American Valor Quarterly Issue 11 - Fall 2014 | Page 35

Spahn. He lost three years of playing
due to Army service in World War
II. He was in one of the most famous
battles, the Battle of the Bulge, and he
was also a member of the forces that
captured the Remagen Bridge that
shortened the war in Europe by many
months. As a lieutenant, he was also
awarded the Purple Heart after being
wounded in action. He returned to
win 20 or more games 13 times in his
career and as we all know, winning
20 games is the pitchers hallmark
of excellence. He was a member of
the National Gold Star Team, seven
times and holds the record, the man
could hit, for the most home runs in
the game by a pitcher, at 35 for his
career. I went for years rooting for the
Washington Senators without having
anybody on their team who hit 35.
Warren Spahn was elected to the Hall
of Fame, and richly so, in 1973.
Now, Luke Appling was a player
who went in during the war, right after
winning the American League batting
championship. He went into the Army
very willingly, posed with a big smile
on his face, trying on an Army helmet
in basic training. His wife summed up
not only his attitude but the attitude of
a lot of Americans. She said, “The war
will soon be over because, outside of
baseball, Luke never held a job more
than two weeks.”
While all this was going on, we
on the home front were adapting to
a dramatically different way of life.
Rationing was imposed immediately.
What food and other articles weren’t
rationed, weren’t available anyhow. It
was very difficult to get many things,
including such things as a typewriter
for your secretary. Even coffins were
hard to find because the metal was
used for the war effort—planes, things
like that. I can remember going in and
buying toothpaste for my family. My
mom would send me to the store and
one of the items was toothpaste. You
had to turn in your old tube before
they would sell you a new one. That’s
how strict life was. No new cars were
FALL 2014

manufactured
after 1942, until
the war was over.
We had air raid
drills for what
we were afraid
would be an
inevitability of
raids by Germany
or Japan.
If you went to a
baseball game and
caught a foul ball,
you threw it back,
unlike today. It’s
hard to imagine today. In those days,
you threw it back on the field because
you knew that the ball would be sent
along with other foul balls and used
bats to our men in uniform, both here
and overseas. If you tried to pocket a
foul ball, you did so at considerable
personal risk because you would
be booed right out of the ballpark.
Nobody kept a foul ball during World
War II. We had victory gardens
everywhere. We had scrap drives.
Kate Smith singlehandedly raised
$600 million in war bonds, by singing
“God Bless America” and some of her
other songs. That was the life we were
leading at home while these people
were giving up everything. These great
baseball players were marching off to
war.
Buck O’Neil was another one. He
was the first baseman in the Negro
leagues with twelve years mostly with
the Kansas City Monarchs. He was
an All-Star twice, played in the Negro
leagues World Series twice, with a
combined batting average of .341
against World Series competition. He
entered the Navy after the 1943 season
at age 32, missed all of ‘44 and ‘45,
and returned to play five more years.
He retired in 1950 with a .292 batting
average. Many of us remember him
from the Ken Burns baseball series on
public television and he remains today
one of the great goodwill ambassadors
for the sport.
Gene Pell: Let me ask you

ALONG WITH ELMER GEDEON,
HARRY O’NEILL WAS ONE OF
TWO MEN WHO HAD PLAYED
IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
TO BE KILLED DURING WORLD
WAR II. O’NEILL SERVED AS A
LIEUTENANT IN THE MARINE
CORPS, SEEING ACTION AT
KWAJELEIN, SAIPAN, AND
TINIAN BEFORE TAKING PART
IN THE EPIC BATTLE OF IWO
JIMA. HE WAS KILLED DURING
HEAVY COMBAT ON THE
EVENING OF MARCH 6, 1945,
ONE OF MORE THAN 6,800
AMERICANS TO FALL DURING
THE BATTLE.

something, Bill. Do you have any
statistics on how many of the 500
Major League players who served were
killed?
Bill Gilbert: Two were killed and I
can tell you right now who they were.
One was a man named Elmer
Gedeon who was an outfielder for the
Washington Senators in five games
before the war. He was killed in 1944
in France.
Another player who played only
one game for