Monthly Archives: March 2022
Dizzy Dean Settles Score with Lt. Ted Lyons in Iowa
After hanging up his cleats with his 1941 release from the Chicago Cubs and his Cooperstown destination cemented, the Gashouse Gang pitching legend, Jay Hanna “Dizzy” Dean traded his position on the mound for one behind the radio microphone.
By 1947, as the Browns’ play-by-play man, ‘Ol Diz was vocalizing his discontent with the pitching of the St. Louis pitchers’ performance during game broadcasts. Sports Illustrated’s Ted O’Leary noted in his September 28, 1964 piece, Short Noisy Return of Dizzy, that his oral frustrations such as, “What’s the matter with that guy? Why don’t he throw that fast one? Dawg gone, I don’t know what this game’s acomin’ to. I swear I could beat nine out of 10 of the guys that call themselves pitchers nowadays,” drew the ire of Browns hurlers’ wives. O’Leary wrote, “They were not too keen on going to the ball park to witness the humiliation of their husbands. Most of the pitchers’ wives began calling both [Browns Owner Bill] DeWitt and Dean on the phone. ‘If that big lug thinks he can do any better than my husband, why doesn’t he get out there and try?’ one wife asked DeWitt.”
St. Louis was firmly entrenched in its familiar low position in the American League standings, inspiring discontented fans to stay at home, leaving Sportsman’s Park with an abundance of empty seats for late season games. Bill DeWitt saw an opportunity to create a little bit of fan interest and perhaps to satisfy the Browns’ wives by calling Dean’s bluff. DeWitt signed Dizzy to a $1 contract on September 17, giving the pitcher a little more than a week to get into shape. As if seeing the beloved Cardinals pitcher wearing a rival Cubs uniform from 1938-41 was not bad enough, fans of the National League St. Louis club saw the 37-year-old suit up for the Browns to face the visiting Chicago White Sox on September 28 for the last game of the season. Dean pitched the first four innings and surrendered three hits and a walk before he was pulled in favor of reliever Glen Moulder, who gave up five runs on five hits and four walks to lose the game.
Sitting and watching in the visitor’s dugout, White Sox second-year manager Ted Lyons may have been recalling that moment he saw Dean first don the Browns’ colors just a few years earlier. Despite what the record books reflect, Dizzy’s four shutout inning performance for the Browns in 1947 was not the first time he suited up for the perennial American League second-division dwellers.
More than two weeks following Mickey Cochrane’s Great Lakes Naval Training Station Bluejackets’ 5-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs, Davenport, Iowa’s Quad-City Times announced on June 25, 1943 that an exhibition game would be played at Davenport’s Municipal Stadium (known today as Modern Woodmen Park), home of the independent league Maroons. Arranged by the Quad-City Athletic Club, the contest was set to bring major league baseball back to the small ballpark situated above the levy on the bank of the Mississippi River, with a big league club facing off against a service team from the Windy City of Chicago. “We had a chance to book several service clubs in here for that night,” club president Jack Lagomarcino told the Quad-City Times. “But when we heard that Teddy Lyons was pitching for the Marines in Chicago, that was all we wanted to know.” Lagomarcino continued, “We got in touch with him and his officers, and they agreed to the game.” Anticipating drawing a large crowd, the ballpark was expanded by 1,500 to accommodate 8,000 fans for what was being billed as “Ted Lyons Night” on July 13.
Theodore Amar Lyons, a stalwart pitcher for 20 seasons with the White Sox, enlisted into the Marine Corps on November 1, 1942. The future Hall of Fame enshrinee applied for the Marine Corps Officers Training program on October 12 and ten days later divested his financial interest in his south side Chicago bowling alley business in preparation for departure. The 41-year-old told reporters that he hoped to pitch every day for the Marines rather than his once-weekly rotation with the Chicago club, according to the October 22 edition of The Times of Streator, Illinois.
Lyons trained at Quantico, Virginia, completing his training and being commissioned as a second lieutenant. While undergoing his Marine Corps instruction, he joined former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Ike Pearson on the Quantico nine.
After detaching from his training school commands, Lyons was assigned duty at the Naval Air Technical Training Center, Marine Aviation Detachment at the Navy Pier in Chicago, where he assumed duties as the athletics officer in charge of combat conditioning and physical training. By early June, Lyons was with the Navy Pier Aero-Macs baseball team, whose roster was an aggregation of Navy and Marine Corps players. On June 2, the Aero-Macs faced the East Chicago Sox, a semipro club, and Lyons was added to the lineup for duties on the mound. Unfortunately, the results of the game are unknown. With the Navy Pier command’s primary role as a training center, the baseball team roster was in constant flux. By the end of June, the positions were filled entirely with Marines.
Taking the reins of the Navy Pier Marines team, Lt. Lyons prepared the players to face their scheduled opponent, the St. Louis Browns. Unlike Cochrane’s major and minor league star-studded Bluejackets roster, Lyons’ 21 “leatherneck” players were true amateurs, pulled together from four separate Marine Corps training squadrons. Staff Sergeant James G. Hallet, the shortstop, served as the detachment’s acting first sergeant. For weeks leading up to the game, the team prepared to face seasoned professionals. Aside from perfecting their defense and base running acumen, Lyons had to prepare the men to face major league pitching, which the former White Sox ace provided healthy doses of in practice. However, the Marines were in for quite a surprise when the Browns announced their starting pitcher four days ahead of the game.
“Dizzy is not signing a contract, and by no means is it to be construed that he is joining the Browns except to face his old friend, Ted Lyons,” manager Sewell told reporters. “Dean is not returning to organized baseball except for the one night,” The Dispatch (Moline, Illinois) reported on Friday, July 9. In 1943, Dean was reportedly earning $10,000 to broadcast both Browns and Cardinals games in St. Louis and was two years removed from pitching for the Cubs. “You bet your boots I’ll pitch for the Browns next Tuesday night,” Dean stated. “Ted Lyons made the crack once that he could beat me in my best days. I’ll show him in Davenport that my best days are not over. I guarantee you that I will strike out that old man once,” the former Cardinals great boasted.
Newspapers touted the event for several days leading up to the day of the game. Despite all the press and the expanded seating, slightly more than half of the seats were filled. Both veteran pitchers were slated to hurl the first three frames.
Navy Pier Marines:
| Rank | Player | Pos. |
| Pvt. | Grover C. Boldt | 2B |
| Corp. | Somes J. Dagle | LF |
| S.Sgt. | James G. Hallet | SS |
| Corp. | James L. Coldiron | CF |
| Pvt. | Charles F. Wallraff | C |
| Pvt. | Lee F. Houser | 3B |
| Sgt. | Frank L. Klein | RF |
| Pfc. | Kenneth Callewaert | 1B |
| Capt. | Theodore “Ted” Lyons | P/Mgr. |
| Corp. | Samuel E. House | P |
Before the game started, the two teams engaged in field events that included 100-yard dash races, a long-distance throwing competition and throwing for accuracy. It was all business when the Browns took the field for the top of the first inning and Dizzy strode to the mound. For several weeks, Dean had worked on strength training and other conditioning, ensuring that his arm was in peak form. Marine second baseman Boldt and left fielder Dagle were retired for the first two outs but SSGT Hallet doubled off Dean. He was gunned down by right fielder Al Zarilla as he attempted to stretch the safety to a triple. Lyons retired the side in the bottom of the frame, with both teams coming up empty. The Browns struck first in the bottom of the second inning following Zarilla’s single. Marines catcher Wallraff muffed a pitch, allowing Zarilla to reach second on the passed ball while a throwing error by shortstop Hallet moved the runner to third. Joe Schultz singled to drive Zarilla home. The Marines countered in the top of the third, with successive hits by Callewaert and Dagle evening the score, 1-1. Dean’s night was done, his having surrendered five hits and striking out one. Archie McKain took over for Dean to pitch the middle three innings.
In the bottom of the third frame the knotted score did not last as the Browns moved ahead by a run, only to have the Marines tie the game in the top of the fourth as McKain allowed the final leatherneck score. Lyons finished the bottom of the fourth with the game tied at two runs apiece. The former White Sox pitcher allowed two runs while striking out three Browns.
Corporal Samuel E. House hurled the last five frames but allowed the Browns to tally four runs. He struck out nine Browns, walking three. The Browns secured the 6-2 win, aided by Fritz Ostermueller’s brilliant pitching. Ostermueller struck out seven of the nine Marines he faced during innings 7, 8 and 9. In the weeks following the game and with the completion of their aviation training, most of the Marine players were detached and transferred to their wartime assignments. By August, Lt. Lyons was assigned to duty at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, California.
This copy of the game’s scorecard is a recent arrival to the Chevrons and Diamonds Collection, donated by a baseball historian, colleague and friend. From the front cover to the back, the program consists of 12 pages, with the majority of the content being dedicated to advertising support. In addition to the team scoring grid pages, separate pages include the team rosters (view the complete scorecard).
With just 4,500 fans at the game, our scorecard is certainly a scarce piece. With only the first few frames of each team’s grids scored, it appears that the original owner was in attendance solely for the spectacle of the two pitching greats squaring off. The lineups on our scorecard differ from the actual game record due to the last-minute changes submitted by each team’s manager after the pieces were printed.
Navy Pier Marines reserve players:
| Rank | Player | Pos. |
| Pfc. | John J. Adamcik | |
| Sgt. | John A. Bercich | |
| Pfc. | Trifko Culibrk | 1B |
| Pvt. | Nick Fasso | |
| Pfc. | Harold Kendall | |
| Pfc. | Charles J. Misko | |
| Pfc. | Elmer W. Mory | |
| Pfc. | Robert E. Rudewick | |
| Sgt. | Dallas R. Stahr | |
| Pvt. | John Steiger | |
| Pvt. | Everett R. Sumpter |
The booklet-sized, 9-inch by 6-inch piece is in excellent condition with very minor wear showing on the pages. The staples, though rusting slightly, are solid and the pages are held firmly in place. The real treasure in this piece lies within the roster of Lyons’ team, which has enabled us to shed light upon an aggregation of regular Marines who, while serving their country, stood in the batter’s box against one the game’s pitching legends.
In researching the Marines players in pursuit of professional baseball experience, only Private Everett Sumpter, shown on our scorecard as “Simpter,” played organized ball, He didn’t play until 1947, when he was with the Lamesa Lobos of the class C West Texas-New Mexico League. Following his duty as the non-commissioned officer in charge of drill and instruction as part of Headquarters Squadron, Marine Aviation Detachment, Sergeant Dallas R. Stahr was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross medal in the Pacific Theater. The balance of the squad, while not as highly decorated as Sergeant Stahl, served throughout the war, with a few continuing to retirement from the Marine Corps.
Photo Bombers: Paired Hickam Team Photo and Signed Ball
After the final out was made in the 11th game of the 1944 Serviceman’s World Series on the Island of Kauai, the landscape of service baseball in Hawaii was drastically reformed for 1945 with respect to the spring and summer teams and leagues. When the season ended ahead of the Serviceman’s World Series, the Army’s 7th AAF team was standing alone atop the mountain of Hawaii Baseball by finishing first in the Central Pacific Area (CPA) League standings, sweeping the Hawaii League’s Cartwright Series and claiming the CPA League’s championship in a best-of-three series by sweeping the Aiea Naval Hospital club.
Following the holiday season, baseball on Oahu was set to recommence without the previous season’s champion. The powerhouse 7th Army Air Force squad, loaded with major league stars, including Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, and Red Ruffing, three Yankees and future members of the Hall of Fame, was dissolved. While Ruffing and DiMaggio were back in the States, the remainder of the team was distributed among other area Army teams.
The 1945 Hickam Field “Bombers” roster, when viewed as a cumulative total over the course of the season, appears as a sizeable aggregation of players. Numbering nearly 65 players in total, the roster was actually in flux with each passing month. The team that finished the season was quite different from the group that began play in the Honolulu League in January. During the middle months of their campaign, an influx of former major leaguers from Army airfield teams on the mainland resulted in the displacement of several players to other league teams. By August, many of the Bombers were starring on civilian rosters in Hawaii due to rule changes restricting service teams from playing in civilian leagues. Despite the season’s impacts due to military leadership decisions, the Hickam squad lived up to pre-season expectations.
Introduced to the public by the Honolulu Advertiser on January 28, the Hickam Bombers squad was built around a core of players from the 1944 7th AAF squad, including standouts Ferris Fain (San Francisco Seals), Dario Lodigiani (Chicago White Sox) and Eddie Funk (Federalsburg). Outfielder and pitcher Izzy Smith, a star semipro player hailing from Sacramento who was wrested from his centerfield position by Joe DiMaggio in June, 1944 and subsequently transferred to the Wheeler nine, was joined by James Hill (catcher), John Andres (outfield) and John Bialowarczuk (second base), thus rounding out the 7th AAF contingent. Former Detroit Tigers rookie Shortstop Billy Hitchcock arrived from Greenville Army Air Base to play third, with Martin “Luau” Pigg taking turns in the outfield with George Sprys.
| Player | Position | Former |
| Joe “Moe” Ambrosio | Batboy | |
| John Andre | OF | Honolulu League |
| John (Murphy) Bialowarczuk | 2B | Perth-Amboy (Semi-Pro) |
| Bill Birch | P | |
| Robert Bodo | 1B | |
| Lefty Brazuski | P | |
| Bill Dillon | Eqp Mgr | |
| Ferris Fain | 1B | San Francisco (PCL) |
| Fartitti | OF | |
| Eddie Funk | P | Federalsburg (ESHL) |
| John Gettle | OF | |
| Roy Grefe | Mgr. | |
| George Haynie | 2B | |
| Lefty Harder | OF | |
| James Hill | C | |
| Billy Hitchcock | 3B | Tigers |
| Dario Lodigiani | SS/Coach | White Sox |
| John Moore | OF | |
| Paul Pancotto | C | Sheboygan (WISL) |
| Melvin “Luau” Pigg | 2B | Pampa (WTNM) |
| John Powers | OF | |
| Bill Salveson | P | |
| Don Schmidt | P | Seton Hall College |
| Alec Shersky | OF | |
| Izzy Smith | P | Semi-Pro |
| George Sprys | OF | Charleston (MATL) |
| Steve Tomko | Trainer | |
| Eddie Wall | P |
The 10-team league included service teams from Tripler General Hospital, Hawaiian Air Depot, Wheeler Airfield, Fort Shafter, and Bellows Field along with an Army Engineer nine and the Eagles, an all-colored ball club. Two area civilian clubs, Kaimuki and Waikiki, were also league participants. Hickam was off to a fast start from the outset of Honolulu League competition with Eddie Funk’s pitching setting the pace in his first appearance of the season for the Bombers. On February 1 against Tripler, the former Federalsburg Athletic turned in a masterpiece by striking out 15 Tripler men on his way to a two-walk no-hitter at home. Six days later against the Kaimukis, Funk surrendered seven hits while fanning 11 in the 13-3 victory. Fain led the Bomber attack by scoring two tallies and driving in four.
By the end of March 25, Hickam was firmly in second place in the Honolulu League standings. Wheeler was out in front with a won-lost record of 19-2 with the Bombers three games behind at 16-5. Fort Shafter (15-5) and Bellows Field (14-7) rounded out the top four clubs. Eddie Funk was carrying an eight-game win streak and Ferris Fain’s .448 batting average was good enough for second place in the league behind the .485 of Kaimuki’s Muramoto. Fain led all batters with 23 RBIs.
While the Honolulu League’s season was underway, the 15-team Central Pacific Base Command (CPBC) All-Army League competition commenced on April 1. Bellows, Wheeler, and Hickam were the premier clubs in the CPBC league and played games between contests in the Honolulu League.
As the Honolulu League season was winding to a close, Hickam trailed Wheeler by three games with three left to play heading into a matchup between the two teams on April 3. Wheeler needed only to beat Hickam to secure the championship. With only 3,500 on hand at Honolulu Stadium, the Wingmen sent Carl DeRose to the mound to quell the Bomber bats; however, it was not to be. DeRose was assaulted by Hickam batters as he surrendered 10 hits and seven runs. His troubles with control made his outing even more troublesome as he issued six free passes. Hickam’s 7-3 advantage did not rest entirely on DeRose’s shoulders when he was pulled after 5-2/3 innings. His defense committed five errors along the way.
Despite plating eight runs in the game, Hickam stranded 16 base runners. Bomber starter Don Schmidt helped himself at the plate with two hits, driving in two runs while scoring one. Trailing 8-3 in the bottom of the ninth, the Wingmen staged a comeback attempt, exiting the game after getting three runs, with the Bombers’ Salveson entering in relief to close out the game. With the 8-6 victory, the Bombers pulled to within two games. The Bombers’ hopes were dashed as Wheeler closed out the season the following day with an easy 4-3 victory over Waikiki, giving the league title to the Wingmen.
The culmination of the three-month season resulted in the Hickam squad coming together as a well-oiled club. Manager Dario Lodigiani’s use of talent in the right situation resulted in a highly competitive Bombers team. Two of his players garnered post-season awards. Billy Hitchcock, who arrived on the island after the season started and missed several early games, claimed prizes of war bonds and fruit bowls for leading the league in runs scored (34) and tying teammate Ferris Fain in RBIs (29). In addition to his shared RBI champion award, Fain also claimed the prize for doubles (10). Eddie Funk, Fain, Lodigiani and Hitchcock were named Honolulu League All-Stars.
The lion’s share of hardware and accolades went to the Wheeler Wingmen along with the league pennant, much to the disappointment of Hickam brass as the Honolulu League championship playoffs, known as the Cronin Series, were set to commence on Wednesday, April 11. The teams that qualified for the Series in addition to Wheeler and Hickam were the Bellows Flyers, Fort Shafter Commandos and Honolulu League All-Stars.
On the opening day of the round-robin play, the Honolulu Advertiser wrote, “Manager Mike McCormick’s Wingmen, who won the Honolulu league pennant with 23 wins against three defeats, will be pressed hard for the Cronin Series championship,” in the article Wingmen, Shafter Open Cronin Series Tonite at Hon. Stadium. In the run up to the close of the regular season, the Bombers were playing their best as they fought to the end. “The most improved team in the circuit during the final stages of league play was Hickam, and Manager Dario Lodigiani’s Bombers are favored in many quarters to beat the other teams to the wire in this series,” the piece said. Despite having pitchers Rugger Ardizoia, who won 12 consecutive games to close out the season, and Carl DeRose, the Wingmen were lacking in starters to carry them to the title.
The Honolulu Advertiser’s predictions appeared to be accurate in the opening game of the series as Shafter dismantled Ardizoia with five hits and three runs in the first three frames on the way to a 5-1 win over the pennant-winning Wingmen. Hours later, news of the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reached the islands, which compelled organizers to postpone the upcoming weekend games until the following weekdays out of respect for the President.
After the first week of play, Shafter was out in front with a won-lost record of 2-0. Hickam’s 2-1 record, after their series-opening loss to Bellows, placed them a half game behind. Wheeler also fell behind, dropping two games and winning just one. On April 20, fifteen Army baseball stars landed on Oahu. George “Birdie” Tebbetts, Enos “Country” Slaughter, Howie Pollett, George Gill, Stan Rojek, Roy Pitter and John Jensen were among the newly arrived contingent. They reported for duty with Hickam. Unfortunately for several of the seasoned Bomber players, the roster additions translated to reassignments to other teams. Among the transfers, two of the team’s stars, Paolo “Paul” Pancotto (C) and Isadore “Izzy” Smith (OF) were sent to the civilian Wanderers club of the Hawaii League along with Joe Sciurba (2B), Melvin “Luau” Pigg (OF) and James Hill (C).
| Player | Position | Former |
| John “Johnny” Beazley | P | Cardinals |
| Geroge Gill | P | Tigers/Browns |
| Johnny “Swede” Jensen | LF/CF | San Diego (PCL) |
| Roy Pitter | P | Binghamton (EL) |
| Howie Pollet | P | Cardinals |
| Stan Rojek | SS | Dodgers |
| Frank Saul | P | Seton Hall College |
| Enos “Country” Slaughter | CF/LF | Cardinals |
| Geroge “Birdie” Tebbetts | C | Tigers |
As the second week progressed, Hickam pulled into a 5-1 tie with Shafter with the Wingmen behind at 3-3. The Bombers were experiencing a shot in the arm from the new stars. In a Tuesday, April 24 game against Fort Shafter, Enos Slaughter drilled a solo shot deep into the Honolulu stands to put Hickam ahead 2-0. Eddie Funk hurled all nine innings and survived to secure a 2-1 victory.
On April 29, Hickam and Wheeler found their roles reversed from the April 3, do-or-die game between the two clubs. The two teams faced off with the Bombers in the driver’s seat, needing to defeat the Wingmen to secure the series championship. In front of 10,000 fans at the wooden Honolulu Stadium, the Wingmen shelled Bomber pitchers Funk, Don Schmidt, and Bill Salveson for 14 hits while Ardizoia and Albert Olen held Hickam to eight safeties. Hickam was unable to quiet the bats of Wheeler first baseman Chuck Stevens, who crushed a home run to deep right field and singled, and catcher Charlie Silvera, who had three singles and two RBIs. Hickam’s power hitters – Slaughter, Fain, Hitchcock and Lodigiani – were a combined three-for-16 with two runs. Bomber right fielder George Sprys’ three-for-four and two runs scored led Hickam in the 7-4 loss.
On May 1, an order from the Army’s Pacific Base Command ruled that Army personnel could no longer participate in athletic events deemed unessential to war activities. In addition, Army teams were disallowed from participating in civilian professional leagues against all civilian clubs. The Army’s ruling forced the Honolulu League officials to coordinate with AAF-POA baseball officer Lt. Tom Winsett and Shafter Commandos business manager Vernon Holt to address the situation. With the cancellation of all remaining Cronin Series games, the decision was made to determine the series winner. Due to the standings as of April 30, with Hickam (6-2) leading Ft. Shafter by a half-game (5-2) coupled with the April 30 Bellows-Shafter game being called after three innings, a ruling was needed. With only three innings in the books, the Bellows-Ft. Shafter game could not be considered complete, and the Army’s decree precluded the game from being finished on May 1. The panel was forced to determine that Fort Shafter, with a six-run lead, would not have beaten Bellows, thus leaving Hickam alone at the top of the Cronin Series standings. Hickam was declared the champion.
With the Honolulu League and Cronin Series in the rearview mirror, there was no looking back. Hickam Army Air Field’s base commander, Colonel Malcolm S. Lawton, transferred the Bombers’ reins from manager Sergeant Lodigiani’s hands to those of Captain Birdie Tebbetts. “The 30-year-old receiver is a pepperbox behind the plate, keeping up a continuous line of chatter throughout the game,” the Honolulu Advertiser’s Al Sarles wrote of Tebbetts. Touting Birdie’s five big league seasons behind the plate with the Tigers and his time at the helm of the Waco Army Flying School’s club since 1942, Sarles penned “Tebbetts has a wealth of major league experience to bring to the managerial post,” in Ex-Tiger Catcher Succeeds Lodigiani (May 4, 1945).
The Hickam, Bellows and Wheeler Field clubs found a workable solution to continue competing in the civilian Hawaii League as several players from the three clubs were distributed among the civilian teams to augment rosters that suffered their own losses due to military inductions. With military players on the rosters of the Tigers, Hawaiis, Braves, Athletics and Wanderers, the league could continue.
Hawaii League competition opened for Hickam on May 2 with Tebbetts at the helm. Adding to his already stocked stable of pitchers, the ace of the 1942 World Series, former St. Louis Cardinals hurler Johnny Beazley, was added to the roster. The Hickams were a formidable club and decimated the “civilian teams.” In a May 21 match against the Wanderers, Bomber batters racked up 13 hits as they crushed the team that featured a handful of former Hickam players. Outfielder Enos Slaughter toed the rubber in the ninth inning for his second pitching outing of the season, though he was wild, walking one batter, plunking another and allowing two tallies as no Wanderer batter could touch his offerings. Perhaps showing his opponents a bit of mercy, Tebbetts pulled Lodigiani in favor of team mascot Joe “Moe” Ambrosio at second base in the seventh. Ambrosio went hitless in his lone at-bat.
By June 4, Hickam was in a three-way tie atop the Hawaii League with the other two USAAF teams at the end of the season’s first half. Once again, an Army ruling altered the course of service team play in Hawaiian civilian leagues. It forced Hickam, Bellows and Wheeler to withdraw from the league. As June was drawing to a close, the Hickam squad suffered a bomb blast of their own as most of the team’s stars were pulled for duty in the Western Pacific. Dario Lodigiani, Stan Rojek, Birdie Tebbetts, Howie Pollett, Ferris Fain, John Jensen, Billy Hitchcock, George Gill, Roy Pitter, and John Mazur were all pulled from the roster. The departed Hickam players joined a contingent of USAAF former major and minor leaguers to form a three-team league in the Marianas which played dozens of games on Guam, Tinian, and Saipan through August to entertain the troops.
Hickam continued to compete against service teams throughout the summer despite their withdrawal from the CPBC League after the conclusion of the first round of play on May 20. “In 14 consecutive contests, the Bombers have scored 100 runs, or better than seven per game,” Al Sarles wrote in his Hickam Sports Shorts column in the August 9 edition of the Honolulu Advertiser. “They have collected 144 hits for an average of better than 10 per game.” New manager Johnny Bialowarczuk had his team playing incredible baseball regardless of being outside league competition. “Hickam’s opponents have only been able to collect 45 runs in 14 contests,” Sarles wrote. Salveson and Schmidt had become a solid tandem of starting pitchers. As of August 9, Salveson had won three straight complete games while surrendering just six runs on 22 hits. He had walked five batters during the stretch but fanned 24.
By mid-September, the Bombers’ dominance was noteworthy, though they were not infallible. Wimpy Quinn’s Fleet Marines faced Hickam in a best-of-five series that came down to the final game. Quinn’s and Hal Hirschon’s bats were the bane of Bomber pitching as FMF downed Hickam in a 3-0 series- clinching game on September 15. With barely enough time to lick their wounds, the Bombers played host to former Red Sox slugger Ted Williams’s Marine Fliers the next day. Hickam bats laid waste to the Fliers’ pitching and opened a 10-run lead after the first few innings. Bill Salveson held a comfortable, 10-2 lead when the Fliers’ bats began to chip away at the deficit. The Marines tagged Bomber pitching for 14 hits in the last three innings and tallied three runs in each of the final frames before Saul stemmed the flow and Hickam walked away with a 13-11 victory.
When we acquired a team-signed ball with 26 autographs featuring Enos Slaughter, Birdie Tebbetts, Ferris Fain, and Dario Lodigiani in 2020, the seller listed it as originating from the USAAF Marianas games. However, analysis of the ball’s signatures and comparison with the three Marianas Rosters (58th Bombardment Wing “Wingmen,” 73rd Bombardment Wing “Bombers,” and 313th Bombardment Wing “Flyers”), our research led to investigating Hawaii service team rosters. With the exception of three names, all the players were members of the Hickam Bombers.
Walter Judnich (of the Bellows team). (Chevrons and Diamonds Collection).
Once it was established that our signed ball was from the Hickam team, the fruitless pursuit of additional artifacts ensued. One of our colleagues, a noted St. Louis Cardinals historian, reached out that year and shared with us (in a social media chat) a team photo that he had in his possession that showed the Bombers posed on their home field. The photo, formerly in the possession of Enos Slaughter, was given to our colleague by his family following the passing of the Cardinal legend. Last month, we executed a trade to bring the Hickam photo into the fold after two years of infrequent discussions.
After further analysis of the 1945 Hickam roster, the identities of the players in the photo and the signatures present on the ball, it is apparent that both were captured during the first half of the Hawaii League season, between May 2 and late June. To some, it may seem inconsequential to locate two significant pieces from the same brief span of time in the context of Hickam’s 1945 season and the personnel churn the team experienced throughout the year.
After the stars were dispatched to the Marianas, the Hickam team, dubbed “Medium Bombers” by the Honolulu Advertiser on July 20, continued to be an impressive squad. With the departure of both Lodigiani and Tebbetts, second baseman Johnny “Murphy” Bialowarczuk was named as the Bomber manager on June 28 despite the questions surrounding the continuation of service team play.
Aside from the major leaguers who signed our ball, including two-time American League batting champion Ferris Fain, four-time All-Star catcher Birdie Tebbetts, and Hall of Famer Enos Slaughter, there are a few signatures from Hickam Bomber players that stand out.
Seton Hall basketball star Frank Saul, who left school after his freshman year to enter the service, joined the Bombers as a pitcher following the conclusion of the Hawaii basketball season in late April. “Pep” Saul remained with the baseball team through September and would return to college in 1946, when he became the school’s first career 1,000-point scorer before joining the National Basketball Association. During his professional career, he won four NBA titles with the Rochester Royals (now the Sacramento Kings) and the Minneapolis Lakers (now in Los Angeles). Saul was inducted into Seton Hall’s hall of fame in 1973.
Baseball connects people in ways that are often overlooked. Saul’s Hickam teammate, pitcher Don Schmidt, was also a Seton Hall alum, with their college careers overlapping. It is unknown whether the two Pirates encountered each other on campus or if they met for the first time on the Hickam roster. In 1944, Schmidt was a member of the 7th AAF juggernaut that included three future members of the Hall of Fame, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, and Red Ruffing. His pitching was good enough to get him named to the Army All-Star team by Tom Winsett. Schmidt pitched two complete games in the Serviceman’s World Series but both resulted in losses (Game 3, 4-3 and Game 6, 6-4). He made relief appearances in Games 1 and 10. In 1949 Schmidt wrote that his ambition in baseball was to “win in the majors” but his career never took him higher than class AAA with Milwaukee of the American Association. Schmidt played seven minor league seasons from 1946 to 1953 before hanging up his spikes.
The University of Tulsa’s first team All-American quarterback, Glenn Dobbs, led his team to a perfect 10-0 1942 season that culminated in a Sun Bowl victory over Texas Tech on January 1, 1943. Dobbs joined Hickam on May 9 and remained with the club through the summer as the starting second baseman. After his discharge, Dobbs played football professionally with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Los Angeles Dons in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) from 1946 to1949 and the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the Canadian Football League (CFL) from 1951 to 1954. He earned first-team All-Pro honors in 1946 and was a CFL All-Star in 1951. Dobbs was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 1988. He returned to coach his alma mater from 1961 to 1968, leading the team to two first-place finishes and two Bluebonnet Bowl appearances (see: Glenn Dobbs Statue Unveiled At Tulsa University).
During a stint with an unknown professional baseball club, Carteret, New Jersey’s John P. Bialowarczuk wrote that his most interesting experience was hitting a home run off former Washington Senators pitcher Walt Masterson. The 1939 American Legion ball player had stints with the Perth Amboy club of the Metropolitan Semi-Pro league between 1940 to 1942 before joining the Army Air Force. Serving with the 7th Army Air Force in Hawaii for three years, Bialowarczuk shared the diamond with Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, Pee Wee Reese, Schoolboy Rowe, and Hugh Casey. Manager Tom Winsett took notice of his talent and added him to the Army All-Stars for the Serviceman’s World Series in the fall of 1944.
The non-Hickam Bombers who signed our ball include former Cincinnati outfielder Mike McCormick, who carried a .288 batting average and a .302 on-base percentage in 14 World Series games with the Reds, Boston Braves and Brooklyn; and Walt Judnich, formerly with the Browns. One name we are still researching is “Bill Mosser.” Though we have found a corresponding minor leaguer who served in the armed forces from February, 1944 to May, 1946, we have yet to confirm or rule him out as the player who signed our ball.
| Player | Position | Former |
| Joe “Moe” Ambrosio | Bat Boy | |
| John (Murphy) Bialowarczuk | IF | Perth-Amboy (Semi-Pro) |
| Leonard Burton | P | Houston (TL) |
| Paul Callahan | ||
| Richard “Dick” Cattabiani | LF | |
| Don “Pee Wee” Dwyer | ||
| Ray Edwards | Biz Mgr. | |
| John Geilen | Ath. Dir. | |
| Ralph Jacobson | ||
| Doug Kirby | ||
| Cornel George “Kearny” Kohlmyer | 2B | St. Joseph (MICH) |
| Bill McGurk | ||
| John Moore | OF | |
| Paul Pancotto | C | Sheboygan (WISL) |
| Roy Pitter | P | Binghamton (EL) |
| Al Sarles | Scorer | |
| Frank Saul | P | Seton Hall College |
| Don Schmidt | P | Seton Hall College |
| Joseph “Joe” Sciruba | 2B | Lynchburg (VIRL) |
| Jack Seltronic | ||
| Mac Sherman | Announcer | |
| Izzy Smith | OF | Semi-Pro |
| George Sprys | OF | Charleston (MATL) |
| Tom Tatum | RF | Dodgers |
| Howard Wahl | P |
As we continue to identify each player in the team photo, we are more than pleased to unite these two incredible artifacts within the Chevrons and Diamonds collection.
Related Chevrons and Diamonds Articles:
- Service World Series, 1944 – Hawaiian Islands
- The Wartime Flight of a Cardinal: Sgt. Enos Slaughter
- George “Birdie” Tebbetts: From Waco to Tinian
- Signature Search: The 1945 Hickam Bombers
- The Navy’s Little Colonel: Chief Athletic Specialist Harold “Pee Wee” Reese
- Red Ruffing, an Airman’s Ace
- More Than Seven Decades in the Game From North Beach Sandlots to the Coral Fields of Guam, Saipan and Tinian
Navy Slugger, Army Lumber
We often discuss items that have been on our “want” lists for extended periods of time and when such items are located, there is a tremendous sense of accomplishment. In some instances, we have merely speculated that an item, such as a game program or scorecard, must have been created for a game and then we hold out hope to find one (see: Keeping Score at Nuremberg: A Rare 1945 GI World Series Scorecard). In other areas of baseball militaria curating, we are fully aware of the existence of artifacts but have fallen victim to limited budgets or poor timing. With the highly competitive market for military-marked World War II baseball bats, we have found specific examples to be entirely elusive.
In the past few years, we have been able to curate an assortment of wartime baseball bats; however, we have been limited to sourcing just two of the four known branch markings. In our May 11, 2021 article. Batting Around: Special Services U.S. Army Equipment Drives the Military Baseball Market, we spotlighted military markings found on wartime bats along with factors that influence collector competition and valuation. Aside from player endorsements found on military-marked bats, bats marked with “Special Services U.S. Army” are by far the most heavily sought. Bats marked with “U.S. Army” (sans “Special Services”) are a close second in terms of desirability, while “U.S.N.” and “U.S.”- marked pieces bring up the rear. The Chevrons and Diamonds bat collection has consisted entirely of bats marked with the latter stamps.
Condition has also been a factor that has allowed us to acquire the pieces in our collection. Often purchasing items that have been abused or neglected and show substantial signs of decay and wear, we have taken on bats that collectors would not consider acquiring as firewood, let alone displaying as a prized artifact. If we determine that a piece can be reconditioned and repaired while preserving the aesthetics, we will take pieces with such efforts in mind. To date, we have experienced success with a handful of pieces.
Searching for pieces endorsed by 1930s and ‘40s legends and marked with the elusive service stamps has proven to be a source of frustration. Our previous experience leads us to keep our expectations extremely low when a prospective item becomes available at auction. We bid amounts that are within budget only to watch the prices reach 200 percent or more above our bid and well above reason. Service-marked bats that are in excellent or better condition attract bidding that goes far beyond our top price and we watch them pass by.
In the last quarter of 2021, one seller listed in succession six or seven wartime service-marked bats with endorsements, including Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner and others, each featuring some of the most sought-after branch stampings. It was obvious that the group of auction listings pointed to a collector’s carefully curated collection that was in the process of being liquidated and the market responded accordingly. Each listing was highly contested by several bidders, driving prices to several hundred dollars for each piece. By the end of November, all the listings closed and we were unable to compete for any of them.
During the holiday season, a few individual auction listings for wartime service bats surfaced. One of the items was a Hillerich & Bradsby Safe Hit Johnny Mize Model bat marked with “U.S. Army” on the barrel. Viewing the accompanying photos, it was clear that the condition of the bat was excellent despite indications of game use. All the branded stamps were deep, dark and very visible and the wood surface still held the manufacturer’s original finish. A subtle irony regarding the service stamp was that Mize served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
Athletic Specialist First Class Mize enlisted in the U.S. Navy in March, 1943 as his New York Giant teammates were weeks-deep into spring training. The manager of the Great Lakes Naval Training Station Bluejackets, Lieutenant Gordon “Mickey” Cochrane, had an established pipeline serving as a feeder to keep his team’s roster stocked with pro ballplayers when they entered the Navy. Cochrane’s Bluejackets landed a true power hitter in Mize as he joined a team that included several former major leaguers, including Frank Biscan, Tom Ferrick, Joe Grace, Johnny Lucadello, Barney McCosky, Red McQuillen and Johnny Schmitz.
Johnny Mize was transferred to the Naval Training Center at Bainbridge, Maryland, where he was slated to play for the base team while in a training program. Unfortunately, baseball was not an option for the slugger as an illness kept him on light duty, excluding all physical exertion as he convalesced.
By the spring of 1944, Mize was on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands and assigned to the Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay. He was promptly assigned to the base’s baseball team, the Klippers. In addition to his playing for the Klippers club, Mize also played for various All-Star teams and on the Navy’s Service World Series team that defeated their Army counterparts in four straight games in the autumn of 1944. In early 1945, Mize joined an assemblage of Navy ballplayers for a weeks-long tour of the western Pacific, playing exhibition games to boost the morale of troops stationed on the islands (see Johnny “Big Jawn” Mize, WWII Service and His Elusive Signature).
As 2021 was winding to a close, it became apparent that the bid we placed was going to succeed and deliver to our collection its first U.S. Army marked piece. Perhaps it was the timing of the holidays and the pre-payday-post-Christmas financial crunch many people face that led to the limited competition at the auction that afforded us this win. The well-packed Johnny Mize model bat arrived safely and without any complications. Upon close examination of the wood grain, knob, barrel and brand marks, we were quite pleased to note that the condition was better than was discernible in the auction images.
With the addition of this bat and several other items that we have curated for the Chevrons and Diamonds Collection, the new year is off to an incredible start!
Wartime Service Bats:
- Healing Battle Scars: Double Ott Rejuvenation – October 16, 2021
- Batting Around: Special Services U.S. Army Equipment Drives the Military Baseball Market – May 11, 2021
- “Game Used” Lumber: Wartime Service Adds Meaning for Collectors – October 31, 2020
- Tools of the Trade: Wartime Equipment used by (Former) Professional Ballplayers – July 9, 2020
- Charlie “King Kong” Keller Rattles the Woodshed ending a Yearlong Silence – May 8, 2020
- Hard to Find Military Sticks: “Double-X” Joins Our World War II Baseball Lumber Pile – April 9, 2019
- Ted Williams: BATtered, Abused and Loved – February 7, 2019
See also:
- Johnny “Big Jawn” Mize, WWII Service and His Elusive Signature – September 12, 2019
- Klipper Day: Marking the End of a Season – April 30, 2020
- Scorecards and Programs: Service World Series, 1944 – Hawaiian Islands
Chevrons and Diamonds 