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One Last Pitch Before I Die

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One Last Pitch Before I Die Before Before I Die One Last Pitch One Last Pitch Gary Bedingfield Baseball in Wartime Newsletter Vol. 8 No. 44 July 2016 One Last Pitch Before I Die Baseball had been a way of life for many of those who served in the military during World War II, but for most, it was a distant memory – a fading recollection of summers long since passed – as the rigors of army life and the instinct for survival became all encompassing. So, had baseball figured in the lives of men shortly before they went into combat or even lost their lives in service? Was the grip of horsehide, the scent of glove leather and the perfect balance of a wood bat still fresh in their minds? The answer is yes, and “One Last Pitch Before I Die” recounts those events. From game-day tragedies to week-later combat in Normandy, baseball was not always such a distant memory. On the Home Front Major Serventi Baseball had been Serventi's life. He'd had a taste of pitching in the Pacific Coast League and was proudly serving his country in the uniform of the United States Army while still playing baseball at the weekends. Growing up in Oakland, California, was all about baseball for Marcello L. "Major" Serventi. At the age of 16, he was pitching for Technical High School, the O.K. Batteries sandlot team, the St. Columba team of the Catholic Youth Organization league, and Post 5, the Bay Area American Legion junior baseball champions. It’s not surprising that in the summer of 1934, it was announced that he’d signed with the Oakland Oaks for 1935. Serventi made some strong appearances for the Oaks during spring training but was farmed out to the Vancouver Senior A League where he played for the Athletics and won 12 games, returning to the Oaks in September to make three appearances. Back with Oakland in 1936, Serventi made eight appearances for the team for a 1-0 record, and made 17 early-season appearances for the Oaks in 1937, before being given his release in June. He immediately signed with the Seattle Rainiers who farmed him to the Wenatchee Chiefs of the Class B Western International League, where he was 10-11 with a 4.08 ERA and an all-star selection. Serventi spent 1938 with the Rainiers in the Pacific Coast League, making 26 appearances and was 2-4 with a 4.55 ERA. In 1939, the club sent him to the Spokane Hawks of the Western International League, where he established himself as an excellent starting pitcher. His 17-13 record - which included five wins in eight days - One Last Pitch Before I Die (Gary Bedingfield) P a g e | 1 was to be a career best and he led the league with 266 innings pitched, while his 194 strikeouts was second best in the circuit. Serventi must have hoped for a spot on the Rainiers' pitching staff for 1940, but found himself back at Spokane where he put in another sterling performance and was 16-10 despite an inflated 6.09 ERA. On February 1, 1941, Serventi entered military service with the army. He was stationed at Fort Ord, on the Monterey Bay Peninsula, about 100 miles south of Oakland, and traveled each Sunday to Oakland to play ball with the semi-pro Ben's Golden Glow team. Serventi had the makings of an excellent soldier. He was 24 years old, quickly rose to the rank of private first class, and was well on his way to becoming a corporal. But on July 4, 1941, Serventi was returning to Fort Ord after a game in Oakland when his car smashed into a power pole. He suffered severe injuries and died the following day. "The story of Serventi's death rated only a couple paragraphs on the bottom of a sports page," eulogized Oakland Tribune sports editor Art Cohn. "But to us, his friends, we want to think of him as a champion who didn't quite make the grade, a swell fellow who if he didn't make a name in baseball left one as a soldier." Pete Rehkamp Pete Rehkamp was a promising young minor league pitcher with a no-hitter under his belt. But a catastrophic accident brought an abrupt end to the young airman's life. Charles J. "Pete" Rehkamp was a well-known semi-pro pitcher in Covington, Kentucky. He signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs of the Class AA International League in 1938, and spent most of the season with the Goldsboro Goldbugs of the Class D Coastal Plain League for the remainder of the season. Rehkamp had a 6-13 won-loss record with the Goldbugs and struck out 84 in 151 innings. In 1939 and 1940, he pitched for the Lenoir Indians of the Class D Tar Heel League, posting a 10-6 record for the second-place team with a 3.55 ERA in ’39, and an 8-6 record along with a no-hitter in ‘40. The Tar Heel League folded following the 1940 season and Rehkamp pitched for the Landis Senators and the Lexington Indians of the Class D North Carolina State League in 1941. He had a combined 6-15 won-loss record and 5.50 ERA in 29 appearances. In September 1941, Rehkamp entered military service with the Army Air Force and served as a private with the 859th Signal Corps at Selfridge Field in Michigan. Pitching for the Selfridge Field Flyers in 1942, Rehkamp had a superb record, winning 16 of his 19 starts. On August 16, he put in a particularly fine performance, hurling the Flyers to a 9-1 win against the Northern Kentucky All-Stars, and helped the team to a 7-5 win over the semi-pro East Side Coals of Detroit on September 5. The following day - September 6, 1942 - Rehkamp, John White (captain of the Flyers' baseball team) and Wayne Brown (who had only enlisted two days earlier) took a three-day furlough to visit Brown's parents in Atlanta, Michigan. Rehkamp drove the One Last Pitch Before I Die (Gary Bedingfield) P a g e | 2 250 miles, and he and White both played in a ball game on Tuesday while in Atlanta. The three men began the journey back to Selfridge Field on the evening of Tuesday, September 8. At around 4:50 A.M., Wednesday morning, Rehkamp was driving along Hall Road, north of Mount Clemens, Michigan, just three miles from Selfridge Field, when their vehicle collided with an 80-car Grand Trunk Railroad freight train at the railroad intersection. Two box cars carrying lumber were derailed and ran for 300 feet before turning over in a ditch. The automobile was demolished. Rehkamp was dead on admittance to the base hospital at Selfridge Field, Brown was seriously injured and, miraculously, White suffered only minor injuries. Railroad workmen labored until 11:30 A.M. to clear the tracks of wreckage and Sheriff Jacob F. Theut termed the crossing, "one of the most dangerous in the state." He pointed out that no warning lights protected motorists and that the accident was one of a series in recent years at the crossing. Rehkamp's funeral took place on Friday, September 11, 1942. Requiem High Mass was sung at St. Augustine Church in his hometown of Covington, and he was buried at the Mother of God Cemetery. Gene Stack Stack was the pitching ace for the Fort Custer Reception Center baseball team, but a sub-par mound performance in June 1942 was followed by tragedy. Gene Stack (born Eugene F. Stachowiak) signed a professional contract with the Chicago White Sox in 1940, and was assigned to the Lubbock Hubbers of the Class D West Texas-New Mexico League, where he had a sensational rookie season. In 31 games, he had a 19-11 record and 3.84 ERA, and his 238 strikeouts were second highest in the league. "I was 13 that summer," recalled Bill Cope of Lubbock. "We had a sandlot baseball league of four or five teams and played on a field across from the old Texas Tech gymnasium. Somehow, Gene Stack and another Hubber, Steve Sakas, learned about the games and started coming there some afternoons when they were in town and watched and encouraged us and gave us some pointers. We thought this was great because these were real professionals and our idols and we were at the ballpark for just about every Hubbers' game." Chicago White Sox manager, Jimmy Dykes, was singing Stack’s praises at the end of the season and announced in December 1940 that he was inviting the 22-year-old to join the White Sox at their 1941 Pasadena, California, training camp. In the One Last Pitch Before I Die (Gary Bedingfield) P a g e | 3 meantime, however, Stack received his military draft notice and was ordered to report for duty at Fort Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan, on January 7, 1941, making him technically the first player from a major league roster to be drafted by the military. To the professional baseball world, it may have seemed that the young hurler had swapped flannels for khakis, but Stack still found plenty of time for baseball. He became a mainstay of the Fort Custer Reception Center team. With a line-up that included the Tigers' Hank Greenberg, and minor leaguers Bob Ogle, Truman Connell and Jack Egan, the team was coached by Captain George Zegolis, former Wayne University player, and won the national amateur championship of the American Baseball Congress on September 29, 1941, with a 3-2 win over Charlotte, North Carolina.
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