Baseball: The Game in Wartime

Today’s Morning Briefing is devoted to excerpts from “Baseball Goes to War,” a Farragut Classic paperback written by William B. Mead, who tells how baseball managed to survive as the national pastime during World War II.

On the 1941 season: “To the embarrassment of the sportswriting fraternity, only one of the 262 members of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America had correctly predicted, before the season, that the Yankees would win the American League, and that the Dodgers, Cardinals and Reds would finish in that order in the National League. This seer was Charles Dexter of the New York Daily Worker, a newspaper identified with the Communist Party.”

On benefit games: “At Shreveport, La., Mrs. George Roby contributed some scrap aluminum to gain admission to an Aluminum Night game and found, upon returning to her car, that other fans had contributed her aluminum hubcaps.”

On the shortage of players in 1943: “Durham, N.C., played a local fireman named Wilkie at second base and pitched a felon named Patterson. ‘When Patterson said he had played at Atlanta, I thought he meant Atlanta in the Southern Assn.,’ recalled E.J. (Buzzie) Bavasi, who was running the Durham club during the war. ‘It turned out he was just out of the pen at Atlanta.’ ”

On the induction of Brooklyn’s Billy Herman into the service in 1944: “Manager Leo Durocher, 38, puffed himself into a semblance of shape and announced himself as Herman’s replacement at second base. Durocher’s first fielding chance of the season was a bad throw from rookie shortstop Gene Mauch, 18. The ball broke Durocher’s thumb in two places and he returned to the bench.”

On rumors that Senator A.B. (Happy) Chandler of Kentucky would be the new commissioner after the death of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis in November, 1944: “As for himself, Chandler said in response to a question, he would love to be the new commissioner but could not desert the U.S. government in wartime. ‘That would make me a slacker,’ he said. ‘My term expires in 1949.’ On April 24, 1945, Chandler was offered the commissionership. He accepted.”

On Washington pitcher Marino Pieretti, who hailed from Italy: “Pieretti stood only 5 feet 7 inches tall but threw a mean fastball, having gained strength from a winter job killing steers in a San Francisco slaughterhouse. He also played the accordion in a dance band.”

On the 1945 Chicago Cubs, as told by Manager Charlie Grimm: “Our shortstop, Len Merullo, the day his first son was born, made four or five errors. That’s where he got the nickname Boots. And he named the kid Boots. Boots Merullo.”

On exhibition games in the South Pacific, as told by big league veteran Barney McCosky, a Navy chief specialist: “The islands were secure, but there were still some Japanese in the caves. They knew the island was secure, but they didn’t want to give up. They had our Navy clothes on; our dungarees, everything. Stolen them? Oh, yes. They had guts; they had nerve. They were watching our ball games. They were coming out of the hills.

“Over in Saipan, we watched four or five every day come into our chow line and eat, with our uniforms on. We knew who they were, but we didn’t bother them. They’d be right in line with us. They weren’t bothering anyone.”

Quotebook

Ed Barrow, president of the New York Yankees, protesting major league baseball’s approval of unlimited night games in 1944: “I am more convinced than ever that there is no future in electric-lighted play.”