Welcome to the first edition of the Baseball in Wartime Newsletter for 2015. We’re starting the year with a rather over ambitious project—a record of major leaguers who served in the European Theater during World War II. The list includes 147 major league players, one manager, three coaches, four umpires, a broadcaster and 18 Negro League players. For the majority of these, I have included brief biographical sketches of their time in Europe which I hope you will enjoy. Future issues of the newsletter will look at players who served in the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the United States. Researching WWII baseball is, and always will be, an ongoing project for me. If you can add any names to this list of players who served in Europe I would be very pleased to hear from you. I’d like to thank Ken Sulik for his assistance with information for this project. Big Leaguers in the ETO ore than 500 major league players Infantry Regiment, along with the 422nd, were swapped flannels for military uniforms encircled by enemy forces and cut off from the during World War II, and stars like Joe remainder of the 106th Infantry Division in the vicinity DiMaggio, Ted Williams and Stan Musial of Schonberg, Belgium. The two Regiments (6,000 M troops) surrendered to the Germans on December served their nation off the diamond. This issue of the Baseball in Wartime Newsletter looks at those who 19, 1944, in one of the largest mass surrenders in served in the European Theater, including no less American military history. Suffering a debilitating than eight future Hall of Famers. But before we look case of frostbite he was held at Stalag 9B in Bad Orb at those involved, let me clarify what constitutes the Hessen-Nassau, Germany. When Anderson was European Theater. liberated on May 4, 1945, his weight had dropped from 185 pounds to 125 pounds. During World War II there were four theaters of operation: Europe (ETO), the Mediterranean (MTO), the Pacific, and China-Burma-India (CBI). The Bill Ayers (New York Giants) European Theater included Great Britain, France, Ayers was with the 65th Infantry Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Germany and Division in Europe in 1945, and Austria. The Mediterranean Theater included North pitched for the division Africa, Sicily and Italy. It’s true to say that Italy and baseball team following the Sicily are a part of Europe, but for this exercise I have German surrender. Ayers kept players who served in Italy and Sicily out of this perfected his forkball during list. They will be included in a future issue which will this time and the 65th were II deal exclusively with the Mediterranean Theater. Corps champions. He was then Having said that, those who served in the selected to play for the 71st Mediterranean but were prisoners-of-war in Infantry Division – Third Army Germany, have been included. representatives – in the 1945 ETO World Series in September Bios of Big Leaguers in the ETO 1945. Pitching in Game Four of the ETO World Series against Negro League sensation, Leon Day of the OISE All- Andy Anderson (St. Louis Browns) Stars, on September 7, Ayers hurled a five-hit 5-0 rd Anderson served in Europe with the 423 Infantry shutout to tie the series at two games apiece (the th Regiment of the 106 Infantry Division. During the OISE All-Stars clinched the series in the next game). early days of the Battle of the Bulge, the 423rd Go to www.baseballinwartime.com/subscribe.html to subscribe to this newsletter Baseball in Wartime Newsletter No. 32 January 2015 Dick Aylward (Cleveland Indians) Yogi Berra (New York Yankees and New York Mets) While advancing with the Army through a ruined Hall of Fame German town, a bullet creased Aylward’s skull. "I Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, sailed for the British Isles in went down like I was hit by a baseball," he told The February 1944, on the USS Bayfield, where he was as Sporting News in 1953. "Spent four months in the a gunner's mate on board a rocket-launching hospital before going back into the line. It was no landing craft in the D-Day invasion at Omaha good. I had five campaign ribbons, but now I had Beach, "It was just like a Fourth of July celebration," nerves." Aylward spent a further six months at a he later recalled. hospital in the United States. Jim Blackburn (Cincinnati Reds) Rex Barney (Brooklyn Dodgers) Blackburn was the squad leader of a light machine- Barney served with the 4th and 6th Armored Divisions gun outfit of the 7th Armored Infantry Battalion. He in France and Germany during 1945. He was the was wounded on December 23, 1944 during the commander of a lead tank, roaming the advance Battle of the Bulge when his division was surrounded positions to draw enemy fire from sunup to sundown, by German forces for four days. Regaining and suffered shrapnel wounds to his leg and back. consciousness after being hit by shrapnel, Blackburn He received two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. found several Germans standing over him and he With the war over in Europe, Barney pitched briefly was taken prisoner. His wife was notified that he was for the 65th Infantry Division baseball team before “missing in action” in January 1945 and it was not returning to the United States. until April that she learned he was a prisoner-of-war. Blackburn was forced to live daily on a loaf of black Moe Berg (Dodgers, White Sox, Senators, Indians and bread at Stalag IVB in Muhlberg Sachsen, Germany. Red Sox) His weight dropped by 75 pounds as he was From September 1943, marched from one prison camp to another and the Berg was assigned to the German guards attempted to keep one step ahead Secret Intelligence branch of the advancing Allies. Blackburn eventually of the Office of Strategic collapsed from weakness and malnutrition. Services - a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Hospitalized by his captors and too weak to move, Agency (CIA). He was in an Allied bomber dropped its payload close to the London in May 1944, and hospital. This act so outraged a German guard that until December of that he obtained a pair of pliers and pulled out year, Berg hopped Blackburn’s toenails as a means of torture and around Europe retaliation. Blackburn was finally liberated by the interviewing physicists and 69th Infantry Division in April 1945 and sent to a Paris trying to convince several hospital to recuperate. to leave their homeland and work in America. Despite Berg's wartime vocation calling for Ewell Blackwell (Reds, Yankees and Athletics) anonymity, he did betray himself on one occasion. In January 1945, While at a field hospital in France, Berg could not Blackwell was sent to resist the temptation to join in a game of catch with Europe as a mess a couple of GIs. After the former major leaguer had sergeant with the made a couple of throws one of the soldiers 71st Infantry Division. remarked, "You're a pro." Soon afterwards the soldier After the cease of added, "You're a catcher," another throw and his hostilities in that area cover was blown, "and your name is Moe Berg." he played baseball for the Division team, At the beginning of December 1944, Berg attended helping them win the a lecture in Switzerland by prominent German American League physicist Werner Heisenberg. Carrying a pistol, his division of the Third orders were to shoot the scientist if there was any Army baseball indication that the Germans were close to building league. "All-star play an atomic bomb. Fortunately, Berg was not required in the European to fulfill his virtually suicidal orders as the Germans Theater is equal to were far behind in the race to build an atomic the class of the war- weapon. time major leagues," he told the United Press in August 1945. A five-game Third Army Championship Series followed in August 1945 against the National www.baseballsgreatestsacrifice.com Baseball in Wartime Newsletter No. 32 January 2015 League division winners - the 76th Onaways. With Theater. He almost lost his sight on January 3,1945, two shutouts by Blackwell - including a no-hitter in during the Battle of the Bulge, when he was struck the second game - the 71st Infantry Division Red by shrapnel from an exploding German shell. He Circlers advanced to the Army Ground Force was in hospital for eight weeks and doctors didn't Championship Series and easily put aside the 29th know whether he would be able to see until they Infantry Division in three games to move on to the removed his bandages ten days after the ETO World Series against the OISE All-Stars from operation. Following a full recovery, Chylak returned France. In front of crowds of 50,000 at Soldier's Field to the front line and received the Silver Star and in Nuremberg, Germany, the Red Circlers won the another wound before the war ended in Europe. first game, 9-2, with Blackwell allowing only five hits. Blackwell suffered his first defeat of the year in game Merv Connors (Chicago White Sox) three. Despite allowing only three hits and striking Connors served as a private with the 517th out eight, he was defeated, 2-1, by Sam Nahem of Parachute Regimental Combat Team and saw the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the decisive fifth game action during the Battle of the Bulge, receiving a Blackwell was again beaten, 2-1, on a combined Bronze Arrowhead for participating in an airborne effort by Sam Nahem and Bobby Keane (post-war combat assault.