Southern Region Service Baseball Dominated by Former Pros: Mulcahy and Gee

The Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) was passed in 1988 under Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci. The resulting commission was just getting the ball rolling as it recommended the closure of five U.S. Air Force bases that were deemed to no longer be of strategic importance or were fiscally unnecessary. Veterans who have served in the last three decades since those initial base closures have become quite familiar with the BRAC acronym.  In total, the Carlucci Commission eliminated 49 Army, Navy, Air Force and National Guard bases in that same year. From 1992 to 2005, an additional 151 bases were deactivated, though some were consolidated into multi-service branch joint bases, bringing the total of eliminated bases to 200 in 13 years.

Base closures are not unique to the last 30 years. The armed forces have always analyzed the need for maintaining domestic installations as well as bases in U.S. territories and on foreign soil, with many of them being shut down over the last century. In the first few years following the end of World War II, the U.S. saw an incredible reduction of active bases, many of which had been established during the early years of the war to meet the massive demand for personnel training facilities. However, the end of the war, combined with the armed forces’ changing strategies and national defense needs, demonstrated that many of the domestic bases needed to be closed.

Many of the once prominent and noteworthy service installations used during World War II, such as Rich Field (Waco, Texas), Sampson Naval Training Station (Seneca, New York) and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, remain in the minds of military and even baseball historians. Through our own baseball research, we are unearthing articles, game recaps and box scores that document star-studded and highly competitive service teams from bases whose names and locations have long since been forgotten by the average person.. It seems that each acquisition landing in the Chevrons and Diamonds Collection carries with it a story that is waiting to be uncovered, one which often reveals previously hidden history about veterans, battles, military bases and especially baseball.

This photo was part of a pair from Fort Oglethorpe that we acquired a few years ago. With two remaining to be identified, Fort Oglethorpe manager and outfielder, Staff Sergeant Joe Gee posed in his flannels on the right (Chevrons and Diamonds Collection).

In early 2019, a pair of vintage photographs was listed for sale. In each of the two photos was the same unidentified player. He posed solo next to a stand of wooden bleacher seats in one shot and stood with two other men (a teammate and an Army officer who were also unidentified) in the other. Emblazoned across the front of both players’ baseball jerseys were the letters O G L E T H O R P E in two-color athletic felt. Their flannels sported ornate soutache, applied on the button placket, surrounding the collar and extending downward from the collar to the sleeve. The photos bore no markings regarding identities, dates or location details.

Despite an absence of due diligence in researching the images, we moved forward in securing them for our collection with a commitment to identify the team and, with a measure of hope, the identities of the men in the photos.

At the time this photo arrived, the identity of this player was unknown. However, with the acquisition of a third related photograph, we were able to identify this man. Former minor leaguer and now Staff Sergeant Joe Gee is posed near bleachers, quite possibly on post at Fort Oglethorpe (Chevrons and Diamonds Collection).

Subsequent to their safe arrival, we conducted a preliminary and somewhat fruitless internet search. Unfortunately, our effort revealed scant details about the base, with merely a single baseball reference regarding a former Washington Senator baseball player, Hillis Layne, who was inducted into the U.S. Army Air Forces at Georgia’s (former) Fort Oglethorpe. The photos were scanned (including digital editing) and added to the Chevrons and Diamonds vintage photograph archive for preservation. Deterred by the minuscule search results, we tabled further research attempts.

A few days ago and nearly two years later, we acquired another photo that prompted us to revisit Fort Oglethorpe baseball once again. This “new” type-1 vintage press photo featured two players in flannels standing on opposite sides of an army officer who was conducting a coin toss. The player on the left is shown wearing the same Oglethorpe uniform as seen in our previous photos and is standing opposite the other player, whose uniform lettering reads, “2nd A R M Y.” Attached to the back of the photo is a printed caption slug that identifies all three men, one of whom (the 2^nd Army player) was former Philadelphia Phillies righthanded pitcher Hugh Mulcahy.

The photo that led to identifying Joe Gee in our other Fort Oglethorpe baseball photos was a great addition to our library. The caption slug on the reverse reads:
“August 27, 1943: Hugh Mulcahy (right), former pitcher with the Phillies, now a sergeant in the Army, calls the turn with Joe Gee (left), formerly with the Cincinnati Reds, now a staff sergeant in the Army. Tossing the coin is 1st Lt. Marvin E. Holmes, Special Services Officer of Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. The scene, “Somewhere in Tennessee,” just before the game between the Second Army team, managed by Mulcahy, and the Ft. Oglethorpe team, managed by Gee. Gee won the toss and the game….Gee Whiz…!” (Chevrons and Diamonds Collection)

Over the last few years, the Chevrons and Diamonds photo collection of vintage military baseball photographs has grown considerably. Because our collection has had relatively few images from service teams in southern states, our attention in this region has been nominal. With the acquisition of the third Fort Oglethorpe image and the details it provided us, we turned our research attention to this previously overlooked area of the nation and what we found was a wealth of baseball and military history.

The team from Fort Oglethorpe, named “All-Stars,” was dominant in its region, posting a record of 40 wins and just 10 losses during its 1943 campaign. Staff Sergeant Joseph Gee (pronounced “Jee”), after being named the team’s manager, assembled a talented squad that consisted largely of former professional players. Gee had served as the starting left fielder in 1942. The demands of an Army charged with fighting a war had decimated the Oglethorpe roster as more than 75 percent of the team members had been transferred before the 1943 campaign, including the 1942 manager, Master Sergeant Cliff Smith.

Like the men he sought out for the Fort Oglethorpe All Stars roster, Gee was himself a former professional ballplayer and an all-around athlete.  Though Baseball Reference lists only his 1935 season with the Union City Greyhounds in the Class “D” Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee League, he also spent time that season with the Wilmington Pirates (Class “B” Piedmont League) and the Monessen Reds (Class “D” Pennsylvania State Association). In 1936, Gee was with Paducah Red Birds (Class “D” Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee League), Cordele Reds (Class “D” Georgia-Florida League) and back to Paducah before his professional career came to an end. When it came to assembling his 1943 team, Gee knew how to assess talent.

Joseph Morris Gee was born on June 7, 1908 in Nashville, Tennessee, to Bessie Louise (nee’ Stull) Gee and her husband Morris Gee. Morris supported his young family as a railroad fireman, stoking steam locomotive boilers. He worked his way up to becoming a locomotive engineer. By 1920, the Gee family had grown with the additions of younger siblings (his sister Minnie Sue and brother Cameron) and was living in Memphis. Eleven-year-old Joe was beginning to play football, basketball and baseball. By 1931, Gee was a 23-year-old, first-year student at the University of the South (now known as “Sewanee: The University of the South”), where he played on the freshman football team, played basketball and ran track. By 1932, Gee was the star halfback of the varsity football team. In his junior football campaign at the university, Gee suffered an injury during an 18-0 loss to the University of Kentucky Wildcats. Two weeks later, he saw action but again he was lifted due to subsequent injuries.  After college, Gee was signed as an outfielder by Union City at the age of 27 but would be out of professional baseball for good before his 28^th birthday. With professional sports behind him, he began working in a steadier occupation for the John A. Denies Sons Company as a building materials salesman in Memphis.

As with other men who were fulfilling their Selective Service obligation, 33-year-old Gee was five years over the draft’s upper age limit due to a 1941 revision in the law that capped the peacetime draft age at 28 years of age. Gee was ten months into his 12 months of required service when the Army began separations of the over-aged men on December 5. Joe Gee, having served at Fort Oglethorpe since reporting there for his induction on February 4, was a civilian once again. However, as with other American men, Gee was no doubt stunned to learn that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7 and just 46 days later, the divorced, 33-year-old Army veteran enlisted on January 21, 1942, returning to Fort Oglethorpe.

As the armed forces ranks began to swell with the massive influx of volunteers and selectees from all walks of American life, including professional baseball, service team rosters began to be populated with considerably more baseball expertise. Competition in Fort Oglethorpe’s region ranged from marginal to keen, depending upon where the former major and minor leaguers were distributed. Fresh from its 1942 season in which the All-Stars’ roster featured just four former pro ballplayers, new manager Staff Sergeant Joe Gee saw the arrival of 13 former minor leaguers and  Frank Grigonis of the Detroit Lions (NFL) to the team for the 1943 campaign.

 

1943 Fort Oglethorpe “All-Stars”

Rank	Name	Position	Former
Cpl.	John Barger	P	Fulton (KITL)
Lt.	John “Johnny” Beazley*	P	Cardinals
Pvt.	Tommy Bergdoll	SS	Salisbury (NCSL)
Col.	Lucien S.S. Berry	Commanding
Cpl.	George Blackmore	OF
Cpl.	Les Burge	1B	Montreal (IL)
Cpl.	Greyson “Goat” Davis	OF	Greenville (APPY)
Pvt.	Lynn Dowdy	C
Cpl.	Lou Fitzgerald	3B	Americus (GAFL)
Pvt.	Del Friar	C	Savannah (SALL)
S/Sgt.	Joe Gee	Mgr./OF	Union City (KITL)
Pvt.	Frank Grigonis	C	Detroit Lions (NFL)
Pvt.	Charlie Heffner	2B/OF	Kingsport (APPY)
Lt.	Marvin C. Holmes	Spec. Svc. Off.
Pvt.	Willard Johns	UT
Sgt.	Gene Lambert	P	Phillies
S/Sgt.	Early Maxwell	Promotion Mgr.
Pvt.	Jimmy “lefty” McClure	P	Memphis (SOUA)
Sgt.	Hugh Mulcahy*	P	Phillies
Sgt.	Carvel “Bama” Rowell*	2B	Braves
Capt.	Cliff Smith	Advisor
	Tatum	LF
Pvt.	Ned Thaxton	P	Jacksonville (SALL)
Cpl.	Claude Trivett	OF	Kingsport (APPY)
Cpl.	Pat Vescova	OF	Union City (KITL)

*Made limited Appearances on Oglethorpe’s roster for exhibition/all-star games

Two of Oglethorpe’s biggest diamond threats in 1943 came from the Atlanta Naval Air Station nine and the Memphis, Tennessee-based 2^nd Army squad, led by Hugh Mulcahy.

Hugh Mulcahy spent parts of the 1935 and 1936 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies, followed by four full campaigns from 1937 to 1940. In his pre-military-service years with the Phils, Mulcahy never posted a winning record and led the National League twice with twenty or more losses.  He was a workhorse hurler for a team that was baseball’s worst in the 1937-1940 four-year-span. Even the American League’s cellar-dwelling St. Louis Browns’ 205-403 (.337 winning percentage) record was not as bad as that of the Phillies, who posted a record of 202-406 (.332). Mulcahy’s individual season records nearly mirrored those of his team. Hugh’s moniker, “Losing Pitcher” (bestowed upon him by Philadelphia sportswriters for the frequency that “LP” appeared beside his name in box scores), taken at face value, seemed justified. However, it can be argued that he suffered due to the consistently poor-performing team he played for, more than from his performance on the mound. Mulcahy appeared in 176 games in that four-year stretch, starting 128 and completing 59 with a whopping 988.2 innings pitched. Mulcahy twice led the league in earned runs and batters hit-by-pitch and in his lone All-Star season in 1940, he led the league in surrendered hits (283). Playing for the hapless Philadelphia Phillies certainly didn’t help his career. Mulcahy’s pitching performance since becoming a full-time major leaguer was less than stellar but he was showing his potential to be successful in the majors

On September 27, 1940, Hugh Mulcahy pitched his final start of the season at the Polo Grounds against the second-division New York Giants. Mulcahy pitched a gem with a four-hit shutout while his opponent, future Hall of Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell, surrendered six runs on 11 hits.  Mulcahy held the Giants’ three All-Star batters hitless – leftfielder Jo-Jo Moore (0-3), third baseman Mel Ott (0-2 with two walks) and catcher Harry Danning (0-4) – while smashing a single (one of the 11 Phillies hits surrendered by Hubbell) in the third inning. On October 16, nineteen days after his last appearance on the mound, Mulcahy registered for the United States’ first peacetime selective service at local draft board No. 112 at Newton Center, Massachusetts.

1943 Second Army (Memphis, TN)

Rank	Name	Position	Former
	Bernardi	P
	George Byam	RF	Louisville (AA)
	Carmen “Coots” Castle	LF	Birmingham
Cpl.	Ervin “Erv” Dusak	OF	Cardinals
Cpl.	Al Flair	1B	Red Sox
	Jack Griffore	P	Columbus (AA)
Pvt.	Lee Grissom	P	Dodgers
	Al Kozar	2B	Scranton (EL)
	Johnny Lang	3B	Browns
	Jim Levy	SS
Pfc.	William “Billy” Long	3B	Lancaster (ISLG)
Sgt.	Hugh Mulcahy	P	Phillies
	Jack Ridings	SS	Portsmouth (PIED)
	Lou Roede	CF	Chattanooga (SOUA)
Cpl.	Kenneth J. “Ken” Silvestri	C	Yankees
	Sofia	SS
	Floyd Yount	C	Toronto (IL)

Set to report to spring training at Miami Beach, Florida for the Phillies’ 1941 season, Mulcahy’s request to delay entry into the armed forces (citing being a partial financial provider for his parents) was denied and instead he was sworn in to the Army on March 8, becoming the first major league player to be drafted into the armed forces under President Roosevelt’s Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.  Upon entry into the Army, Mulcahy was stationed at Camp Edwards, which was 50 miles northwest of his home in Newton Center, Massachusetts. He played baseball in addition to his training assignments and normal duties.

Unlike Hank Greenberg, who entered the Army on May 7 under the Selective Service Act and was subsequently discharged on December 5 (due to the aforementioned revision of Selective Service putting the age limit at 28), Mulcahy’s service end date (March 1942) became indefinite, apparently at his own doing. The pitcher was eligible to apply for a discharge but refused. According to an article in the January 29, 1942 edition of the Muskogee Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat (Muskogee, Oklahoma), Mulcahy chose to continue his one-year obligation, stating that he wanted to “see it through.”

During our research, we noted a few contemporary sources stating that Mulcahy was separated and re-entered the service following the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; however, no records could be found to substantiate these claims.  Instead, documentation, including his Veterans Administration Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) file and newspaper reports regarding Mulcahy’s service, specifically point to his service being unbroken. “Although others, notably the Phillies’ Hugh Mulcahy, who lost a year in service and has little chance to get out now that war is on,” wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Cy Peterman in his December 10, 1941, Strictly Sports column, “preceded Bob (Feller) into uniform, he (Feller) will lead the latest contingent into service.”

After Pearl Harbor, Private First Class Mulcahy, classified as a first class machine gunner, was assigned to duty at Fort Devens, Massachusetts and added to the post’s baseball team. With the mass influx of volunteers entering the service requiring training, all branches of the armed forces were rapidly transforming from peacetime to wartime operations. Private industry began to transition to war production and President Roosevelt dispatched the “Green Light Letter” to major league baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, giving baseball the go-ahead to play the game. Service teams re-formed in the spring of 1942 with a mission of fundraising in addition to morale and recreation for the troops.

Throughout the spring of 1942, Mulcahy pitched in several fundraising games. In May, he was invited to Shibe Park to throw out the first pitch. Playing host to the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Phillies required every person in attendance to pay to gain entry. All players, umpires, vendors, law enforcement officers and attendants paid to enter the ballpark, though Mulcahy’s former teammates covered the cost of his ticket. The game was somewhat of an historic event as it marked the first twilight game in major league history with a 5:00 p.m. start time. Just four days later, with Bob Feller starting for the Norfolk Naval Training Station Bluejackets at Fenway Park, Mulcahy took the mound for the Fort Devens team in an Army vs. Navy clash. The Navy was routed, 5-0, as Mulcahy, Joe Kwasniewski and Mike Nash pitched a combined 2-hit shutout. Feller and the Navy got revenge against Mulcahy in an abbreviated game on June 14 at the Polo Grounds that was part of the All-Sports Carnival that raised over $800 million in war bonds. Feller, pitching for Quonset Point Naval Air Station, blanked Mulcahy’s Army squad, 4-0, in a five-inning contest. One of Mulcahy’s former Philadelphia teammates, Jim Carlin, accounted for three of the Navy’s runs with a home run off Hugh with two Navy men on base.

In late spring, LT Mickey Cochrane, manager of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station Bluejackets, was assembling a service all-star team consisting of former major leaguers now serving in the armed forces. It  would take on the winner of Major League Baseball’s mid-summer classic, the All-Star Game. Mulcahy was tapped by Cochrane but his ineligibility was announced due to his appointment to the Air Force Officer Candidate School in Miami Beach, Florida. Mulcahy reported to the school on July 6 and was joined by Hank Greenberg and George “Leon” Whittock, former Temple University star quarterback.

With the departure of Master Sergeant Cliff Smith, manager and first baseman for the Fort Oglethorpe All-Stars who guided his team to a 38-4 record in 1942, leftfielder Staff Sergeant Joe Gee was named to fill the void and guide the team for the 1943 season.  Picking up where M/SGT Smith left off, Gee guided his team to a 14-5 record by mid-June despite the increased level of competition from surrounding service teams whose rosters were being augmented by the influx of former professional ball players. In addition to facing base teams from Georgia, Tennessee and Florida, the Oglethorpe nine saw exhibition action against surrounding minor league teams, including the Chattanooga Lookouts.

In early February, Sgt. Mulcahy was transferred from the officer training program in Miami to Fort Bragg in North Carolina where he, in addition to his normal Army duties, authored a sports column for the base newspaper. By mid-March, Mulcahy was serving at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, where he headed the 26^th Division’s recreation program. In this capacity, he organized and formed a six-team service league with three teams at Fort Jackson, two Columbia area bases and one at Shaw Field in Sumter. Mulcahy took on pitching and managerial duties for the 26^th Infantry team.

By the middle of June, Mulcahy had pitched in his last games for Fort Jackson. On the 15^th, he made his final mound appearance at Shaw Field as he led his time to an 8-7 victory over the 334^th Bomb Group “Bombers.” Mulcahy was transferred to the Second Army in Memphis. Mulcahy’s new club was set to compete in the Midsouth Service Baseball Championship Tournament. Two of the more challenging competitors in the tournament were the Fourth Ferrying Group, headed by former Giant hurler Hal Schumacher, and the Naval Air Technical Training Center squad, managed by former Detroit Tigers infielder Johnny Lipon. In the finals, Lipon’s naval team took down the Second Army, 3-0, handing Mulcahy a rare loss.

On July 31, Oglethorpe faced Camp Campbell’s 20^th Armored Division in a regional semi-professional Tennessee-Kentucky District championship matchup. It came out on top with a ninth-inning tie-breaking run, scored by Frank Grigonis with two outs. The Oglethorpe All-Stars sealed their 25^th victory in 32 games with Sgt. Gene Lambert on the mound against the 20^th. Lambert held them to just two runs through the eighth inning, when he was spelled by Jimmy “Lefty” McClure, who pitched a scoreless bottom half of the ninth to close the game. With the win, Oglethorpe secured a birth in the National Semi-Pro Baseball Congress in Wichita, Kansas, though the team opted to play a charity game against Naval Air Station Atlanta.

By August, both Gee’s and Mulcahy’s teams were out in front of their respective regions’ leagues. Fort Oglethorpe clinched the Tennessee-Kentucky service baseball championship and accepted a challenge from Mulcahy’s Second Army for a three-game series spread throughout the month. On August 7, the first game was hosted at Nashville’s Old Hickory diamond. Though the 2^nd Army squad led by Mulcahy was stacked with six former major leaguers and a handful of minor leaguers, they were held at bay by the Oglethorpe nine, with Jimmy McClure starting for the All-Stars.  McClure limited Mulcahy’s men to just seven hits scattered throughout the game, though former Cardinal outfielder, Erv Dusak, took McClure deep for the 2^nd Army’s only run. With the score tied at one apiece in the sixth inning, Charley Heffner drove in Les Burge from second base. Though Heffner was the only Oglethorpe batsman to hit safely more than once, Burge drove in two of the three runs scored in the game.

Accepting reinforcement for an August 12 fundraising game against Naval Air Station Atlanta, the Fort Oglethorpe All-Stars roster was augmented with the temporary addition of Carvel “Bama” Rowell, whose most recent professional experience was with the Braves in Boston. “Bama,” on loan from Camp Siebert, had been a thorn in the side of Gee’s club as Siebert was responsible for three of  Oglethorpe’s seven losses that season. Also joining Gee’s team was former St. Louis Cardinal and 1942 World Series star pitcher Johnny Beazley. Beazley was serving in the USAAF and playing for the Berry Air Field nine but was brought on board in the impromptu Army versus Navy fundraising game to benefit the Army Emergency Relief fund.

Chattanooga’s Engel Stadium was packed with more than 6,500 in attendance.  With 3,500 uniformed personnel and 3,000 civilians present, the game was a success as local fans who braved the inclement weather received a taste of big league baseball and an exciting game. Beazley was on the mound against the Navy’s Joe Lazenby. After Lazenby surrendered three first-inning runs plus two more in the second to Oglethorpe, Larry Miller took over for him and held the Army to seven hits and one run. Beazley struck out 10 Navy batters while giving up five runs on 10 hits and four walks.

The Oglethorpe offense had a two-run Claude Trivett blast over the right field fence in the bottom of the second, sending Joe Lazenby to the showers. In the fourth inning, with the Army ahead, 5-2, Buddy Bates knocked a 3-1 Beazley pitch to left field, driving in two runs. The former Card only allowed two more hits for the remainder of the game, though the Navy would score an unearned run as one of the two hits plated a baserunner who reached on a walk and was moved into scoring position on an error. Private Charlie Heffner, formerly of the Kingsport Cherokees (Class “D” Appalachian League) led off the bottom of the fifth inning with a single. A wild pitch by Miller allowed him to reach second base, followed by a fielder’s choice that pushed him to third. Carvel “Bama” Rowell drove Heffner home with a base hit to left field. The score remained 6-5 through the end of the game, with Oglethorpe finishing on top.

Days after his team defeated Mulcahy’s 2^nd Army squad, manager Staff Sergeant Gee, who was also serving as the non-commissioned officer athletic director at Fort Oglethorpe, was transferred to an engineer unit at Camp Sutton, North Carolina. Initially, centerfielder Corporal Claude Trivett was the planned successor to Gee at the helm of the Oglethorpe nine; however, team captain Corporal Les Burge took over. Corporal Lon Fitzgerald, the team’s third baseman, was elevated to the role of the Oglethorpe captain as announced by Lt. Marvin Holmes, Special Services Officer at the post.

On September 14, Oglethorpe faced off against the 2^nd Army once more for the Southern Army championship. Seeking to settle the season series as well as to claim the title, manager Hugh Mulcahy slated himself to start on the mound against Oglethorpe. The game had major league billing as the ex-Philly was pitching against the 1942 World Series hero, Johnny Beazley. The two teams were dominant in the South with comparable records: Oglethorpe posted 40 wins against 10 losses but Mulcahy’s 2^nd Army boasted a record of 44-5. The two squads had faced each other twice during the season with each claiming a win. The third game would decide which team would claim the title.

Wirt Gammon of the Chattanooga Daily Times claimed the championship game was, “One of the finest ball games ever played in this section of the country,” in his September 15, 1943 article. Spectators, including more than 1,000 civilians in Fort Oglethorpe’s home park, were treated to an epic pitching duel between Oglethorpe’s Beazley and Mulcahy of the 2^nd Army, with both pitchers going the distance. The Fort Oglethorpe hurler pitched a six-hit gem, allowing only one extra base hit to Ken Silvestri. while Long, Kozar, Flair and Byam all managed singles against  Beazley’s stingy pitching. In addition, two free passes were issued to the 2^nd Army. However, it was Hugh “Losing Pitcher” Mulcahy who bested the World Series champ by tossing a three-hit shutout, propelling the 2^nd Army to the title. It was Silvestri, with just 17 major league games under his belt for the 1941 Yankees, whose bat delivered the game-winning blow, an inside-the-park home run in the top of the seventh inning. A great defensive play by centerfielder Lou Roede robbed Oglethorpe’s Tatum of a home run in the fifth inning. Aside from the pre-game billing that the outcome would decide the Southern Service Championship, an unofficial title, three more games were scheduled between to two clubs, making an eventual six-game series the way to determine the championship.  On September 29, the fifth game was played at Memphis’s Old Hickory Park, with the 2^nd Army prevailing, 6-0, as Mulcahy pitched another shutout.

In the sixth and final game of the series, played in Memphis on October 3, Mulcahy secured an 8-4 win, defeating Beazley, who surrendered 12 hits, including a three-run homer to his former Cardinal teammate, Erv Dusak. Though Mulcahy won, his 11-hit, four-run performance demonstrated the toll that the heavy pitching load was taking on his arm.

Following the championship loss to the 2^nd Army, the Oglethorpe men had one game remaining on their schedule. It was against Camp Campbell’s 20^th Armored Division. Whether reeling from their loss to the 2^nd Army or showing wear from their grueling season, Oglethorpe took an 8-2 pounding in a road game at Camp Campbell, Kentucky. With an equally impressive record to their credit, the 20^th secured their 39^th win of the season in their last game against the northern Georgia fort’s nine.

The Army career paths of the two men, Fort Oglethorpe’s Joe Gee and the 2^nd Army’s Hugh Mulcahy, diverged towards the end of the 1943 season. Mulcahy pitched for and managed the 2^nd Army squad in Memphis for most of the 1944 season until he deployed to the South Pacific as part of the 8^th Army Headquarters staff. Sailing from San Francisco on August 14 aboard the USS General John Pope (AP-110) and taking with him a hand-selected group of players (some from the 2^nd Army club) to serve and play for the troops in and around New Guinea as part of the 8^th Army. Mulcahy would land on the Philippines as part of the invasion forces to fulfill General MacArthur’s promise to remove enemy occupation forces from the islands. Mulcahy led the charge to repair Manila’s Rizal Stadium and return baseball to its diamond in the spring of 1945. Gee was discharged from the Army on September 23, 1945. Unfortunately, details regarding his life after the war are minimal. By 1960, Gee and his wife Nell were listed in the Memphis city directory. Joe was an assistant vice president in sales with the John A. Denies Sons Company, for whom he worked before the war. Gee passed away in 1985, just a few weeks shy of his 77^th birthday.

Having accumulated enough points from service tenure and time overseas, Mulcahy returned to the U.S. by the end of July and was discharged on August 5, the day before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Two days after Nagasaki was bombed, Mulcahy rejoined the Phillies on August 11 and made his first pitching appearance against the Boston Braves on August 26. Mulcahy lasted six innings and despite yielding just one earned run, a home run to Vince DiMaggio in the second inning, the Phillies’ shoddy defense in the form of three errors (including one of Mulcahy’s own) allowed three unearned Braves runs to taint his return. Mulcahy’s major league career was finished after two appearances with the Pirates in 1947, leaving him to spend the next four seasons in the minor leagues.  Baseball fans in Memphis saw the return of the 2^nd Army’s pitching hero for the 1948 and ’49 campaigns as he compiled a 28-18 record with the Chicks (Class “AA” of the American Association). His playing career behind him, Mulcahy had a lengthy player development, coaching and managing career and saw his way back to the major leagues with the Chicago White Sox as a pitching coach. Mulcahy lived the remainder of his life in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, passing away in 2001.

Fort Oglethorpe was deactivated in 1946 and subsequently sold in January, 1948. Less specific is the location of the Second Army facility that served as the post for Mulcahy’s team. In 1941, a local high school served as a short-term location before the Second Army HQ took over virtually every square inch of Cumberland University until sometime in 1943.

As has occurred many times for us in the past, an addition to the Chevrons and Diamonds photograph collection opens the door and sends us on a research expedition, only for us to discover multiple gems of baseball history which will no doubt lead to future articles in the weeks to come.