Inspired by a tweet from Tim Kurkjian, here's to these greats who selflessly answered the call:
Bob Feller - Navy anti-aircraft battery leader who served in the Pacific theater on the USS Alabama. Enlisted 2 days after Pearl Harbor, as baseball's highest paid player.
Ted Williams - fighter pilot instructor during WWII, fighter pilot (and John Glenn's wingman) during Korean War. While he was not happy to be called up a 2nd time to serve in Korea, he served with distinction and by all accounts was an outstanding pilot, logging 39 combat missions.
Yogi Berra - machine gunner aboard a landing craft during D-Day
Hank Greenberg - longest wartime service of any MLB'er. Pacific theater, scouting bombing targets for B-29s
Warren Spahn - baseball's winningest leftie, took part in The Battle of The Bulge. Say no more.
I left out those who served but performed ceremonial roles stateside - like playing on exhibition baseball teams - such as Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays and Joe DiMaggio. DiMaggio in particular - to the surprise of no one - deserves no accolades, as he was extremely bitter about having to serve and openly bitched about all the money he was losing due to the war.
I’ll bring up Elmer Gideon and Harry O’Neill. Both played very briefly (O’Neill in a Moonlight Graham scenario) but they were the only major league players who died in WWII.
Christy Mathewson was exposed to poison gas during a training exercise in WWI and eventually died of tuberculosis 7 years later.
(no message)
He was my uncle’s roommate at St Joe’s College in Rensselaer IN, if you can believe that. My uncle flew the P-38 in the Pacific theater.
He was and is the most intelligent person to play baseball, and an OSS spy in Europe during the war.
both feet to frostbite in the Battle of the Bulge. Never the same player again. Seldom remembered today. Would have been HOF but for his service.
No bone spurs there. RIP.