Sounds outlandish doesn't it? Nowadays, the sight of even a single professional athlete heading off to fight for this country is news. Actually, it's been just that: a single professional athlete. Former Arizona Cardinals football player Pat Tillman is the most recent, and tragic, example of an athlete leaving a well-paying career to fight the bad guys thanks to his fervent loyalty for America. In fact, his tragic death and subsequent controversy surrounding it (turns out he was killed by friendly fire not by the enemy as was first reported) likely gives less chance of anyone in professional sports following in his footsteps. There is no draft now either.
I soon will be heading off to Cooperstown, New York to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame with a few family members. So this got me to thinking about the World Wars and professional athletes, baseball players in particular, that went off to fight or at least become part of the military.
Looking back, how many "name" stars were happy to sign on to fight for America? Can we name just a few?
Some were drafted while others signed up all by their capable selves to fight Germans or Japanese.
In World War II, America saw, what was then, its national pastime become depleted of all-star talent. From 1940 through 1945 big names either signed on or were drafted in to fight or represent the USA in various capacities. Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg are just a few all-stars and future Hall of Famers that became part of the military in the Second World War.
Of this particular five, Feller and DiMaggio volunteered for service. DiMaggio received one of the cushier jobs as a PE Instructor at bases in Hawaii, California and New Jersey until being discharged in '45. Feller and Greenberg were the only ones of these that ended up in a war theatre. Greenberg flew scouting missions in the Burma-China region serving longer than any major leaguer: some 45 months. He was drafted long before any of his name colleagues back in 1940. (Williams fought as a pilot in F9F's but later on in Korea.)
Feller's story is more compelling than most of the stars that made into the armed services in the 40's.
He enlisted for duty in the Navy the day after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 8th, 1941. A gun captain, he was decorated several times for his service aboard the USS Alabama losing four years of his career to the war. Feller was never bitter about this. It was natural to him to do what he did.
I sit here and imagine some higher-up attempting to get him onto a non-combat assignment---seems to me Feller would've had none of that.
It's quite the laundry list of baseball players that lost chunks of their career to World War II, but I won't delve into a such a massive list.
Suffice to say that entire franchises were deeply effected. Cardinals center fielder Terry Moore stated several times that the war ended what could've been a Cardinals' World Series dynasty throughout the 1940's. To think about the 1942 team alone that beat DiMaggio's Yankees, Moore could've been right: consider the likes of future Hall of Famers Musial and Enos Slaughter (and Red Schoendienst come 1945), arguably the best shortstop in the National League in Marty Marion and perennial all-star Whitey Kurowski at third.
Slaughter lost three years, Schoendienst one before debuting with St. Louis, and Musial a year as well.
But there were others that lost a lot of career time.
DiMaggio's brother Dom who played for the Red Sox lost three years in the Navy. Brooklyn's Pee Wee Reese enlisted in the Navy in 1943, also losing three years.
Yet Braves pitcher Warren Spahn's war record surely beats out all of these, even Feller's.
Spahn fought with the Army in the famed Battle of the Bulge and received the Purple Heart among other citations for his performance in combat over three years. Like Feller, he felt compelled to enlist. Spahn went on to become the winningest left-handed pitcher in baseball history, playing until he was 44.
There is the other world war though---World War I.
It saw its share of baseball players enter the military.
I'll mention just a few here and focus on one in particular for space's sake.
Boston's Tris Speaker served with the Navy and one Ty Cobb also served in the Army overseas, alongside a fellow member of the Hall of Fame's first class---former New York Giant's star Christy Mathewson.
Many consider Mathewson the greatest pitcher ever. Personally, I place him in my top three. Not bad either way.
Mathewson was known as a hard-working, jovial and friendly man. Enlisting in 1918 with the Army he was stationed overseas in France, assigned to a newly created branch of the Army called the "Chemical Service". Chemical warfare had become a conspicuous weapon over the course of the First World War.
During a training regime, Mathewson was accidentally exposed to poison gas, causing him to contract pulmonary tuberculosis. The damage to his lungs was permanent. Despite efforts to rid himself of the worsening sickness it eventually killed him. He died at his home in Saranac Lake, New York in 1925.
Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis said of him:
"His sense of justice, his integrity and sportsmanship, made him far greater than Christy Mathewson the pitcher."
I'm certain there are other Christy Mathewson's, Warren Spahn's, Bob Feller's, and Pat Tillman's, roaming Major League Baseball nowadays. The American players of the league aren't completely devoid of true patriotism. If another World War I or II type of scenario came about, there'd likely be at least a few who would step forward and enlist to fight.
Still, I have to think in this day and age where multi-million dollar babies who beg their agents and managers to get out of playing---in the annual All-Star Game---puportedly due to some tweak-of-an-injury, or because they don't want to risk getting injured and gambling on a future go-zillion dollar contract could going bye-bye, my doubt is heavy.
This is mirrored throughout America as well. We've become so hefty with our full fridges, bloated pantries, two cars, suburban houses and cable TV that we don't want to leave the house let alone the country to settle into some one's cross hairs. There aren't that many that will contribute the ultimate sacrifice for this country's freedom anymore.
Unlike us, the athletes have the connections and a loyalty more so to themselves in my opinion. Pro baseball players at the top level have agents and personal staffs that will do whatever they can with all kinds of connections to get their meal ticket out of many responsibilities, legal suits and events.
Imagine if world war came along and the draft was put back into practice. Could a 25-year old rising slugger or a 28-year old fire balling pitcher enlist, lead the way and inspire us all to fight a hardened enemy?
Or, maybe the real question is, would they?
No comments:
Post a Comment