Billy Herman CHI 310
Ron Northley PHI 305

1943 American League

Runs Produced
Rudy York DET 174
Nick Etten NY 171
Dick Wakefield DET 163
Billy Johnson NY 159
George Case WAS 153
Charlie Keller NY 152
Mickey Vernon WAS 152
Chet Laabs STL 151
Stan Spence WAS 148
Vern Stephens STL 144

Bases Produced
Rudy York DET 390
Charlie Keller NY 382
Luke Appling CHI 355
Dick Wakefield DET 341
George Case WAS 331
Joe Gordon NY 326
Nick Etten NY 324
Stan Spence WAS 323
Bobby Doerr BOS 319
Chet Laabs STL 315

1944 National League

Runs Produced
Bill Nicholson CHI 205
Stan Musial STL 194
Bob Elliott PIT 183
Phil Cavaretta CHI 183
Augie Galan BRO 177
Ray Sanders STL 177
Johnny Barrett PIT 175
Johnny Hopp STL 167
Frank McCormick CIN 167
Jim Russell PIT 167

Bases Produced
Bill Nicholson CHI 413
Stan Musial STL 409
Augie Galan BRO 376
Dixie Walker BRO 361
Tommy Holmes BOS 353
Jim Russell PIT 352
Ron Northey PHI 351
Johnny Barrett PIT 350
Phil Cavaretta CHI 348
Frank McCormick CIN 344

1944 American League

Runs Produced
Bob Johnson BOS 195
Vern Stephens STL 180
Johnny Lindell NY 176
Stan Spence WAS 165
Roy Cullenbine CLE 162
Bobby Doerr BOS 161
Snuffy Stirnweiss NY 160
Rudy York DET 157
Nick Etten NY 157
Lou Boudreau CLE 155

Bases Produced
Snuffy Stirnweiss NY 424
Bob Johnson BOS 374
Nick Etten NY 368
Stan Spence WAS 360
Johnny Lindell NY 346
Roy Cullenbine CLE 345
Lou Boudreau CLE 339
Rudy York DET 329
Ken Keltner CLE 324
Vern Stephens STL 323

Cumulative Run Production Rankings
(Ten points for finishing first in a league in a year, 9 for second, etc.)

Honus Wagner (1897-1917) 137
Ty Cobb (1905-1928) 126
Cap Anson (1871-1897) 119
Lou Gehrig (1923-1939) 111
Babe Ruth (1914-1935) 109

Sam Crawford (1899-1917) 96
Rogers Hornsby (1915-1937) 89
Mel Ott (1926-1947) 85
Tris Speaker (1907-1928) 81
Joe Medwick (1932-1948) 79

Nap Lajoie (1896-1916) 77
King Kelly (1878-1893) 76
Hugh Duffy (1888-1906) 75
Eddie Collins (1906-1930) 74
Dan Brouthers (1879-1904) 73

Jimmie Foxx (1925-1945) 72
Sherry Magee (1904-1919) 68
Bobby Veach (1912-1925) 66
Charlie Gehringer(1924-42) 66
Jim O’Rourke (1872-1904) 64

Ed Delahanty (1888-1903) 60
Harry Stovey (1880-1893) 57
Harry Heilmann (1914-1932) 57
Roger Connor (1880-1897) 55
Al Simmons (1924-1944) 55

Comment: With the top players in the service after 1941, the standings barely moved. There are still eleven players who played in the 19th century on the list. The only player in the top 25 who’s career continued after the war was Mel Ott (85 ranking points) and he’s about done. It’s up to the post-war heroes to shake things up.

Cumulative Bases Produced Rankings

Ty Cobb (1905-1928) 129
Babe Ruth(1914-1935) 125
Lou Gehrig (1923-1939) 120
Honus Wagner (1897-1917) 112
Tris Speaker (1907-1928) 110

Mel Ott (1926-1947) 107
Rogers Hornsby (1915-1937) 98
Jimmie Foxx (1925-45) 96
Cap Anson (1871-1897) 91
Billy Hamilton (1888-1901) 89

Eddie Collins (1906-1930) 89
Harry Stovey1880-1893) 88
Sam Crawford (1899-1917) 86
Dan Brouthers (1879-1904) 83
Ed Delahanty (1888-1903) 79

Jim O’Rourke (1872-1904) 73
Max Carey (1910-1929) 73
Roger Conner (1880-1897) 70
Sherry Magee (1904-1919) 66
Jesse Burkett (1890-1905) 63

Joe Jackson (1908-1920) 62
George Burns (1911-1925) 61
Paul Wane r(1926-45) 61
Arky Vaughn(1932-48) 60
Dolph Camilli (1933-45) 59

Comment: Mel Ott made a big move to join the handful of players with 100 bases ranking points but he’s about done. So are Jimmie Foxx, Paul Waner, Arky Vaughn and Dolph Camilli. This list has ten 19th century players still on it.

 

[SWC75]

THE PLAYERS

Back in the 1950’s the Braves had a popular shortstop named Johnny Logan who, like Yogi Berra, was as noted for his malapropisms as for his baseball achievements. He was once asked to introduce “the immortal STAN MUSIAL ” at a banquet and instead, introduced “the immoral Stan Musical”. Well, Stan was musical:

Here’s a good trivia question: Who had the highest batting average in 1941? Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams or Stan Musial? Despite his hitting streak, Joe batted ‘only’ .357, (two years earlier, he had hit .381). Ted Williams, going 6 for 8 on that season-ending double header, pushed his average from .3995 to .406. But Stan Musial, called up by the Cardinals on September 17, hit .426, going 20 for 47. The Cardinals finished 2 ½ games behind the Dodgers and Johnny Mize complained that Musial should have been brought up earlier: if he was, the Cards might have won the 1941 pennant. No matter. They won in 1942, (even after Mize was traded), catching the Dodgers with an amazing 43-8 stretch run and then shocking the mighty Yankees in five games in the World Series, their only loss in the series between 1926 and 1955. The Yankees came back to beat them the next year but then the Cardinals won the only “Gateway Series” over the Browns the next year, (the last World Series where all the games were played in one stadium). They missed out in 1945 with Stan in the Navy, (but by only three games), and then came back to win the 1946 pennant and the World Series over the Red Sox. From 1941-46, the Cardinals averaged 101 wins a year, comparable to the DiMaggio Yankees, and Stan was their star player. The four pennants they won were in the four years he was available to the team the entire season.

Stan’s career started like DiMaggio but ended like Ernie Banks. He played another 17 seasons after the 1946 title and never got back to the series. Then he retired at the age of 42. The next year the Cardinals won the pennant and World Series, just like the old days. Stan said if he’d known they were going to do that, he wouldn’t have retired. (He’d been replaced in left field by another Hall of Famer, Lou Brock). Still, it was a productive 17 years for Stan. He’d won five more National league batting titles, (to go with two he won in the championship years). He also won the 1955 All-Star game with an extra inning home run after telling the catcher “I don’t get paid for extra innings”. When he retired he was the all-time National League leader in hits, (his last one went past Cincinnati rookie second baseman Pete Rose, who would alter break that record). Talk about consistency: Stan had 1,815 hits at home and 1,815 hits on the road. Late in life, he became a member of SABR, listing his area of expertise as “hitting a baseball”.

Bill James praises him at length in his first Historical Baseball Abstract: “He was never very colorful, never much of an interview. He makes a better statue. What he was was a ballplayer. He didn’t spit at fans. He didn’t get into fights at a nightclub. He didn’t marry anybody famous. He hustled. You look at his career totals of doubles and triples and they’ll remind you of something that was accepted while he was active and has been largely forgotten since: Stan Musial was one player who always left the batter’s box on the dead run….I have concluded that Stan, while active, was probably the most respected player, by press, fans and other players of the post-war era- more so than Mays, Mantle, Williams, Rose or anyone else.” He examines Musial’s performance in the MVP voting- in all years, not just the years he won it- and concludes he performed better than any other player, winning 3 times, finishing second 4 times , (this was in 1985, before Barry Bonds won 7 MVPs). He chose Musial over Ted Williams as the game’s all-time left-fielder: “I’d take Musial in left field, Musial on the base paths, Musial in the clubhouse and Williams only with the wood in his hand. And Stan Musial could hit a little, too. “

It’s been pointed out that Musial has a somewhat similar career pattern to another famous Polish outfielder: Carl Yastremski, who started out as a .300 hitter with good extra base power who had a sudden power surge the year he turned 28. The difference with Stan is that he continued to perform at a high level for another decade before declining while Yaz faded after four years at his highest level. Both played all their long careers with the same team and became beloved figures. Another good comparison is Mel Ott: a consistently productive player for a long period of time for one team and a much-liked player. Stan was a nice guy who finished first. One of the things that impresses me is that he played his entire career without any controversy or a hidden “dark side” and was universally both liked and respected, which is a hard combination to maintain over a long period of time. To be respected, you have to stand up for things: that usually produces opposition and detractors. Curt Flood wrote: “Like Mays, he saw the world entirely in terms of his own good fortune. He was convinced it was the best of all possible worlds. He not only accepted baseball mythology but propounded it. Gibson and I once clocked eight’ wunnerfuls’ in a Musial speech that could not have been longer than a hundred words.”

While Joe DiMaggio made a policy of not saying controversial things and thus allowing people to read what they wanted to in him, I think Stan Musial avoided controversy for the reason Flood identifies. He didn’t see it because he was convinced it was the best of all possible worlds because things went so well in his life. His attitude was genuine: there was no artifice about the man. He was utterly guileless. Roger Kahn said “He represents the milder side of those who admire him.” There is no doubt that Musial was a great player and a great guy. But there has also been a tendency to regard him as a great American. There are dozens of statements about him made over the years about how admirable he is and what a great example he was to American’s youth, etc. I think that’s a bit much.

Musial certainly played the game honorably and treated everyone he encountered well. But his military record, while hardly deficient, isn’t exactly heroic. When you look for ‘great’ things Musial did after the war, the biggest thing you can come up with, besides the normal visits to hospitals and serving on JFK’s commission on youth fitness”, is a story of Stan rejecting the overtures of Jorge Pasqual, President of the Mexican League, who was trying to turn that into a rival of the major leagues. Supposedly Pasquale literally dumped a sack of cash on Musial’s kitchen table, a much larger amount than the Cardinals were paying him. Stan said he stared at the pile of money and then at his son and told Pasquale he just couldn’t leave the Cardinals. What kind of example would that set for his son? It’s a very fifties attitude to see greatness in a refusal to be disloyal to a monopolistic employer and a career of avoiding controversy. There’s nothing comparable to Bob Feller leading a movement to form the player’s union or Ted Williams demanding that the stars of the Negro Leagues be honored at Cooperstown. It’s not that Stan would have been against these things: it’s that he would not have been the one to speak out about it. And, in the fifties, that was greatness.


Musial’s most famous teammate was ENOS “Country” SLAUGHTER, who deserves to be known for more than scoring from first on a double to win the seventh game of the 1946 World Series. Like Musial, Slaughter had a lengthy career that spanned form 1938-1959. His numbers sometimes seem like Musial’s, such as 1939 when he hit .320 with 52 doubles, or 1942 when he hit .318, led the league in hits with 188 and triples with 17, or 1946 when he led the league in RBIs with 130 or 1949 when he hit .336 and led the league with 13 triples. But he wasn’t able to sustain that level of play as constantly as Stan. He wound up hitting an even .300 lifetime with 730 extra base hits, (vs. .331 with 1,377 EBH for Stan).

Where he came up way short was in likeability. He anticipated Pete Rose as a tireless self-promoter. He invented the practice of running out walks as if they were bunts and talked about his philosophy of playing the game like a broken record."I give it everything I've got. Always have played that way and I'll do it as long as I can. Anyone who don't should be sellin' peanuts up in the stands." This continued into retirement, where he would regale anyone who would listen with comparisons of the way baseball was played in his day vs. now, ad nauseum. There were also rumors that he helped circulate a petition among Cardinals players to refuse to play against the Dodgers when they had Jackie Robinson. He also famously spiked Robinson in a 1947 game at Ebbets Field. He became very defensive about his reputation in alter years and threatened law suits against those who called him a racist.

But like Ty Cobb, his reputation in that area may have been exaggerated. When he was finally elected to the Hall of Fame by the veterans committee in 1985, one of his supporters was said to be Monte Irvin. When he died, Lou Brock eulogized him: “History finds us together. That is one thing that binds me to him. And, I’ll tell you this, the name of Enos Slaughter will be spoken for generations to come. Players like Enos and Stan (Musial) really helped me to see what being a Cardinal meant. He’s been my friend for a long time.”


One player whose involvement in a petition to refuse to play with Jackie Robinson on the field was his own Dodger teammate, Dixie Walker, an outfielder somewhat similar to Slaughter. He hit .306 lifetime with 577 extra base hits in 475 fewer games. He came up with the Yankees late in the Babe Ruth Era and had his best home run season with 15 as a rookie in 1933. He then hurt his shoulder and struggled to get back to the big leagues. He led the league in triples for the White Sox with 16 in 1937, hitting .302. But he really hit his stride when traded to the Dodgers in 1939. He became so popular in Brooklyn that they called him “The People’s Cherce” (choice in Brooklynese), especially when he led the league in hitting in 1944 with a .357 average and in RBIs the next year with 124.

When Robinson was called up for the 1947 season, Walker circulated a petition asking players to refuse to play with Robinson and wrote a letter to branch Rickey asking to be traded. Leo Durocher calmed the situation but “Robinson would look the other way rather than try to shake Walker's hand on the field, to avoid mutual embarrassment”, (Wikipedia).

Like Slaughter, Walker seems to have changed his attitude: “Eventually, Walker came to respect Robinson for the way he handled the abuse directed at him, and called him "as outstanding an athlete as I never saw."(?)…. "It wasn’t easy for me to accept Jackie (Robinson) when he came up. But he and I were shaking hands at the end." Nonetheless, Walker got his wish at the end of the season and was traded to Pittsburgh. He later became a hitting instructor for the Dodgers and “Among the Los Angeles players who praised him for his help with their batting were African American stars Dusty Baker, Jim Wynn, and Maury Wills.”

Per SABR, “Although Walker was a lifelong Southerner, he did not “hate” Robinson; however, there is no doubt that he did not want Robinson, or any other black man as a teamamte…Walker, who had a hardware store in Birmingham, feared his playing with a black man would hurt his business. Yet despite his distaste for integration, Walker never went out of his way to be unpleasant to Robinson, who later described him as a man of innate fairness…Walker had grown up believing blacks did not have what it takes to play at the major-league level. Robinson’s athletic ability and the mental and emotional strength he exhibited in withstanding all that was thrown at him convinced Walker otherwise. “A person learns, and you begin to change with the times,” Dixie would later say. The two never became friends, but Walker continued to praise Robinson’s abilities and character for as long as he lived.”


With all the fanfare over Robinson and Hank Greenberg, there were two somewhat forgotten sluggers of the period who had Native American blood in their veins. Both BOB JOHNSON and RUDY YORK were part Cherokee. Bob, in fact was nicknamed “Indian Bob”. He replaced Al Simmons in left field for Connie Mack’s A’s in the mid-thirties and became one of the most constant sluggers in the big leagues, not setting any records but being among the league leaders year in and out for a decade, hitting between 21 and 34 home runs nine years in a row and drove in over 100 runs 8 times with a high of 121. He hit .296 lifetime.

The Tigers thought enough of Rudy York to move Hank Greenberg from first base to the outfield when he came up because York was a lousy fielder but they wanted his bat in the line-up. He rewarded them with a .307 average and 35 home runs, including a whopping 18 in August, breaking a Babe Ruth record for homers in a month. He never topped 35 but hit 30+ homers three other times and drove in a lot of runs, with a high of 134 in 1940. Perhaps his best year was 1943 when he led the league with 34 homers and 118 RBI. He was not quite as good an all-round hitter as Johnson, hitting .275 lifetime. He had 12 grand slams in his career.

Rudy’s big problem was his life off the field. Billy Rogell: “He was the silliest bastard I ever met in my life…all night long that goddam phone was ringing. He knew every whore in New York….”. Hank Greenberg: “Before I knew it, he was drinking again…he had a tendency to light up a cigarette when he went to bed, then he’d drink and he’d forget about the cigarette and it would burn down to his fingers. Rudy burned up a couple of hotel rooms that way.” It’s funny how many things were colorful when Babe Ruth did them but not when others did them.


The great young player of the National league in 1941 wasn’t Stan Musial. It was PETE REISER, just a year older, who won the batting title with a .343 average, and led the league with 39 doubles, 17 triples and 117 runs scored. He also played an exciting, all-out center field. He and Willie Mays were the two greatest talents Leo Durocher ever coached and he praised both elaborately at every opportunity. He even said "Pete had more power than Willie — left-handed and right-handed both. He had everything but luck".

It’s hard to see how Reiser had more power than Mays- he never hit more than the 14 home runs he hit that one big season. But he had everything else. In 1942 he led the league in steals, (with only 20 but a lot for that period0. His problem was that his all-out style of play led to serious injuries. Wikipedia: “On July 19th of the following year, (1942), Reiser crashed face-first into the outfield wall in St. Louis, trying to catch what turned out to be a game winning inside-the-park home run by Enos Slaughter of the rival Cardinals in the bottom of the 11th inning.” SABR: “Reiser raced toward the center-field wall, narrowly avoiding the flagpole that rose from the playing field, and caught Slaughter’s hit in full stride—and then hit the concrete wall an instant later. The ball fell from his glove and, although dazed, he threw the ball to the cutoff man, Reese. By the time Reese fired the ball home, Slaughter had circled the bases to win the game.” All attention turned to number 27, who lay on the field motionless, facing the sky, his shoulder separated and blood trickling from his ears. When Durocher reached him, the manager started to cry. Pete was carried off on a stretcher and woke up the next morning in the hospital with a fractured skull and a brain injury. The Cardinals’ team doctor examined him and recommended that he not return to the field that season. In the era before the effects of a concussion were fully understood, Reiser did what gamers do—he returned to the diamond as soon as he could walk. He was dizzy, had a hard time focusing, and felt weak, but there was no keeping him out of the lineup. He would never be the same player again.”

Reiser had been hitting .350 at the time of the incident. He slumped to .310 by the end of the year. He spent the next three years in the service. When he came back he only batted .277 but still had his speed and stole 34 bases to again lead the league. The next year (1946) he hit .309. But the injuries continued. “Pete’s season ended early with a fractured fibula, suffered during a stolen base attempt against the Cubs. Prior to that he had reinjured his shoulder and limped through a series of minor pulls, sprains, and strains. The shoulder got so bad that he was moved to left field, and often threw the ball underhand. In an August game with the Cardinals, he ran into the left-field wall chasing a Whitey Kurowski hit. While convalescing at home, he burned his hands lighting the oven for his wife. It just wasn’t Pete’s year.” 1947: “Chasing a ball hit by Culley Rikard of the Pirates, Pete snagged it on the dead run an instant before slamming into the fence. He held onto the ball for the out, but fractured his skull. The injury was so bad that he was given the last rites, and he lay in a hospital bed for five days hovering between life and death.”

He was never a regular again. Young Duke Snider took over playing center field for the Dodgers. Reiser bounced around the league until retiring in 1952. He alter coached for the Dodgers and was called to the Cubs when Durocher got the job managing them in the 60’s. Reiser had befriended Jackie Robinson in the service and when he came to the Dodgers and was known for his rapport with black and Latin players as a coach. But a heart attack at age 46 set him back and emphysema killed him at age 62. He remains one of the huge “what ifs” of baseball history.


ARKY VAUGHN was a forgotten player for years until the Veteran’s Committee elected him to the Hall of Fame in 1985, thirty three years after his death in a boating accident. Bill James considers him the second best shortstop of all time, behind fellow Pirate Honus Wagner, although he says that that ranking “was as much a surprise to me as it was to you”. He rates Vaughn’s 1935 season, when he hit .385 with a career high 19 homers, 99 RBIs and 108 runs scored, as the best ever season by a shortstop not named Wagner and says the same about his three best seasons and five best seasons. However, Bill says “The difference between the number one shortstop and the number two shortstop is about the same as the difference between the number two shortstop and the number thirty short stop.”

Vaughn’s biggest problem seems to have been his inability to get along with Frankie Frisch, the manager of the Pirates and Leo Durocher, the manager of the Dodgers. (He was not alone in those failures). Then he lost a couple of seasons to war and retired. He made a brief comeback when Durocher was suspended from the Dodgers and finally got to play in a World Series in 1947. He wound up hitting .318 lifetime and led the NL in triples, walks and runs score three times each.

From 1939-1941 Arky Vaughn was the Pirates shortstop and ELBIE FLETCHER was their first baseman. Fletcher wasn’t as great a player as Vaughn but he was a great walker, drawing over 100 walks four times and leading the NL in on base percentage twice. Pirate fans could at least say that they’d seen them in the same place at the same time because they sure looked alike:

Arky:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Ark...2QyAT7yYKYDg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&biw=1366&bih=667

Elbie:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Elb...ZLtiwyATZuIKADg&ved=0CDEQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=667