Playing for Their Nation: Baseball and the American Military during World War II

2. Your Duty, Our Duty: Raising Funds for the War and Baseball Equipment

Aside from supplementing conventional military training and boosting servicemen’s morale, baseball served another purpose for American military leaders: as a means to raise funds for both the war effort and to offset the sizable expenses of military athletic programs. By staging exhibition games that included both service and civilian teams and accepting gate receipts from other high-profile professional contests , military officials were able to dramatically increase financial contributions to the war effort. Also, by the conclusion of the war the majority of professional players were in the service, which enabled every branch of the armed forces to employ professionals uniquely qualified to help sell war bonds, solicit charitable donations, and recruit new soldiers and sailors. Moreover, Major League baseball teams themselves donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to various war-related organizations and millions of dollars worth of athletic equipment for servicemen around the world. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, baseball executives began devising scenarios for ways in which the professional game could contribute to the war, even as some were questioning the need for the game’s very existence. Owners of professional teams not only wanted to aid the struggle against fascism by elevating Americans’ morale; they also sought to prove how financially valuable the game could be during the country’s hour of need. This financial contribution in turn would justify , at least in the eyes of the baseball owners, the continuation of the national pastime during the global crisis. The next questions then be28 Chapter 2 Your Duty, Our Duty Raising Funds for the War and Baseball Equipment came how exactly professional baseball organizations could best aid the American military and how much they should donate to the war effort. Famed baseball executive Branch Rickey expressed the opinion that baseball had an obligation to do everything within its power to bolster the Allied cause, even operating at a break-even level if necessary . Baseball, he reasoned, was so deeply embedded in the American way of life that the two were inseparable. For Rickey, professional baseball ’s fate paralleled the fate of the nation as a whole, and the thus the national pastime should not hesitate to drain its resources to support the war effort.1 Rickey’s opinion apparently reflected the consensus of Major League Baseball’s executives since both leagues together lost over $200,000 in 1943. Donations to the war effort, decreased attendance, and wartime restrictions all made it difficult for franchises to meet operating expenses, let alone generate a profit. The rapid exodus into the military of over 90 percent of Major Leaguers active at the beginning of the war only compounded these challenges. As players began to depart for military service, the quality of play naturally declined, and mediocre talent did not excite fans. During the war years, players committed an average of about 1,500 more errors per year than immediately before or after the conflict. Also, both because of the less lively balata ball introduced during the war and the profusion of less talented hitters, home runs dipped precipitously from 1942 to 1945. In marked contrast to the offensive apex the game had achieved in the decade before World War II, such developments made the game seem boring and stagnant to the diminishing number of fans who attended Major League games. The lack of talent notwithstanding, throughout the war there were compelling events on the diamond that had substantial fan appeal. In the 1945 season, the St. Louis Browns employed an outfielder named Pete Gray who hit an unremarkable .218 with no home runs. Those numbersmighthavemadeGrayjustanotheranonymousMajorLeague player with a brief and undistinguished career if not for the fact that he had achieved them without a right arm! A childhood accident had cost him virtually his entire arm, yet he grew to adulthood with a natural talent for baseball. Defying logic and critics, he hit over .300 several times at the minor league level, albeit with limited power, and was a serviceable defensive outfielder. Gray devised a remarkable your duty, our duty 29 technique for throwing the baseball back into the infield that enabled him to rival the speed of his two-handed counterparts. He would field the ball, toss it into the air, pry the glove off his hand with the stump of his right arm, pluck the ball out of the air with his now ungloved left...