73. Mose Solomon: The Rabbi Of Swat

When I first started this blog a little over a year ago, I started receiving many requests for players to be profiled on here and given The Infinite Baseball Card Set "treatment." Out of all the emails I began to notice that it was not one particular player that was asked for the most, but rather a whole ethnic group: Jewish ballplayers. I did cards and stories on here of Sandy Koufax and Moe Berg, but I began slowly researching different players of the Jewish faith, trying to find characters who would fit in with the kind of stories I like to write. Guys with interesting stories who may not be known to the casual fan of baseball history. Mose Solomon was one of those guys, and in fact he appears on page 7 of the Premier Issue of "21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball."

By the early 1920’s the owners of all three of New York’s ballclubs recognized the prospective value in finding a viable Jewish star to play for their team. Jews made up a large part of New York’s population and they embraced the National Pastime with a passion. Their loyalty was spread evenly among the three teams and each owner salivated at the thought of discovering a Babe Ruth of the Jewish persuasion which would undoubtedly attract the bulk of the city’s Jewish fans. So imagine the excitement caused when news spread of a Jew from the Lower East Side playing in the minors in Kansas hitting an unheard of 49 home runs in the summer of 1923. Manager John McGraw of the New York Giants, watching his attendance get siphoned away by the Yankees and Babe Ruth, nearly tripped over himself trying to purchase the contract of this gold mine in the making. Before he even made it to the Polo Grounds he was dubbed “The Rabbi Of Swat” by the press. As the train carrying Mose Solomon from Kansas neared New York City, the expectation of a million fans had reached a crescendo.

Born on Hester Street on the Lower East Side, Mose Solomon’s immigrant parents moved the family west to Ohio when he was a kid. Mose and his brothers grew up big and athletic, one brother becoming the boxing champ of Ohio and Mose taking up both football and baseball. He played on the Carlisle Indian School football team that featured Jim Thorpe until he was unmasked as being a Caucasian by a sportswriter. Mose started his professional baseball career in 1921 with the Vancouver Beavers and in the rough and tumble world of the low minors he made a name for himself as a man who would not put up with any anti-Semitism. Unlike many other Jews at the time including his brother Henry, the champion boxer who called himself “Henry Sully”, Mose refused to change his name to a less-ethnic one. It became evident in any place he played that he had no reservations about using his fists to fight back. Mose Solomon was one tough Jew.

It was while playing for the Hutchinson Wheat Shockers in the Southwestern League in 1923 that Mose became a legend. Out of nowhere he pounded 49 home runs, breaking the old record set way back in 1895. By September he was batting .421 and leading the league in doubles, hits and runs scored. News of his feat made newspapers all over the country and that is how John McGraw became aware of what he thought would become the Giants key to financial success. However prodigious his offensive skills were, his defensive abilities left much to be desired. In just 108 games he committed 31 errors covering first base. Even Hutchinson’s management, who would benefit greatly from selling Solomon’s contract warned the Giants about his liability in the field. None-the-less, Giant’s scout Dick Kinsella purchased his contract from the Wheat Shockers and put Mose on the next train east.

The much-heralded “Jewish Babe Ruth” rode the Giants’ bench while McGraw decided what to do. Finally on the last home game of the season, with the crowd yelling for Mose Solomon to take the field, McGraw put him in as a replacement for outfielder Ross Youngs. In the 10th inning with the score tied 3-3 and a runner on second, Solomon slammed a double to drive home the winning run. He played one more game for the Giants that year and all told went 3 for 8, a batting average of .375. Although he was ineligible to play and would not be paid, McGraw wanted Solomon to stay with the team while they played the Yankees in the World Series. Mose knew his family needed money however and declined to stay in New York, choosing to play pro football instead. An insulted John McGraw sold Solomon to Toledo, letting him find out about his demotion by reading it in the newspaper.

Mose drifted around the low minors until 1929, ending his career with a .313 average but his offensive production never again approached his 1923 numbers. Always a liability in the field, Mose Solomon was a designated hitter born way too soon. After baseball he moved to Florida and began a long and successful career as a building contractor.

The Premier Issue of "21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball" is finally released and can be purchased by clicking on the tab right below the arrow on the main header of this blog.

THE PREMIER ISSUE OF 21: THE ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF OUTSIDER BASEBALL

HERE IT IS! Hot off the presses - the test copies of the Premier Edition of 21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball. Each new issue will be a 20 page themed journal featuring 14 or more original illustrations and stories like you've gotten used to seeing here on the Infinite Baseball Card Set blog. The premier issue's theme is "Jewish Baseball Pioneers & Stars" and features 14 original drawings and stories exploring the contribution Jewish players have made to the history of the game. Sure there's Moe Berg, Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax in this issue, but I also tried to bring you players you might not be that familiar with, after all, isn't that what you've come to expect from the Infinite Baseball Card Set blog?

The players featured and illustrated are as follows:

Lipman Pike - 1866 Philadelphia Athletics 

Jake Atz - 1902 New Orleans Pelicans 

Abel Kiviat - 1912 Olymics 

Guy Zinn - 1914 Baltimore Terrapins 

Al Schacht - 1919 Jersey City Skeeters 

Mose Solomon - 1923 Hutchinson Wheat Shockers 

Jimmie Reese - 1927 Oakland Oaks 

Hank Greenberg - 1929 Brooklyn Bay Parkways 

Coon Rosen - 1934 Friedman Boosters 

Moe Berg - 1934 Major League All-Stars 

Moe Franklin - 1946 Tampico Alijadores 

Sam Nahem - 1946 Brooklyn Bushwicks 

Mickey Rutner - 1950 Toronto Maple Leafs 

Sandy Koufax - 1953 Coney Island Parkviews

The journal is printed on glossy card stock and the illustrations are printed front and back, in eye-catching full color. This little book actually exceeds all my expectations and I'm very proud to unveil it today. Although this issue was written and illustrated solely by me, the future editions will be in conjunction with Scott Simkus, a fellow writer and researcher who shares my interest in the forgotten nooks and crannies of baseball history. Together we are finishing up the second issue of 21 which will be an in-depth look at the 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords and will feature never-before seen statistics and 17 original illustrations.

21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball is $25 (shipping and handling included) and can be purchased by following the PayPal link below... (Books will be shipped starting on Saturday April 9th)

UPDATE -

I'm sorry the posts have been a bit slow lately, the reason being that I have been working overtime trying to put the finishing touches on the 1st issue of "21-The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball" As of today it's finished and the printer is making a few test copies so I can review the color and quality before I run the full job. I will be posting photos of the book once it comes back from the printer and if it meets my standards I'll let everyone know when it'll be available...

Also in the works is issue number 2: an in-depth look at the 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords. From this issue on I'm joining forces with re-known baseball researcher Scott Simkus. Featuring groundbreaking statistics and 17 original illustrations, this will be the most complete study of one of the greatest baseball teams of all time...

71. Billy O'Hara: Knowing how to apply skills

Sometimes you just stumble on interesting things when you least expect it. Besides baseball history, I'm also interested in military history, particularly World War I and earlier and it was while researching something on the Canadian Expeditionary Force that I stumbled on a newspaper article mentioning a former New York Giant outfielder earning a medal for hurling grenades like baseballs at the Germans. Now that was something worth looking into!

Toronto native Billy O'Hara started out in professional baseball with the Syracuse Stars in 1902, batting a nice .342 before moving on to Montreal later that year. He spent the next couple of years bouncing around the United States, moving up the food chain of minor leagues and by 1905 O'Hara was the star leftfielder of the Baltimore Orioles. He hit in the .300 range but he was more known for his defensive abilities and his rifle arm. Runners soon learned not to test the Canadian's arm - he was as accurate as a hunting rifle. John McGraw bought him from the Orioles and he was the Giants starting leftfielder during the 1909 campaign. Besides cracking the team's starting lineup he also earned cardboard immortality by being included in the famous T-206 set of baseball cards. O'Hara's average of .236 was the lowest of all the Giants starters that year, but he made only 5 errors in 226 chances. Unfortunately for O'Hara, McGraw had slugger Fred Snodgrass in the wings and traded O'Hara to the Cardinals. In 1910 he played only 9 games and was released to Toronto of the International League, right back where he started. O'Hara rebounded from his disappointing big league experience and gave his hometown Maple Leafs 4 great seasons that saw him become not only the team's star leftfielder, but also one of the most popular players with the Toronto fans. He was described as "an Irishman of the true-blue type, a scrapper and also a born gentleman." A natural comedian, he mixed easily with the Broadway crowd and counted George M. Cohan as one of his many friends. In the summer of 1915 his average tapered off, finishing with a disappointing .170, but he had other things on his mind besides throwing runner out at the plate.

Canada had joined with Great Britain and declared war on Imperial Germany. Like many men of that age, O'Hara felt the pull to become a part of the greatest adventure of his time. Right beyond his position in leftfield was the Curtiss Aviation School where their instructors worked round the clock to train new military aviators. An envious O'Hara watched them fly overhead and finally took private flying lessons. When the season ended the team threw him a gala dinner party for the leftfielder had joined the Royal Flying Corp. By Christmas, 1915 he was commissioned a Flight Lieutenant and was on his way to war.

Stationed on the English Channel, O'Hara flew defensive patrols until he crashed his plane in a non-combat accident. As punishment for destroying The King's Property he was transferred to the balloon corp, but O'Hara had signed up for action. He requested the infantry and was promptly sent to the trenches. Serving with the 24th Canadian Battalion he got his first taste of battle at the Battle of Ypres, somehow emerging unscathed. During the summer of 1916 the exhausted French Army pressed the British to launch an offensive to take the pressure off their own armies at Verdun. The resulting offensive, known as The Battle of the Somme, turned into the worst blood bath the British had ever suffered. On July 1st, following a massive bombardment, the Allied troops left their trenches and charged the German lines - in 10 minutes the British lost 60,000 men. O'Hara's battalion went over the top not once, but twice to try to dislodge the Germans. Turned back the first time, the Canadians were successful the second time but in the process of gaining the first line enemy trench lost 950 out of 1,200 men. While clearing the trench O'Hara came face to face with a German officer and took the top of his head off with a well-placed shot from his .45 automatic.

After weeks of futile attacks failed and both sides had reverted to trench warfare again, O'Hara and his men were sent into the front lines. It was here on The Somme in October of 1916 that Billy O'Hara put his baseball skills to another use. Canadian troops were renown for their particular zeal in night-time trench raids. These typically entailed small squads of about 10-20 men led by a lieutenant crawling through the barbed wire of no-mans-land and slithering undetected into the German lines unleashing a barrage of grenades and mayhem, hopefully culminating in the capture of a few of the enemy and returning back to their own lines unharmed.
Billy O'Hara, the leftfielder remembered for his accurate and powerful throwing arm, had found another use for the skills once used while manning his position in the Polo Grounds. The standard British No. 5 Mills Bomb was the standard issue grenade used during O'Hara's time in the trenches. The No. 5 weighed about 3 times more than an Official National League baseball but it's size and shape, unlike the cumbersome German stick grenade, enabled Canadian troops, like O'Hara who had grown up playing baseball, to throw it accurately as opposed to lobbing it like European troops who were not accustomed to throwing anything overhand. This simple skill that North American boys take for granted earned Billy O'Hara one of the most coveted decorations the British government could bestow on one of her soldiers.

While leading a bombing party on a trench raid, Lieutenant William A. O'Hara, 24th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Forces, was recommended for the Military Cross "...in recognition of his bravery and skill in hurling bombs..."
The Military Cross was awarded only to officers and is roughly equivalent to the Silver Star in the U.S. Army.

After the Somme, O'Hara and the rest of the Canadians scored a spectacular victory at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Vimy Ridge is to Canadians what Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal is to Americans. During the battle a shell landed next to Lieutenant O'Hara and buried him under a mound of French soil. He woke up later in a hospital behind the lines. It appears that physically O'Hara was unhurt but he was put out of action by the effects of rheumatism, brought on by too many nights in the wet trenches. Reading between the lines it can also be assumed that besides rheumatism he was suffering from severe shell shock - getting exploded and buried would do that to even the hardiest warriors. He was eventually sent back to Canada to recuperate in the Spring of 1918 and he lectured extensively about the horrors as well as the lighter side of life in the trenches.

After the war, instead of returning to baseball, Billy O'Hara decided to pursue the life of a trapper in the Echo Lake region of Northern Ontario, near the town of Kapuskasing - in other words, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere. His reasons for doing so are unknown - one would suspect it was his way of seeking solitude and dealing with the wholesale slaughter he had witnessed in the trenches during the preceding 3 years. While guys like Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Dos Passos retreated to the bright lights of Paris, others like O'Hara retreated to the peace of nature. Unfortunately his attempt to make a living as a conventional trapper came to nothing when his trap lines failed to produce much prey, but as always, Billy O'Hara was resourceful.

With a nod to the knowledge learned elsewhere, O'Hara decided to apply the deadly skills he had learned in the war to help him earn a living in the wild. In 1920 he petitioned the Canadian government to use surplus observation balloons to track the animals that eluded his traps and once found, use a machine gun mow down the unsuspecting herds of moose and deer, the same way his comrades had been mowed down on the Somme in 1916. His revolutionary ideas had made the papers at the time and although there was no follow up, I think it is safe to say that his proposal was denied.

Whatever the outcome, Billy O'Hara eventually emerged from the frozen North and in 1927 took the reigns of this hometown Maple Leafs. He managed the team through 1928 when he switched over to become their business manager. He was traveling with the team on one of their road trips in June of 1931 when he suffered a fainting spell in Newark, N.J. After being examined by doctors he was told he had a serious heart ailment and would not last the year. O'Hara continued to function as the team's business manager and it was while performing his duties that he started to feel ill while accompanying the team in Buffalo. He stayed with his team but by the time they arrived in Jersey City for a series against the Skeeters, he was unable to leave his bed at the Plaza Hotel. Billy O'Hara was surrounded by friends when he suffered a convulsion and died before doctors could arrive.

So now when someone tries telling you that baseball is just a sport and has no application to the real world, tell 'em about Billy O'Hara, the grenade-throwing leftfielder...

69. Satchel Paige: Hitting Rock-Bottom

I was searching the internet for something or other when I came across a website dedicated to baseball in Western Canada and found an unpublished photograph of Satchel Paige. Taken in Butte, Montana in 1939 or 1940, Paige looked weary and distracted, posing with a baseball fan. I'd seen hundreds of pictures of Satchel before but this one was different. Besides the distractingly sad look on his face, it was the jersey he wore that captured my attention - it simply said "PAIGE" - that was all. I've seen Paige in the uniform of the Monarchs, Baltimore Black Sox, Birmingham Black Barons, St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, Homestead Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords, New York Black Yankees... etc, etc... but never "PAIGE." Intrigued, I decided to do a drawing of this unique jersey and write about what the Great One was doing in 1939 and 1940...

Recognized as the best pitcher in baseball, Satchel Paige took his golden arm wherever the money and swag was good. 1938 found the great Paige in Mexico City being paid $2000 a month to hurl for Club Agrario. The fledgling Mexican League desperately wanted to bring an element of legitimacy to their league and a handful of American Negro League stars provided that while the great Satchel Paige was looked upon to provide the flash and headlines.

By the age of 33 Satchel had probably thrown more innings of ball than anyone ever had before and while much younger and stronger pitchers flamed out with arm injuries, Paige and his rubber arm never dimmed. But one afternoon warming up in the rarefied air of Mexico City, Paige threw a curveball and felt a snap in his shoulder. He retreated to his hotel room and treated the injury with a liberal dose of tequila and went to sleep. The next morning the arm was worse. The pain was incredible and quickly doubled when he tried to pitch. He managed to appear in a few games for Mexico City but with the league promoters angered and Mexican fans disappointed he finally gave up and fled across the border back into the United states.

Satch traveled around the country seeking specialists who could find out what was wrong with the greatest arm in baseball, but the only advice he got was "you'll never pitch again." Paige soon found himself running out of cash and had to start pawning his belongings in order to survive. He sank into a deep depression, realizing that he had nothing to show for all his success and absolutely no options left outside of baseball. His years of ignoring contracts and leaving teams whenever he was offered better money somewhere else had made him few friends. Only 1 man was willing to take a chance with Satchel, Kansas City Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson. Wilkinson put Satchel on the payroll and had him front the Monarchs second-rate traveling team. Now billed as the "Satchel Paige All-Stars" the team barnstormed all over the western part of North America, often teaming up with one of the bearded House of David teams and brought their game to the most rural of towns.

Wilkinson played up Satchels reputation for all it's worth, giving him top billing on all advertisements and guaranteeing him to pitch a few innings of each game. Paige endured the terrible pain game after game trying to alternately rest and pitch his arm back into shape. Wilkinson had the Monarchs' trainer, Frank "Jew Baby" Floyd travel with Satch and see if he could do anything to help him along. "Jew Baby" (don't even ask where his name came from, better men than I have failed to find out) rubbed Satchel down relentlessly before and after each appearance with a mysterious home-made potion, then alternated between steaming hot towel treatments and freezing cold water and ice.

Through it all Satchel Paige thrilled thousands of baseball fans who had never seen real ballplayers. The publicity surrounding Paige made him a mythical figure and the arrival of the All-Stars to a small town sometimes was the highlight of the whole year. Since the regular press didn't really write about Paige or other black players and teams, many had only heard of the great pitcher through word of mouth, pushing his already monumental reputation to biblical proportions. When the All-Stars weren't touring with the House of David they played against town teams and amateur clubs where players of all levels got the chance to try their best against the greatest pitcher in the world. Dizzy Dean or Carl Hubble would never visit the places the Paige All-Stars did and to get a chance like this was something that participants never tired of retelling throughout the years. Even in constant pain Paige gave the audience what they expected from him. His double and triple windmill wind-up, hesitation pitch and trash-talk was well worth the price of admission. That his famed fastball was now nothing more than a change-up didn't really seem to matter all that much. He relied on junk pitches and street psychology to get over on opposing batters that simply added to his mystique. However some came away disappointed by seeing Paige as a mere mortal and it was humbling for the proud Paige as well. Batters that would have hesitated to even step into the box and face him a few years earlier now hit line drives off of him and the second-rate traveling team who backed him up didn't always win.

Then on a warm Sunday in Oklahoma City, the arm came back. There are a few stories that supposedly tell the true circumstances surrounding his comeback: one relates how he was punched in the arm by a teammate resulting in the arm suddenly becoming painless, another had him making a pick-off throw to first, the ball unexpectedly rocketing to the first baseman with such velocity that the whole ballpark paused in a collective hush, and still another simply has him telling his catcher that he was feeling good that day and that was that. What all the stories have in common is that they all feature the arm suddenly, not gradually, regaining its power again. What that means and what was really wrong, we'll never know.

But one thing was for sure: Satchel Paige was back.

If you're interested in this phase of Paige's career or just want a great book about an average negro league ballplayer during the 1930's and 40's, you have to get a copy of "Catching Dreams by Frazier "Slow" Robinson. He was Satchel's catcher on the 1939 and 1940 All-Stars and his book relates what it was like playing along side Paige as his career hit rock-bottom. Robinson wasn't a star, after the Paige All-Stars broke up he bumped from team to team as a second-string backstop but his stories are top notch - not as interesting as Paige's nor as embellished as Buck O'Neil's, Robinson's book is indispensable for anyone interested in what life was really like for a typical journeyman during the golden years of the negro league baseball.

The website where I found the photograph of Paige that started this story: Baseball In Western Canada

68. Mickey Mantle: Spring, 1949

So I heard on the radio this morning that pitchers and catchers are starting to arrive in Arizona. It's that time of year again that I look forward to so much, as do millions of others around the country: spring training. As a fan I always follow my teams as they unlimber from the long winter, slowly working themselves into a working machine again. And as a nod of all the new players reporting for their first spring training as a professional ballplayer, I thought I'd write about (and draw) Mickey Mantle's first year in pro ball. Every player, even gigantically famous hall of fame players like The Mick had to start somewhere, fresh-faced, full of self-doubt and cockiness, excitement at finally getting a start and a sense of wonder at where it all could lead...

Out in rural Oklahoma the Yankee scout Tom Greenwade had been keeping an eye on this kid for a while, tracking his development through his teenage years. He made sure he kept his distance as it was against the rules for a major league team to sign let alone approach a player while still in high school. He watched as the kid got bigger and stronger every year and boy, was he fast! Some say he got that fast from running down deserted country roads on his way home afraid of the wild animals that lurked in the dark Oklahoma night. Whatever the cause, the end result was they called this sandy-haired kid from Commerce, Oklahoma "The Comet."

His real name was Mickey Charles Mantle and his dad tutored the boy from an early age to be a ballplayer. Even his name was chosen specifically for that reason - catcher "Mickey" Cochrane was Mr. Mantle's favorite player and he named his boy after his idol. (Luckily for his son and millions of others his Dad didn't know Cochrane's real first name was in fact "Gordon." Gordon Mantle just doesn't have that certain "something" to it, does it?) A former semi-pro ballplayer who never had a chance at the big time, Mr. Mantle wanted one thing for his son - a life outside of the lead mines that he wound up in and from which he had no hope of escape.

Mickey excelled at baseball for no other reason than that he simply loved to play it. After graduating high school he played shortstop with a local semi-pro team called the Baxter Springs Whiz Kids and that Yankee scout was there watching. He was sloppy at his position but he hit for power from both sides of the plate as well. In the first game Greenwade saw him play for the Whiz Kids, Mantle went 4 for 5 with two singles, a double and a home run. Later Greenwade told reporters that watching the young Mantle play he knew the feeling that fellow Yankee scout Paul Krichell felt when he first spotted Lou Gehrig. Seeing the kid play one more game the following Sunday, the scout made his move.

Huddled in Greenwade's Cadillac in the pouring rain after the game, Mickey Mantle and his Dad listened as the scout drew up a contract to play professional baseball. Greenwade used all the slick salesman's tricks he could muster, going through his analysis of the youngsters abilities, making sure that he particularly played up his less than stellar abilities at shortstop, followed up by letting it slip that he was actually on his way to sign a much better shortstop from another team the following day. The Mantle's haggled a little over the money the contract held arguing that Mickey could make a better salary working beside his Dad in the mines. Numbers were scribbled out on scraps of paper and adjustments were made as lightening from the storm knocked out the lights in the stadium parking lot. This was the moment all three men had been waiting for - Greenwade because this Mantle kid was the best natural ballplayer he'd ever seen, Mr. Mantle because he'd never made the big time and Mickey because he was one signature away from making a living at playing the game he loved. For $1,500 Mickey and his Dad signed the papers that made him property of the New York Yankees. $1,100 was the signing bonus and the remaining $400 was for reporting to and playing the rest of the season with the Class D Independence Yankees of the KOM (Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri) League.

With the words "This is your chance, son. Take care of yourself and give 'em hell." Mr. Mantle dropped his boy off at Riverside Stadium in Independence, Kansas. Wearing number 16, Mickey soon discovered that the level of talent was much stiffer than what he was facing in the semi-pro leagues. Easily discouraged, it took a long time for Mickey had to learn that it was only natural that he would fail 6 or 7 times out of 10 turns at bat. Early in the season and batting under .250, he confided to his Dad that maybe he wasn't good enough to play pro ball. Mr. Mantle, who'd tried his damnest to escape the debilitating life of a miner, pushed his son to continue. It wouldn't be the last time he'd have to push and cajole his boy into believing he can succeed in making it to the big leagues.

His teammates found Mickey to be a kind and innocent boy. He loved going frog hunting with pitcher and friend Red Crowder and it was at this time that he apparently began the semi-creepy hobby revealed in Jim Bouton's groundbreaking book "Ball Four" - Mantle was a peeping tom. He and roommate Bob Mallon would huddle in their closet and listen through the wall as Crowder and his wife made love in the apartment next door. The kid played boyish pranks on his teammates and thought it especially funny flicking boogers at the roof of his teammate's car interior. At the conclusion of the last road trip with the team, Mickey wept because the boys wouldn't all be together again the next year.

Overall, Mantle was sloppy at shortstop but his hitting steadily improved and he finished his first season batting .313 with 7 homers in 89 games - good enough to merit advancement to the next level in the Yankee organization. It was the beginning of a long and brilliant career, one that would eventually make him a hero to millions of young boys and become the face of the next Yankee dynasty, like Ruth and DiMaggio before him.

This story is dedicated to my Uncle Eddie, a great Mickey Mantle fan and the guy who came to my little league games when my father could not.

67. Johnny Mohardt: He Batted 1.000 - You Can Look It Up!

This post is by guest author Dan Cichalski, whose research interest lies in fellow Notre Dame alumni who made it from that prestigious Midwestern university to the major leagues. One of the reasons (besides giving me a little break) I try to encourage "guest authors" on my site is because it helps broaden the subject matter covered here. See, my main interests rest mostly with players from the 1930's and 40's - I have a pretty good working knowledge of players, both black and white, as far back as the turn of the century, but it is always a great benefit when someone else with different interests can step in and introduce us to a new time period and genre of story. The history of this great game of ours is so long and varied that sometimes I fear I can get too myopic in the subject matter I write about. Thanks to Dan and all the other writers who graciously donated their personal research efforts to make this site as varied and interesting as possible...

John Henry Mohardt was born in Pittsburgh on Jan. 21, 1898, but grew up in Gary, Indiana - from one steel town to the next. His high school education stopped after the 10th grade, when he dropped out to work in the steel mills to help support his family. This was in Gary's infancy - the settlement first took root in 1906 and became a city - with 16,000 inhabitants - only in 1909. By 1920, 55,000 people lived in Northwest Indiana's largest city.

After two years in the mills, Mohardt applied to Notre Dame and, as written in Cappy Gagnon's Notre Dame Baseball Greats, was given two tests (according to Mohardt's son): running and throwing. The right-hander passed these "tests" - presumably with flying colors - and enrolled at Notre Dame in the fall of 1918, when he was 20.

Mohardt saw athletic action right away - as the third-string right halfback on the Fighting Irish football team, playing under their first-year head coach, Knute Rockne, and assistant Walter Halas, whose brother would soon found the Chicago Bears. A year later, Mohardt had moved over to left half as the third-stringer behind starter George Gipp, whom he backed up the following fall. In 1921, after Gipp's untimely death, Mohardt became the starter and led the Irish with his feet and his arms - 781 rushing yards, 10 touchdowns, 995 passing yards (completing 53 of 98 attempts) and nine touchdowns - in an All-American campaign. His passing numbers wouldn't be surpassed until Angelo Bertelli threw for 1,027 yards in '41 and 10 TDs a year later. Mohardt's rushing records were not bettered until Creighton Miller rushed for 911 in '43 and Neil Worden scored 11 times in 1953.

From 1919-21, with Mohardt on the team, the Irish were 28-1, winning a national championship in 1920. Besides the legendary Gipp, his teammates included Paul Castner, who also had a brief Major League career, and Curly Lambeau, who went on to found the Green Bay Packers. When he wasn't playing football, Mohardt was a part of Notre Dame's baseball and track teams, serving as captain of the Notre Dame nine in '21. In his three years on the squad - from 1919-21 - Mohardt played center field and third base and compiled a 6-1 record on the mound.

In the summer of 1920, he was one of several Irish players who suited up for a semi-pro ballclub in Iowa - a common practice at the time. Though it was against the rules, it was a regulation that was not strictly enforced. Still, Mohardt and his teammates took some precaution, using aliases during their summer employment. As Jake Kline, then a teammate and later the coach of Notre Dame's baseball team for four decades, recalled, he hit .394 that summer to Mohardt's .309. But Mohardt - who used as his alias the name John Cavanaugh - scored off the field, falling in love with a local Iowa girl. She wrote to him when he returned to campus, but because Mohardt never revealed his actual name, her letter addressed to John Cavanaugh at Notre Dame went to the priest of that name - who happened to be the university president. Though Cavanaugh was not pleased with this development, Mohardt went unpunished.

No discipline resulted from Mohardt's summer ballgames in Iowa, but in January 1922, he found himself caught up in a major football scandal after it was discovered that several Irish players had suited up for a match in what was described as the "bitter rivalry" between the Illinois towns of Taylorville and Carlinville on Nov. 27, 1921. An Associated Press story that appeared in The New York Times on Jan. 30, 1922, reported that "Carlinville people bet approximately $50,000 on the game, it is said, after hiring ten college players for their eleven, only to find that Taylorville had learned of the plan and procured nine Illinois athletes for its team, which won, 16 to 0." Taylorsville was said to have played its regular "townies" for the first half, taking a 7-0 lead into halftime, then bringing out the Illini ringers to close out the game.

The nine Illinois players were disqualified from further college competition, but the investigation revealed that only eight Domers showed up to play for Carlinville for an alleged $200 apiece. While Mohardt was originally one of the 10 Irish suspected of playing in the game, the eight who actually did play - and were thereafter suspended from college competition - exonerated Mohardt and Gus Desch, a bronze medalist in the 400-meter hurdles at the Antwerp Olympics. The 17 college players who were disqualified all claimed that they took no money for playing in the game.

Though Mohardt was cleared in that scandal, he later admitted to playing for Racine in an exhibition game against Lambeau's Packers on Dec. 4, 1921, in Milwaukee. Though the investigation didn't lead to Mohardt's admission until February 1922, local papers in Wisconsin reported openly on his performance in the days after the game: "Johnny Mohardt, late of Notre Dame, made his first professional appearance." As a senior, Mohardt's football career had ended by that point, but the university suspended him from playing baseball the following spring. A science major, he went on to graduate on schedule and enroll in medical school. But in order to pay for it, he needed to earn some money first, so he turned pro in both baseball and football. His football career lasted from 1921-26, during which time he suited up for the NFL's Chicago Cardinals, Racine Legion and Chicago Bears, as well as the Dayton Triangles of the American Professional Football Association and the Chicago Bulls of the American Football League. Alongside the 27-year-old Mohardt in that 1925 Bears backfield was a 22-year-old Red Grange, both of them playing under the papa Bear, George Halas.

Mohardt's baseball career, however, lasted just five games. Courted by the Pirates, Indians, Reds, Cubs and Cardinals, he signed with the Tigers on Feb. 6, 1922, after player/manager Ty Cobb assured Mohardt that he'd be able to leave the team in the fall in time to begin medical school. A feature with the headline "Mohart student as well as athlete" in the Sporting News on March 16, 1922, described "the flash of Notre Dame" as having "all the prospects in the world, and that he is likely to add professional baseball honors to the list of his achievements." Record-keeping back then wasn't nearly the science it is today, so the article lists Mohardt's accomplishments in general terms:

"Johnny sports baseball, football and track insignia, earned while a student in South Bend. He has registered fast time in the sprints; he has won fame in the gridiron and he has batted for something like .330 for his years in college. But it is also said that when Mohardt entered Notre Dame he assumed one of the stiffest academic courses available and he leaves the institution with a ranking of something above 90 per cent."

Mohardt made Cobb's squad out of spring training and made his Major League debut in the Tigers' third game, on April 15 at Cleveland, drawing a walk in a pinch-hitting appearance for center fielder Ira Flagstead. After scoring a run, Mohardt finished the game in center. The next day, at Chicago's Comiskey Park (where the Bulls played their home games four years later), Mohardt was sent into the game as a defensive replacement for first baseman Lu Blue, but never came to the plate.

Back in Detroit on April 20, Mohardt got into his third game, finishing out the first game of a doubleheader in left field in place of Bobby Veach, but again not getting a turn at bat. That at-bat would come the next day, when he again replaced Veach in left. Mohardt singled, setting his batting average at 1.000 and upping his on-base percentage to 2.000, but was caught stealing on the basepaths. Finally, on April 22, Cobb sent himself in to pinch-hit for pitcher Ole Olsen in the seventh, then asked Mohardt to run for him. Mohardt came around to score his second career run.

With the Tigers' outfield packed with Cobb, Veach and Harry Heilmann, Mohardt was sent to Syracuse of the Class AA International League. He hit .185 in 21 games before finishing the season in the Class A Western League with the Denver Bears, for whom he hit .188 in 10 games. The next summer, he signed on with the Greenville Spinners in the Class B South Atlantic League, but called it a career after playing just 15 games and batting .280.

Medical school and his desire to become a surgeon were too hard to resist. After earning his degree and beginning his career, part of which was spent on staff at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Mohardt used his talents and steady hands to serve his country. When World War II broke out, he enlisted in the Army, eventually serving with the 12th General Hospital Unit in North Africa and Italy and earning his discharge as a Lieutenant Colonel. Later, he went back into government service as the chief surgeon at a veterans hospital and the assistant director of the V.A. Surgical Service. Sadly, on Nov. 24, 1961, Mohardt took his own life at age 63, bleeding to death at his home in La Jolla, Calif., after cutting the femoral artery in his groin. He is buried in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.

Mohardt's legacy covers two sports, four major leagues and the deadliest war of the 20th Century. He played under the legendary Knute Rockne, Ty Cobb and George Halas and counted among his teammates George Gipp, Curly Lambeau, Red Grange, Harry Heilmann and the same Cobb. He served his country under FDR. And he remains one of just 66 no longer active players to have a career batting line that reads 1-for-1, 1.000.

Dan Cichalski is a writer and editor who ruminates on the national pastime at www.njbaseball.net His latest obsession is collecting cards, autographs or photos of the 77 players who went on to the Major Leagues from Notre Dame, hence this post. Other profiles in the ND to MLB series can be found at http://njbaseball.blogspot.com/search/label/ND%20to%20MLB

66. Roy Campanella: The Goat Of The '42 Pennant Race?

Back when I lived in Northern Kentucky, I would spend one Sunday a month camped out in the University of Kentucky library microfilm room poring over the back issues of the Baltimore Afro-American. This was before computers made baseball research infinitely easier and discovering new facts and statistics pertaining to negro league history made me feel like a lower-case indiana jones. Each Sunday I would concentrate on gathering all the relevant articles and box scores I could on a specific year that the negro league Baltimore Elite Giants played in Charm City. Fortunately for my purposes the Afro-American was based in Baltimore and devoted extensive coverage to their hometown Elites after they moved to the city in 1938 after previous stops in Nashville, Columbus and Washington - the Elite Giants were the negro league version of the Atlanta Braves. Through the magic of microfilm I was able to read along as the seasons played themselves out before my eyes.

The Elite Giants were not as "sexy" a team as the Homestead Grays or Kansas City Monarchs and not much had been written about them other than it was the team that gave Roy Campanella his start. Diving into the 1938 box scores I found the very first mention of Campanella as a 16 year-old ballplayer, although his name was misspelled as "Campanello" - it actually took the beat writers from the Afro-American a year or two to finally get the kid catcher's name write in the box scores and post-game summaries.

The Elite Giants were blessed in that they had veteran catcher Biz Mackey on the squad during Campanella's first few years. Mackey was at one time the best catcher in black baseball and although he had slowed considerably by 1938 when Campanella joined the team, his natural leadership and mentor abilities made all the difference to the young catcher. Indeed, years later during a ceremony to honor Roy Campanella at Dodger Stadium, Roy called out his former mentor Biz Mackey, who was in the stands, and gave him the credit for making his career what it was.

By 1940 Roy had grown into the role of Elites starting catcher and Mackey was traded to the Newark Eagles. Baltimore had Bill Perkins and later Eggie Clark as adequate defensive back-ups to Campanella and the team embarked on a 3 year stretch where they battled the Homestead Grays for the Negro National League Championship every summer. Their rivalry became something like that between the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants and the games played between the two were usually hard-fought, heavily attended affairs. The Negro National League played a split season with the winners of the first half of the season playing the winners of the second half in a play-off for the pennant.

Baltimore led for most of the first half of the 1940 season but stumbled at the end, winding up a half game behind the Grays. In the last weekend of the second half the Elites split a crucial double-header to the Newark Eagles, allowing the Grays, who won their games against the Philly Stars, to overtake Baltimore and snatch the pennant at the last moment. The following year the Elites lost 4 of their better players who jumped the team and went to Mexico along with other negro league stars who had been lured south of the border by offers of big money. Despite the loss of talent the team went on a tear but the Grays were always a game or two ahead and they won the first half of the season. In the second half the New York Cubans beat out the Elites and went on to play the Grays in the play-offs.

These close-but-no-cigar finishes were heartbreaking to the Baltimore fans who by this time really embraced the team. Baltimore had a vibrant black community at this time, mostly due to the strict segregation that was enforced in this southern city. In Baltimore, this exclusion bred a whole black society which operated parallel to the white one - blacks had their own doctors, lawyers, grocery stores, factories, gas stations, theaters and high society - everything the whites had, just owned and operated exclusively by blacks.

1942 was shaping up to be a big year for the Elite Giants. Their biggest slugger, Wild Bill Wright, returned to the team from Mexico along with second baseman Sammy Hughes and starting pitchers Lefty Glover and Pullman Porter. It was hoped that the now mature Campanella along with the extra fire-power provided by Wright would be the key to finally beating the Homestead Grays and bringing the pennant to Baltimore. The additional players indeed made all the difference and the Elites cruised to a comfortable first half victory in July. Campanella proved that he had arrived by not only handling the pitchers like a veteran but he was batting for average and came through in the clutch when most needed. The rest of the league took notice and he was elected for the second time to represent Baltimore in the East-West All-Star Game. But before he made it to the game, something happened.

Since the beginning of America's entry in World War II, various factions, both black and white, had been clamouring for the majors to integrate. While most owners were vehemently against it, a few made hesitant overtures that they might be interested. The miserable Pittsburgh Pirates were one team that led some of the black sports writers on, seeming to agree to give a few black players a tryout. Campanella was one of those players chosen and although the Pirates backed out at the last minute, Campy began to understand his worth not only to a black baseball team, but to a white one as well. On the eve of the East-West Game the Cleveland Buckeyes were scheduled to play against a team made up of white all-stars who were serving in the Army and Navy. This was a great opportunity to show the country what kind of talent existed in the negro leagues and prove once and for all that blacks could play ball just as good as white professionals. The Cleveland management invited two Baltimore players, Roy Campanella and Sammy Hughes to join their team for the special game. Unfortunately the Elites owner and also National League president Tom Wilson refused to grant them permission to go. Baltimore was locked in a drive to claim the first half pennant and losing the services of two of their key players could tip the balance to the Grays.

None-the-less, Campanella and Hughes jumped the team and went to Cleeveland. Wilson fined both players $200 and suspended them for a month. Campanella was forced to sit out the East-West Game as well. The suspension looks like it was never enforced because both players continued to appear in the lineup through August as the Elites battled neck and neck with the Grays. But Campanella was disgruntled by the way Wilson handled the affair and finally deserting the team around the 23rd of August. Jorge Pasquel, the shipping magnate and playboy who ran the Mexican Baseball League offered Roy a huge contract to finish out the season with the Monterrey Sultanes. When Campanella left he was batting .297 and was one of the team's premier players as well as a steadying influence on the pitching staff. Eggie Clark, the teams back-up catcher was a veteran who, while solid defensively, was no Campanella at the plate. In the standings Baltimore was 2 games behind the Grays going into the last 2 weeks of the season. On Friday August 28th they beat the last place New York Black Yankees 16-3 and then took the Sunday double-header by scores of 6-3 and 3-1. Now Baltimore was a half game behind the dreaded Grays.

It all came down to the final Labor day series. The Elites faced the 4th place Philadelphia Stars and needed to take 4 out of 5 games from them. The Grays faced the considerably stronger Newark Eagles and needed to take at least 2 to stay on top.

Saturday was a night game played at Parkside Park in Philadelphia. Baltimore won 8-3 and Campanella's replacement Eggie Clark went 1 for 4. The series moved south to Baltimore and a Sunday double-header at Bugle Field. In the first game it took 12 innings but Baltimore prevailed, Clark going 1 for 4 again. In the nightcap Clark went hitless in 3 at bats as Baltimore was defeated in a come-from-behind victory by the Stars. As long as Newark beat the Grays in their Monday game and Baltimore won both ends of the season finale double-header on Sunday, the pennant was theirs.

Both teams were back at Parkside Park for the holiday double-header. Baltimore's Bill Harvey tossed a terrific 1 hit shut-out and beat the Stars 6-0. Clark went hitless in 4 turns at bat. Up in Newark, N.J. the Grays and Eagles were slugging it out at Ruppert Stadium, the high scoring game still undecided as Baltimore and Philly squared off again for the last game of the season.

Baltimore lost 4-3, Eggie Clark going hitless again in 3 tries. Meanwhile the Grays out-scored Newark 14-12 and clinched the second-half pennant. What happened next is something that was unfortunately fairly common in the negro leagues. The play-off that was supposed to happen between the Elite Giants, winners of the first half and the Homestead Grays, winners of the second-half, never took place.

I've never found out any reason why, the Afro-American didn't report on it. Their focus quickly switched from the lost pennant to a series of 6 games against the all-white Baltimore Orioles of the International League. Playing against the white pros was more important it seems than playing the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro World Series. Which brings me back to Roy Campanella.

While reading about the 1942 season in the Afro-American I was gripped by the tightness of the race and the disappointment when I read of Campanella and Hughes deserting the team for an exhibition game. I was even more upset when I discovered how Roy abandoned the team for Mexico during the last stretch. Seeing his replacement Eggie Clark go 2 for 18 and the Elites lose 2 crucial games by 1 run made me wonder how the team would have done with Campanella playing in those contests. Would they have won the pennant? The fortunes of the Elite Giants dwindled after that season. Failure to beat the Grays 3 years in a row may have hurt their fan base and the disappearance of Roy Campanella, a favorite with the fans, didn't help either. He played the entire 1943 season in Mexico while Baltimore sank into the second division.

Does Campanella deserve to be labeled as selfish and the goat of the 1942 season? Initially I thought so. Learning of Campanella's actions at the end of the '42 season went against everything I had ever read about the affable catcher. What kind of player deserts his team during a pennant drive? Then again, I go back to the Afro-American's reporting at the end of the season. Nowhere was there outrage over the lack of a play-off to decide the Negro National League Championship, nor was Campanella's desertion criticised. The Afro's writers were more focused on the Elite Giants showcasing their talent against the all-white Orioles. That made me think: by 1942 did most players and reporters think of the negro leagues as basically just a stepping stone to the eventual integration of baseball. Was a series of exhibition games played between a black team and a second-rate white minor league team really more important than the Negro World Series? For many generations we were told that the negro leagues were an entity all their own and made to exist parallel to the white leagues. Watching the 1942 season unfold made me think that by this time most players and fans were probably aware that integration was not that far off and that matters of a player jumping a team in order to better himself was not look upon as a bad quality, but simply what it was, a black man showing the world that his talents were as equal or better than others who happened to be white.

So in my book, Campanella gets a pass but, as a former Baltimore resident, I am rather chagrined to think about how the fortunes of the Elite Giants would have turned out if they had beat the Grays that year and faced the Monarchs and Satchel Paige in the 1942 World Series...

65. Shoeless Joe Jackson: What's In A Name?

Nicknames can be great if you have one like "T-Bone" or "Lefty." They're not so good if you get saddled with one like "Ears" or "Blimpy." Take this kid Brian Mauser (name ever-so-slightly changed) from my neighborhood growing up. In kindergarten he was just like the rest of us, no more or less awkward or memorable. Then came that fateful day early in 1st grade when he was caught picking his nose and eating it. Now I'm sure Brian wasn't the first kid who slipped a crispy one in his mouth to see what it tasted like, but he had the misfortune of getting caught. Kids being cruel, Brian was forever after ostracized and his nickname, "Booger Boy" was born. That name hung around his neck not only the rest of the year, but throughout grammar, middle AND high school. Forget about getting a date or being invited to any parties, his life was forever changed by that ill-advised snack in 1st grade. Slugger Joe Jackson was likewise saddled with a derogatory nickname which was, while not as devastating as "Booger Boy," none-the-less caused him great embarrassment over the course of his playing career and the remainder of his life.

One of 8 kids, Joe Jackson was born into extreme poverty. At the age of six Joe took his place alongside the rest of his family in one of the sprawling textile mills that dotted the rural South Carolina landscape at the turn of the century. Because of the need to contribute money to the family he never had time for proper schooling and much to his shame remained unable to read and write for the rest of his life. The one bright spot in Jackson's grim life of industrial-age toil was baseball. Showing great skill at an early age, by 13 Jackson was playing outfield for the Brandon Mills men's ballclub. South Carolina's textile leagues had an impressive amount of talent playing on the various mill teams and for Jackson to make a mark amidst all this talent was quite impressive.

He quickly became a local legend and during games his brothers would roam the stands passing a hat taking donations after Jackson made another impressive play of timely hit. Word soon spread of his talents and in 1907 the Brandon Mills team was playing an exhibition game against the Greenville Spinners of the Carolina Association. Their manager Tom Stouch was shocked and dismayed when a young player on the team seemed to get on base every damn time he got up to the plate. In the field he dazzled as well. By the end of the game Stouch knew the kid had what it took to play professionally and the next year Jackson inked his "X" to a contract for the staggering sum of $75.00 a month to play for the Spinners.

Although he was brimming with ability he was still raw around the edges. On a few occasions he was caught trying to steal bases already held by his own teammates, but he was the local boy and the fans of Greenville readily embraced him. He had done what most of them were unable to do - escape the drudgery of the textile mills. The 1908 team featured two other players destined to play in the big leagues, Ezra Midkiff and Scotty Barr and along with Jackson the Spinners quickly made it to the top of the 6-team league. Jackson played the outfield but was also brought in to pitch on occasion. He had a tremendous arm but retired as a pitcher after he broke the arm of an opposing batter and the rest of the league refused to hit against him. It didn't matter, he made his mark elseware. His speed and skill in the outfield led fans to dub his mitt "a place where triples go to die." He belted the ball at a .400 clip for most of the summer. Locals noted that the sound his bat connecting with the ball made had such a unique sound that they could tell it was Joe Jackson even if they were blindfolded.

It was during a Sunday double-header against the Anderson Electricians that Joe Jackson earned his nickname.

Finally earning a decent salary, Jackson treated himself to a well-deserved new pair of spikes. While playing in the first game of the double-header the unbroken-in shoes gave him blisters. By the end of the game he was in terrible pain and begged Stouch to let him sit out the second game. A Sunday double-header back then was the place to be for a small rural community and Jackson was the great attraction. Stouch couldn't let him sit out the game, everyone would not only be disappointed but there was always the potential for violence. People took their baseball seriously back then.

So with great pain, Joe Jackson made the fateful decision to remove his brand-new spikes and took the field in just his stocking feet. All went well for most of the game until the top of the seventh when he smacked a triple and slid stocking feet-first into third. An angry Anderson fan, seeing Jackson called safe at third base and noticing his stocking feet cried out "you shoeless son-of-a-gun, you!" A sportswriter overheard it and a timeless nickname was born.

Jackson hated it. Already sensitive about his inability to read or even sign his own name, he felt the nickname made him look even worse, bringing to life the image of a back-woods bare-foot illiterate. He spent the rest of his life trying to explain the circumstances around his moniker, telling the story over and over again that he never played ball bare-foot and it was but one game in his whole career that he took the field in his socks.

Shoes or no shoes, it was obvious to all that Jackson didn't belong in the minors for long. Manager Tom Stouch wrote to Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics letting him know about the potential of two of his outfielders, Joe Jackson and Scotty Barr. Mack must have been impressed by the description Stouch wrote because in mid-August he dispatched one of his players on the disabled list to Greenville to take a look. "Socks" Seybold sat in the stands as the Spinners played the Charlotte Hornets and watched as Jackson belted a double, triple and home run. He noted that the kid also had a rifle for an arm. He quickly telegraphed Mack who in turn sent his assistant Sam Kennedy to verify Seybold's claims. Further assured by Kennedy, Mack signed Jackson who was batting .346 at the time and Barr, who was batting .299 as well as posting a 12-6 pitching record.

As soon as the Spinners season ended, Scotty Barr hopped on the first train to join the Athletics but Jackson hesitated. He'd never left the Carolina's and Philadelphia was as far away from Greenville as the moon. He was embarrassed by his illiteracy and because of it did not even know who the heck Connie Mack or the Philadelphia Athletics were. Manager Tom Stouch had spent a lifetime trying to get to the major leagues and even though he played in but 4 games he assumed it was every ballplayer's dream to get the call. With this in mind he decided to personally deliver Jackson to Connie Mack and at the end of August, 1908 Tom Stouch and "Shoeless Joe" Jackson boarded the overnight sleeper to Philadelphia.

Many of the photographs I used for reference were found on the valuable website called "The Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall Of Fame" at www.blackbetsy.com Not only is it a great resource on the life of Joe Jackson, but the staff are extremely helpful, a fellow named T.W. over there was extremely patient fielding my questions a few months ago when I was working on a Jackson angle for this site. I will be doing a series of cards and stories on the early years of Joe Jackson, so if you're a Shoeless Joe fan, keep checking back!

64. Larry Doby: Playing For Uncle Sam

If you haven't noticed yet, sometimes I like to combine my love of baseball history with my other passion, military history. Although I'm not a big WWII aficionado, I do enjoy studying the role baseball played during that great conflict. It's hard to fathom these days, but back in the 1940's baseball was the only sport there was. Football and basketball were distant runners up for the title of "National Pastime." I know from my own family's experience as immigrants in the 1910's that learning the ins and outs of baseball was as important as learning English. In these times of hyphenated-Americans we forget that a mere 75 years ago that it was all an immigrant could do to try to blend into the fabric of their new country and become, above all, an American. Learning the game helped put an immigrant on the same level as a native, giving them at least one common thing to bridge the cultural gap between them. The rise of football, basketball and the dreaded soccer and golf has changed that whole dynamic, leaving nothing in its wake to fill the important role once filled by the game of baseball. Anyway, with that background, it is easier to see how and why the game played such a big part during the war. Not only did it help give servicemen and war industry workers much needed recreation and morale boost, but it gave the country a sense of stability - that the countries own sport, baseball, will carry on despite all the suffering and deprivations that grips the nation. The game helped people relax and be able to concentrate on the work needed to be done. One place that baseball played a major role was in the military. As early as 1941 the Army and Navy made an effort to field teams made up of the major and minor league players that found themselves in uniform. Every base had at least a single ball team and most ships and training bases had whole leagues, sometimes with first and second ranked divisions. The sport helped build an feeling of pride within the units and kept the men out of finding trouble during their off-duty time. While much has been written, especially recently, about major league players in the war, not much has been documented about the 119 negro league players who served during the war. Some of them eventually played on one of the many baseball teams fielded by their respective units. Although they did not get the same publicity as the special service teams that featured stars like Joe DiMaggio and Bob Feller, these teams helped build morale for the black soldiers and sailors during the war. This week I want to feature Larry Doby and his service in the U.S. Navy during the war. As a kid my Grandfather told me about seeing the great Newark Eagles play in Ruppert Stadium, specifically mentioning their star infielder, Larry Doby. Growing up in Northern New Jersey, I played ball on many of the fields Doby, who grew up in Paterson, did years before. Even many decades after his time as a high school athlete old-timers still talked about this incredible sports star.

Larry Doby was the best athlete Paterson, N.J.'s Eastside High had ever seen. Hell, he might even have been the best all-around athlete to ever come out of New Jersey for that matter. A good student with a personality that made him liked by everyone he met, Doby earned a staggering eleven varsity letters in baseball, basketball, football and track. To say he was a rising star would be an understatement to say the least. In the summer he played semi-pro ball around North Jersey, testing his skills against the best touring negro league teams like the New York Black Yankees and Cuban Stars. In the winter he played basketball with the Harlem Renaissance, a popular touring team.

Long Island University gave Doby a basketball scholarship - his dream was to become an athletics instructor and return to Eastside High to teach. A free education was nice, but he needed to make a living as well, so taking the name "Larry Walker" he signed with the Newark Eagles in 1942. The Eagles were a strong team featuring future Hall of Famers Leon Day and Monte Irvin. Doby quickly settled into the Eagles lineup and positively clobbered opposing pitching to the tune of .391 his rookie year. He cooled off a bit in 1943, batting a respectable .282, and along with Monte Irvin he brought a fresh, youthful atmosphere to a team of aging veterans.

Unfortunately World War II loomed over him and in 1943 he put his career on hold and enlisted in the U.S. Navy.

Adjusting to life in the segregated service was hard for Doby. Although he spent his early childhood in the south, he'd grown used to the relative freedom of urban New Jersey. It must have been even worse knowing that he could be called upon to give his life for the very same country that wouldn't allow him to drink from the same water fountain as a white man.

Taking his basic training at the massive Great Lakes Naval Training Center outside Chicago, Doby joined the base's Negro Varsity baseball team called the Great Lakes Sailors. Since 1942 when former catcher Mickey Cochrane took over the baseball program, the Great Lakes base continuously fielded virtual all-star teams stocked with former and future major league players. Bob Feller, Virgil Trucks, Johnny Mize, Walker Cooper, Gene Woodling, Billy Herman, Schoolboy Rowe and Ken Keltner are some of the bigger stars that played for the Great Lakes Bluejackets ballclub during the war. The team toured the Midwest playing against other teams from military bases and defense plants. The Great Lakes team was good publicity for the Navy and seeing famous ballplayers doing their part for the country's war effort just like everyone else did wonders for the nation's morale. The Great Lakes Bluejackets were a powerhouse and easily defeated all competition. But, like the Navy itself, the Bluejackets baseball team was segregated.

The Great Lakes Naval Training Center facilitated the basic training of black sailors as well, but they had their own training companies, their own barracks and starting in 1944, their own baseball team. Officially called the Negro Varsity Team, they also featured a heavy contingent of professional ballplayers. The pitching staff included Herb Bracken of the Cleveland Buckeyes, Luis Pillot of the Cincinnati Clowns and Johnny Wright, the veteran Homestead Grays star. Catching them was former Chicago American Giant Leroy Clayton. The outfield boasted Leroy Coates and Bill Randall of the Homestead Grays and the infield had Al Paschal and Stephen Summerow of the Cleveland Buckeyes and Earl Richardson and Larry Doby of the Newark Eagles.

The Negro Varsity team competed in the Midwest Servicemen's Baseball League which in 1944 consisted of 6 teams from both the Army and Navy. Besides official league games the Sailors played against a long list of other non-affiliated military, semi-pro and defense plant teams.

With Larry Doby playing shortstop, the Great Lakes Sailors went on an 18-game winning streak through June and July. In addition to a great season, seven players from the team were selected to play on the Midwest League All-Star team in a game that pitted them against the all-white team from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Lead by former A's catcher Mickey Cochrane the white Bluejackets were practically a major league all-star team and at that point had an undefeated record of 14-0. Herb Bracken pitched a masterful one-hitter against Cochrane's team but still lost 3-0 due to that single hit, walks and fielding errors. Despite this heartbreaking loss, the Negro Varsity team had a final record of 32-10 for 1944. Unlike the white Bluejackets team which kept meticulous statistics, no comprehensive batting or pitching records exist for the Sailors although it is known that Johnny Wright's record stood at 18-3 and Herb Bracken was 13-1 at the conclusion of the season. These two men's performance in front of an integrated audience helped them get the publicity that led their eventual signing to play in the minor leagues when it was integrated in 1946. Infact Johnny Wright was signed by Brooklyn at the same time Jackie Robinson was.

At the conclusion of the season, Doby was shipped overseas and stationed on a remote island in the South Pacific called the Ilithi Atoll. The island had a good harbor and was used as a staging base for the invasion of the Philippines. Doby and hundreds of other negro sailors were posted there to act as manual laborers loading and unloading the continuous stream of war material that flooded the tiny island. By sheer coincidence two former major league players also found themselves on this miserable piece of real estate, Mickey Vernon of the Senators and Billy Goodman of the Red Sox. Vernon became the athletic director on the island and all three men found themselves playing on the base's integrated softball team. The three men quickly formed a bond and the three sailors would take turns throwing baseball batting practice for each other keeping their skills sharpened as best they could. The two white players knew the way the wind was blowing regarding integration and did their best to encourage Doby. They knew he had the skills to make the major leagues one day. It was on Ulithi Atoll that Doby heard that the Brooklyn Dodgers had signed a black ballplayer named Jackie Robinson.

In June of 1945 the U.S. Navy officially abolished segregation of its sailors and blacks were finally given the same treatment as whites. Unfortunately it did not seem to apply to the Great Lakes Bluejackets baseball team. Unlike the Center's football team which was integrated by coach Paul Brown, the baseball team now led by Cleveland Indians superstar Bob Feller remained an all-white affair during its final season.

Larry was discharged from the service and his old friend Monte Irvin encouraged him to join him in the Puerto Rico Winter League. The island at this time had a highly competitive winter circuit that attracted the best players of all colors. Both Irvin and Doby joined the San Juan Senators. When he arrived in San Juan Doby was at a crossroads as to whether or not to pursue a career in baseball or complete his college education and return to his beloved Eastside High as a teacher. The answer came to him after he tore apart league pitching: in 153 at bats Doby averaged .349, knocked in 42 runs and belted 12 home runs. His little winter sojourn in Puerto Rico encouraged him to stick with baseball.

The integration of The American League was right around the corner...

If you are interesting learning more about the role of baseball in WWII and about the major and minor league players who served during it, you absolutely have to check out Gary Bedingfield's website at www.baseballinwartime.com. A Brit, Gary is THE man to talk to when it comes to baseball during the war and his site features in-depth articles about hundreds of players who found themselves in the service during the war. Gary is also an author of two indispensable books on the subject, "Baseball's Dead of World War II: A Roster Of Professional Players Who Died" and one of my personal favorites, "Baseball In World War II Europe (part of the Images of Sports series)."