It’s come to that time; the time when these Stars and
Stripes posts get a little bit longer and way more in depth. I don’t mean that
as a bad thing by any means. I purposely withheld a lot of these teams until
the very end for the reason that there is way more to talk about, and the Los
Angeles Dodgers are certainly a team riddles with history when it comes to our
country’s military. I will apologize ahead of time if I jump around a lot. I’ll
do my best to keep it all time relevant and concise, but I can’t make any
promises.
I should probably start with my stepfather Robert. Last
summer I found myself in a very interesting place. I had been kicked out of the
MLB Fan Cave the day after Memorial Day and went back home to Oregon to stay
with my parents in Portland for a few months before I had to head back to
Eugene in the Fall to finish up my schooling. I was struggling to come to terms
with what had happened. From my standpoint I had done everything I could to
interact with every fan possible. I made every guest, whether they were a ball
player, musician, actor or even just a regular person taking a tour feel
welcome. Most important, I represented more than just the Oakland Athletics; I
did my damndest to represent everyone and every team who didn’t have a place in
the Fan Cave. And for all I did, or tried to do,
I was sent packing. Only one time in my life had I ever felt so helpless; the
biggest difference between then and now was that this time around my career was
in jeopardy. I had truly sacrificed everything, including my appearance to be
in the Fan Cave. I didn’t know what to do. Over the
next few weeks I literally sat around the house and continued watching
baseball. My brain was still locked in Fan Cave
ode and I didn’t know how to stop it. My mother did her best to try and help me
through it, but it was my stepfather who really jumped in and rung my bell.
Robert was orphaned around the age of 16. His father had
died and his mother had walked out on him and his younger brother. He did what
he could to support himself, but never let his situation get in the way of
taking time to have fun. Of all the stories he’s told me over the seven years
we’ve known each other, his time as a freelance photographer for Rolling Stone has never left my mind.
Quite a few of the photos from concerts he caught at the LA Forum he still had
in his possession (all slides) had graced the magazine in one form or another.
Concerts like: The Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin and every other
rock band from that era I routinely listen to today. Robert also took time to
catch Dodgers and Los Angeles Lakers games when he could, all while finishing
school and working at the local Carl’s Jr. in Torrance. When he was old enough
he joined the Army and sought a place within Special Forces. He made it. When
the time came and he wanted to be a paratrooper his vision was too poor for the
program and he was sent to the doctor for approval or dismissal. Not wanting to
miss his chance he forged the doctor’s signature for approval. I never knew him
during his time in the military, but I’ve done my best to piece together what I
could from that part of his life without asking too many questions. When it
comes to war, and those who have been an active participant in it, I know there
are certain questions I should and should not ask; even though I am a
journalist. The few things additionally I can tell you is that he spent a lot
of his time doing extraction work in South America and Southeast
Asia. Yah, hardcore stuff. He worked in the White House in
Intelligence during the Jimmy Carter administration. And, he was a paratrooper
instructor for years while he was stationed at Fort Bragg.
The day that part of his life came to an end was when he did a jump and his
parachute didn’t open.
The last time I took a physics class was probably well over
a decade ago when I completed by two-year degree at Clark
College in Vancouver, Washington.
Of all the things I will never forget from that class is the speed of terminal
velocity; 9.8 meters per second squared. That’s how fast he was traveling when
he luckily hit a body of water from over 10,000 feet which only managed to
break a little more than 75% of his body. It took over two years for his body
to heal, in which time his wife at the time divorced him and kept his only son
from seeing him. After hearing all of this any worry or complaint I really ever
had in my life ceased to be. During my lull he sat me down and, in so few
words, told me to get off my ass and not wallow around.
The last time I had been in such a deep depression I got
over by traveling around. I started with the Oregon
versus Ohio State Rose Bowl in 2010 and then backpacked through Western Europe by myself later that summer for
two-and-a-half weeks. He reminded me of this. He told me that I had to pick
myself up and start from scratch. It took me a few days to put something
together, but I finally set my place to travel across the country to visit all
of the Major League ballparks. Before I did so I bought Robert this hat a few
days before Father’s Day.
Over the last couple of years I’ve gotten to a point of
giving my parents really amazing gifts that I’ve kind of backed myself into a
bit of corner. I’ve never been one to settle for the mundane; everything I give
has to have a deeper meaning behind it. I was out shopping around when I
decided to stop by Just Sports (@JustSportsPDX) to say hello to my friends who
worked there and had been supporting me through my Fan Cave
experience. I think I spent an hour just letting loose with all of my stories
over the last few months before I finally took the time to actually look around
the store for anything interesting. I hadn’t picked up the Athletics Stars and
Stripes hat so I made sure to grab one in my size before it was too late. As I
walked over to the front of the store to pick it up I saw the Dodgers one
sitting next to it. I thought about it for a brief second and figured, “what
the hell?” and picked up Robert’s size. When I got home I handed it over and
gave him a hug. He’s never really worn hats so there was a slight awkward
moment when we both looked at each other and knew that part about him, but he
still thanked me nonetheless for at least being thoughtful.
From time-to-time we still talk about his military past, but
it is what it is, in the past. Much like my time with the Fan Cave,
it’s in the past. I’ve done what I can to move forward; reinvent myself, so to
speak, as a writer. Honestly, prior to this last summer I had a horrible habit
of writing, as in I never really did it unless it was vital. Now, I don’t want
to go a day without writing about something.
I’ve never really thanked him enough for everything he’s
done. For some odd reason as emotional and outspoken as I am I’ve always done a
horrible job of conveying it with spoken word. Put a piece of paper and a pen
in front of me and I can turn into Charles Dickens. Once of these days I’ll
pass this story his way. He doesn’t actually read my work. I’ll actually have
to email this to him. It doesn’t bother me. It’s just the way we are.
I have to tip my cap to the Dodgers. This season they’ve
invited astronaut, and Homer Simpson rival, Buzz Aldrin to lead the hand salute
during the National Anthem on Memorial Day. This on top of the number of years
the Dodgers have done outreach work with veterans in and outside the United States.
Since 1971 the Dodgers have gone 21-18 on Memorial Day with
four games missed due to travel/off days. As far as any patterns are concerned
the Dodgers’ best record against any opponent is 3-0 against the Colorado
Rockies and 1-0 against the Arizona Diamondbacks, while their worst is 1-3
against the New York Mets. The one bit of information I found interesting is
that the Dodgers had a weird run of games against the Cincinnati Reds around or
on Memorial Day from 1976-1981. In ’76 they played a doubleheader against the
Reds they day before they lost to the San Francisco Giants on that Monday. In
’79 they lost to the Reds by the score of 3-2 and the following year they
played a doubleheader on Memorial Day in which they split with the Dodgers
winning the early game. Last, in ’81 the Dodgers best the Reds 14-6 a week
after they played another doubleheader against one another. After that, the
Reds were no longer seen around the Dodgers on Memorial Day.
There were just too many names and players that I could have
paid tribute too for this cap… so I figured, why not put them all on there?
#1- Harold H "Pee Wee" Reese was born in Ekron, Kentucky
on July 23, 1918. He was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1938 and played
with the Louisville Colonels in the American Association. When the Pirates'
minor league agreement with the Colonels came to an end after the 1938 season,
Reese was obtained by the Boston Red Sox, who sold him to the Brooklyn Dodgers
for $35,000 and four players. Reese made his debut with Brooklyn
on April 23, 1940. He played 84 games his rookie season and batted .272,
sharing the shortstop position with player-manager Leo Durocher.
By 1942, the 24 year-old was a National League all-star but
that was to be his last season in the major leagues for the duration of the war
as he joined the Navy. Reese was stationed at Norfolk Naval Air Station in
1943, where he regularly played baseball. In 1944, he was sent to Hawaii and played for the Aiea Hospital
team. He joined the Third Fleet team for the US Navy's Pacific tour and was
then assigned to Guam where he was shortstop
and assistant coach for the 3rd Marine Division baseball team.
Throughout Reese’s 16-year career he made the National
League All-Star team 10 times, the first coming in 1942 before he shipped off
to the Navy. Upon his return in 1946 he made the All-Star team nine consecutive
times. From 1946-1955 Reese also found himself in the Top-25 voting for NL MVP,
eight of which came with the Top-nine. His best season arguably came in 1954
when he hit .309 on the season, the only year in the Majors that he ever hit
.300 or better. That year he also hit 10 home runs, eight triple and brought in
69 runs. He won one World Series ring in 1955 and played one year in Los Angeles in 1958 for a
total of 59 games. Reese was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Veteran’s
Committee in 1984. He passed away on August 14, 1999.
#2- There’s something to be said about a guy who can get out
of a bad situation with a smile on his face, and Tommy Lasorda has been doing
it for well over 60 years as a member of the Dodgers. Before his playing career
took off, so to speak, he spent two years in the Army at the tail end of World
War II in 1946-1947. He only played in the Majors for a total of three seasons
(1954-1956), the most notable of which came in 1955 when he pitched in four
games with a 13.50 ERA and a 0-0 record. Despite his poor showing, the man
still got a World Series ring. Lasorda spent a numbers of years in the Minor
Leagues, one year in particular I wrote about on January 23rd when
he was with the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League.
Lasorda's first off-field assignment with the Dodgers was as
a scout from 1961–65. In 1966, he became the manager for the Pocatello Chiefs
in the rookie leagues, then managed the Ogden Dodgers to three Pioneer League
championships from 1966–68. He became the Dodgers AAA PCL manager in 1969 with
the Spokane Indians (1969–71) and remained in the position when the Dodgers switched
their AAA farm club to the Albuquerque Dukes (1972). His 1972 Dukes team won
the PCL Championship. Lasorda was also a manager for the Dominican Winter
Baseball League team Tigres del Licey (Licey Tigers). He led the team to the
1973 Caribbean World Series Title in Venezuela with a series record of 5
wins and 1 loss. A lesser-known fact about Lasorda is that he is fluent in
Spanish, which has helped swimmingly throughout his career.
In 1973, Lasorda became the third base coach on the staff of
Hall of Fame manager Walter Alston, serving for almost four seasons. He was
widely regarded as Alston's heir apparent, and turned down several major league
managing jobs elsewhere to remain in the Dodger fold. Lasorda became the Los
Angeles Dodgers manager September 29, 1976 upon Alston's retirement. He
compiled a 1,599-1,439 record as Dodgers manager, won two World Series
championships (1981 and 1988), four National League pennants and eight division
titles in his 20 year career as the Dodgers manager. His 16 wins in 30 NL
Championship games managed were the most of any manager at the time of his
retirement. His 61 post-season games managed ranks fourth all-time behind Bobby
Cox, Casey Stengel and Joe Torre. He also managed in four All-Star games. He
was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997 as a manager in his first year of
eligibility. The Dodgers retired his uniform number (2) on August 15, 1997 and
renamed a street in Dodgertown as "Tommy Lasorda Lane". Lasorda came
out of retirement to manage the United States
team at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
He led the Americans to the gold medal, beating heavily favored Cuba, which had
won the gold medals at the two previous Olympics. In doing so, he became the
first manager to win a World Series Championship and lead a team to Olympic
Gold Medal.
This last Spring Training Lasorda showed how great of a
motivator in life, let alone baseball, he is by encouraging a disabled war
veteran by the name of Daniel Jacobs to try out for the Dodgers. Seven years
earlier, Jacobs was on a battlefield in Ramadi,
Iraq when an
IED exploded beneath him, killing the Marine with him and shattering his body.
Jacobs underwent more than 50 surgeries, including an
amputation of his left leg below the knee. Within years, he became the first
amputee to return to active duty in the Navy. One of his lifelong dreams was to
play professional baseball. Lasorda, upon hearing his story at a California
Disabled Veterans Business Alliance meeting, talked with Jacobs, did what he
could for him and convinced him to attend an open tryout. He did.
Love him or hate him, Lasorda is one of the biggest class
acts the game has ever known. One of the unfortunate blights to occur in his
heralded career took place this last fall before Game 2 of the World Series in San Francisco as the
Giants hosted the Detroit Tigers. During a pre-game ceremony the Giants paid
tribute to veterans who had fought and served during World War II. Lasorda
would be the only person booed during the presentation. And not a light boo either.
The reaction from people watching the game lit up social media networks;
however, Lasorda, being the guy that is he is, took it all with a smile. Like I
said, class act.
#4- Edwin D "Duke" Snider was born on September
19, 1926, in Los Angeles, California. “My Dad started to call me Duke
when I was just five years old,” he told The Sporting News on July 27, 1949.
“But he never did tell me why. I guess it was just one of those things that
stick.” Like a lot of players of his era, Snider was a gifted athlete in every
sport. He played tailback for the football team; however, baseball and softball
were his main focus. By the end of his high school days he was getting scouted
hard by the Dodgers, Reds and St. Louis
Cardinals, but he waited to sign with anyone until after he graduated. The
Dodgers were the first team to visit him after he finished school and signed
with them that day.
Snider was 17 years old when he reported to the Montreal Royals of the
International League in April 1944. He made just a couple of appearances with
the Royals and played the remainder of the season with the Newport News Dodgers in the Piedmont League.
Snider got off to a great start at Newport
and was hitting .342 in his first 19 games. He was later hit on the elbow by a
pitched ball and finished the season with a .295, which was still fourth best
in the league.
He returned home to California after the season, turned 18 on September 19,
and reported to the pre-induction center in the Watts section of Los Angeles for his military
physical on October 19.
"They checked us
just enough to make sure we were warm and upright," he explained in his
autobiography The Duke of Flatbush,
"and a guy handed me some papers I didn't want to know about and screamed
'NAVY!' in my face at the top of his lungs. I was headed for the high seas. I
wondered why they took me if they thought I was deaf."
Snider served as a fireman, third class on the submarine
tender USS Sperry at Guam.
Snider used to win bets against other sailors and servicemen by throwing a
baseball the length of submarines that arrived at Guam,
that's about 300 feet. "I'd throw the ball the length of their sub, my
crewmates would win $300 or so, and I'd pick up my guarantee - $50," he
recalls.
“We played lots of baseball and basketball on Guam. Pee Wee Reese was stationed there, too, but I never
bumped into him.” Snider moonlighted for the 2nd Marine Division team while on Guam as well as playing for the USS Sperry team.
In between playing
baseball, Snider's main duty on the USS Sperry was dishwashing detail.
"There was a porthole behind the sink and any time we came across a
chipped glass or dish that wouldn't come clean in less than a second we fired
the sucker into the Pacific Ocean."
Snider felt he had a
very comfortable and safe war while his father - also serving with the Navy -
was involved in many of the island invasions in the Pacific. "There was
one close call when it looked as if I was going to find myself in combat after
all," he explains in The Duke of Flatbush. "I was on watch duty on
the number one 5-inch gun when we sighted an unidentified shop ahead. The
command came down from the bridge to load the gun with a star shell that would
be fired if the ship did not respond to our signal requesting identification.
"No World Series
moment ever scared me as much. I was no authority on loading or firing shells.
All I had been told in our drills was that you press this lever, a shell comes
up, you put it in and press another lever, and the shell goes 'Boom!' I pressed
the first lever, the shell came up, and I put it into the loading chamber. I
was actually shaking while waiting for the command to fire. Two ships might
start firing at each other in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean as a small part of World War II, and I was going to be the
one to start the firing.
"Seconds before
the command to fire would have come, the other ship identified itself as
friendly. I needed an immediate change of underwear."
Snider was later stationed at Long Beach Army Air
Base in California, and while playing for the base team Babe Herman offered him
$13,000 to sign with the Pirates, but Snider had his Brooklyn commitment to
fulfill. – The Duke of
Flatbush
After serving 19
months in thee service Snider returned to the Dodgers for another season in the
minors. On April 17, 1947 Snider made his Brooklyn Dodgers debut. Snider played
for 18 seasons; his last two came with the Giants and Mets for a season each. Snider
made eight All-Star Game appearances for his career. His lifetime average was .295
with 407 home runs, 1,333 RBI and 2,116 hits. He won two World Series rings in
1955 in Brooklyn and in 1959 in Los
Angeles. The Dodgers won the World Series in 1963;
however, Snider was playing for the Mets that season. Snider never won an NL
MVP award; the closest he came was a second place finish to his teammate Roy
Campanella in 1955, a decision that was marred with controversy for years. In
1980, his 11th year of eligibility, Snider was elected to the Hall
of Fame with 86.5% of the vote. He passed away on February 27, 2011.
#42- No offense
to Jackie Robinson, but I all ready did an extensive piece on his back on April 15th. In that post I didn’t say much about his time in the military
so I’ll use this time to focus on it. In 1942, Robinson was drafted and
assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit in Fort Riley, Kansas.
Having the requisite qualifications, Robinson and several other black soldiers
applied for admission to an Officer Candidate School (OCS) then located at Fort Riley.
Although the Army's initial July 1941 guidelines for OCS had been drafted as
race-neutral, practically speaking few black applicants were admitted into OCS
until after subsequent directives by Army leadership. As a result, the
applications of Robinson and his colleagues were delayed for several months.
After protests by heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis (then stationed at Fort
Riley) and the help of Truman Gibson (then an assistant civilian aide to the
Secretary of War), the
men were accepted into OCS. This common military experience spawned a personal
friendship between Robinson and Louis. Upon finishing OCS, Robinson was
commissioned as a second lieutenant in January 1943.
Shortly afterward, Robinson and Isum were formally engaged.
After receiving his commission, Robinson was reassigned to Fort Hood, Texas,
where he joined the 761st "Black Panthers" Tank Battalion. While at Fort Hood, 2LT
Robinson often used his weekend leave to visit the Rev. Karl Downs, President
of Sam Huston College (now Huston-Tillotson
University) in nearby Austin,
Texas; Downs had been Robinson's pastor at Scott United
Methodist Church
while Robinson attended PJC.
An event on July 6, 1944, derailed Robinson's military career. While awaiting results of hospital tests on the ankle he had injured in junior college, Robinson boarded an Army bus with a fellow officer's wife; although the Army had commissioned its own unsegregated bus line, the bus driver ordered Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused. The driver backed down, but after reaching the end of the line, summoned the military police, who took Robinson into custody. When Robinson later confronted the investigating duty officer about racist questioning by the officer and his assistant, the officer recommended Robinson be court-martialed. After Robinson's commander in the 761st, Paul L. Bates, refused to authorize the legal action, Robinson was summarily transferred to the 758th Battalion—where the commander quickly consented to charge Robinson with multiple offenses, including, among other charges, public drunkenness, even though Robinson did not drink.
By the time of the court-martial in August 1944, the charges
against Robinson had been reduced to two counts of insubordination during
questioning. Robinson was acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers. The
experiences Robinson was subjected to during the court proceedings would be
remembered when he later joined the MLB and was subjected to racist attacks.
Although his former unit, the 761st Tank Battalion, became the first black tank
unit to see combat in World War II, Robinson's court-martial proceedings
prohibited him from being deployed overseas, thus he never saw combat action.
After his acquittal, he was transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky,
where he served as a coach for army athletics until receiving an honorable
discharge in November 1944. While there, Robinson met a former player for the Kansas
City Monarchs of the Negro American League, who encouraged Robinson to write
the Monarchs and ask for a tryout.
Robinson took the former player's advice and wrote Monarchs' co-owner Thomas
Baird.
VS- As if this post wasn’t long enough, I felt it would be a disservice if I didn’t talk about another one of the longest tenured employees in Dodgers’ history. Vin Scully, the voice of God for Dodgers and baseball fans has spent 64 seasons with the Dodgers (1950 – present) and is the longest tenure of any broadcaster with a single team in professional sports history, and he is second by one year to only Lasorda in terms of number of years with the Dodgers organization in any capacity. After serving in the Navy for two years, Scully began his career as a student broadcaster and journalist at Fordham University. While at Fordham, he helped found its FM radio station WFUV (which now presents a Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award each year), was assistant sports editor for Volume 28 of The Fordham Ram his senior year, sang in a barbershop quartet, played center field for the Fordham Rams baseball team, called radio broadcasts for Rams baseball, football, and basketball, got a degree, and sent about 150 letters to stations along the Eastern seaboard. He got only one response, from CBS Radio affiliate WTOP in Washington, which made him a fill-in.
Scully was then recruited by Red Barber, the sports director
of the CBS Radio Network, for its college football coverage. Scully impressed
his boss with his coverage of a football game from frigid Fenway
Park in Boston, despite having to do so from the
stadium roof. Expecting an enclosed press box, Scully had left his coat and
gloves at his hotel, but never mentioned his discomfort on the air. Barber
mentored Scully and told him that if he wanted to be a successful sports
announcer he should never be a "homer" (openly showing a rooting
interest for the team that employs you), never listen to other announcers, and
keep his opinions to himself.
In 1950, Scully joined Barber and Cornelius (Connie) Desmond
in the Dodgers radio and television booths. When Barber got into a salary
dispute with World Series sponsor Gillette in 1953, Scully took Barber's spot
for the 1953 World Series. At the age of 25, Scully became the youngest man to
broadcast a World Series game (a record that stands to this day). Barber left
the Dodgers after the 1953 season to work for the Yankees. Scully eventually
became the team's principal announcer. Scully announced the Dodgers' games in
Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles.
Scully's view of the game was always wider than what was
happening on the field in front of him. In a game in Ebbets Field in 1957, an
odd series of game-related events required the Dodgers to use their
third-string catcher, Joe Pignatano, in the middle of the game. Scully knew
that Pignatano's wife had recently had a baby and she was not at the game – she
might not be listening to the broadcast. Not wanting her to miss her husband's
major league debut behind the plate, he suggested that any listeners who might
know the Pignatano family should pick up the phone and alert them.
Little mentions like that, and especially the long stories
that we’ve heard from Scully for years are what separate him from any other
broadcaster most of us have heard throughout our lives. Scully has the ability
to establish a connection with not only the players, but the audience as well
to transcend what is merely seen on the baseball field, he humanizes the game.
