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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
Card Series: 1944 Service World Series – Game 6 Scorecard
Nearly eight decades later, historians and researchers are still discovering artifacts from World War II that are providing details or insights into events, regardless of how well documented they may be. The Service World Series, played in the Hawaiian Islands in the fall of 1944, pitted two teams of former major and minor leaguers from the Army and Navy against each other and featured arguably the best aggregation of baseball talent in the world that year.
Known also as the Servicemen’s World Series or the Army All-Stars versus Navy All-Stars Championship Series, the Service World Series was scheduled as a best-of-seven games matchup for the bragging rights of the best baseball team of the armed forces. Following a competitive season of service baseball in Hawaii in the spring and summer of 1944 that saw a neck-and-neck race between the Aiea Naval Hospital Hilltoppers and the Flyers of the 7th Army Air Force (7th AAF). rumors abounded that Admiral Chester Nimitz wanted to exact some revenge in response to the Army stacking the 7th AAF’s roster and wresting the Central Pacific League crown from the Navy’s front-running Aiea squad.
Drawing personnel predominantly from the McClellan Field (Sacramento) Commanders team that included former major leaguers Walt Judnich, Dario Lodigiani, Jerry Priddy and Mike McCormick along with minor leaguers Ferris Fain, Charlie Silvera, Rugger Ardizoia and Al Lien and later adding New York Yankee stars Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon and Red Ruffing, the 7th AAF team was a powerhouse both on paper and the diamond. After capturing the league title, the Army brass simply added players from other area Army base teams to form their World Series squad.
As the 7th AAF faced Aiea in a three-game championship series, the Navy hoisted players in from as far away as Melbourne, Australia, and from teams throughout the Hawaiian Islands, effectively stacking the deck in their favor in both quality and quantity. The Navy squad featured future Hall of Fame enshrinees Johnny Mize, Pee Wee Reese and Phil Rizzuto along with a bounty of 1940’s major league stars such as Dom DiMaggio, Virgil Trucks, Johnny Vander Meer, Schoolboy Rowe, Barney McCosky and Hugh Casey. They would lead the Navy’s attack on the Army. Ahead of the start of the series, the Army suffered the loss of two key players from the 7th with Joe DiMaggio battling in the summer months and Red Ruffing suffering an injury at the end of the regular season. DiMaggio and Ruffing were sent to the mainland before the first game, further handicapped them against the team being assembled by the Navy.
The Army failed to answer the Navy’s attack and dropped the series in four games to the Navy, being outscored 27-10 in the sweep. The real winners of the series were the uniformed personnel who had tickets to see the games. With 56,500 filling the small venues over the course of the four games, the Army and Navy leadership agreed to extend the series through the scheduled seven games. The Navy claimed games five and six before the Army finally captured a win in the final game. With more than 100,500 fans, the series was a resounding success despite the outcome of the games.
The 1944 Army/Navy All-Star Championship Series in Hawaii
| Date | Score (winner) | Location | Attendance | |
| Friday, September 22, 1944 | Game 1 | 5-0 (Navy) | Furlong Field | 20,000 |
| Saturday, September 23, 1944 | Game 2 | 8-2 (Navy) | Hickam Field | 12,000 |
| Monday, September 25, 1944 | Game 3 | 4-3 (Navy) | Redlander Field | 14,500 |
| Wednesday, September 27, 1944 | Game 4 | 10-5 (Navy) | NAS Kaneohe | 10,000 |
| Thursday, September 28, 1944 | Game 5 | 12-2 (Navy) | Furlong Field | 16,000 |
| Saturday, September 30, 1944 | Game 6 | 6-4 (Navy) | Hickam Field | 12,000 |
| Sunday, October 1, 1944 | Game 7 | 5-3 (Army) | Furlong Field | 16,000 |
Following the close of the series, Dom DiMaggio and Phil Rizzuto were sent back to Australia as the balance of the Navy squad, sans Pee Wee Reese, joined the Army team for subsequent games to be played for troops stationed on the islands of Maui, Hawaii and Kauai. The island tour series, though often considered to be an extension of the Service World Series, was scheduled in early August, 1944. In this second series (or extension of the Service World Series), the Army squad found their stride, winning one and tying another while the Navy picked up two more victories and secured an 8-2-1 record.
- October 4 – Maui (Navy 11-0)
- October 5 – Maui (Army 6-5)
- October 6 – Hoolulu Park, Hilo (Tie, 6-6)
- October 15 – Kukuiolono Park (Navy, 6-5)
Several photographs of the Series games were captured by press and fans alike, with original surviving type-1 examples trickling onto the collector market. Nearly 80 years after the games were played, collectors actively seek ephemera in the form of scorecards and ticket stubs and some pieces occasionally surface from WWII veterans’ estates or their heirs.
Most of the scorecards are simple, bi-folded, single sheet pages mimeograph-printed on basic lightweight paper. Not more than simple roster lists and scoring grids, the known cards are anything but aesthetically pleasing, being completely devoid of artwork, photographs and the typical graphic design elements seen on contemporary major or minor league offerings. The most common of the scorecards to surface on the market are those used for the games hosted at Furlong Field. They feature large block lettering on the front cover, full team rosters on the back and a two-page spread of scoring grids inside the gatefold.
Obtaining scorecards from each game of a major league baseball World Series from the 1940’s would be a daunting task for collectors due to the limited number of surviving examples. However, collectors have an advantage as each scorecard produced for those games is well documented, which is in stark contrast to the Service World Series. At present, the Chevrons and Diamonds Collection is in possession of cards from games four, five and seven and we have seen cards from game one. Regarding cards from the remaining games, we were virtually blind to their designs. With a recent acquisition, the number of remaining unknown scorecards has decreased.
A recent discovery led to an acquisition of the scorecard from the sixth Series game played on Saturday, September 30 at Hickam Field. With 12,000 in attendance, fans saw a game that was tied through eight innings as the Army was holding their own. A first-inning RBI by Ferris Fain, a two-run home run by Joe Gordon and an RBI triple by Mike McCormick tallied four runs and tied the Navy by the bottom of the seventh inning. However, the Navy won on an RBI by pitcher Tom Ferrick, who drove in “Schoolboy” Rowe for the go ahead run, followed by a Rizzuto bunt that scored Pee Wee Reese in the top of the eighth inning. The Army failed to answer in their two remaining frames, leaving the Navy victorious in their sixth consecutive game. The scorecard is scored with the correct 6-4 final tally, but the service member may not have had a good vantage point or was not paying close attention to the game as total hits do not align with the newspaper account. Also out of alignment are the innings and scoring sequence. In addition to the final score, the card also reflects the correct error totals for each team.
This scorecard is mimeograph-printed onto an odd-sized, 9×13-inch, single sheet of lightweight paper with the hand-drawn artwork, basic scoring grid and typed Army roster on the front of the sheet and the Navy’s roster typed on the reverse. This example has some of the typical condition issues that similar pieces exhibit such as creasing, dog-eared corners and brittle areas near the fold lines. The paper has oxidized to a light tan color and the printing shows fading. For the two games hosted at Hickam Field, the Army called the games, “The Little World Series.”
In comparing the scoring against the other games in the series, there is little doubt that our newly acquired scorecard was used for the sixth game despite the insignificant discrepancies. The printed dates on the card (September 23 and 30) combined with the Army roster taking precedence make it clear that this card was used for both games that were hosted at Hickam Field.
With the addition of this Game Six card, the Chevrons and Diamonds Collection now features scorecards from games four, five, six and seven. With this most recent acquisition we can also confirm the design of the scorecard from game two, leaving the design of the card from game three played at the Schofield Barracks’ Redlander Field as the remaining unknown.
Chevrons and Diamonds 