Baseball and the Great War

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

When I was a child we lived in Concordia, Kansas, and every November 11 the city would have a Veterans Day parade. In those days it was still called Armistice Day. This memory has always stuck with me for several reasons. There would be a football game that day which my father would take me to. Those were the first football games I ever attended and sparked my love for the sport.

The city also had a parade, which went down West 6^th Street. We’d walk down and stand in front of the Brown Theater, since we only lived a couple blocks away. All these years later, I remember those parades. Leading the parades would be the High School band playing patriotic songs followed by the World War I guys. At the time, the Great War vets were probably only 67 or 68 years old, but their faces showed what they had seen and lived through. They would be followed by the World War II veterans, who at the time would have been in their early 40s. Bringing up the rear of the parade were the Korean vets, young guys in their early 30s. Nearly all those vets are gone now, a sobering thought to any young man. Eventually, our time comes. Things were just starting to heat up in Vietnam, so those guys weren’t in the parade. Yet.

There was no school on Armistice Day, which was great for me since it also happened to be my birthday. My grandmother Aurice always called me the Armistice Day baby. It took me a few years to get used to that one.

Recently, we visited the World War One Museum in Kansas City. If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend it. The museum does a fabulous job of displaying hundreds of World War One artifacts, has an excellent timeline display that covers the war month by month, from start to finish and two different movies that are entertaining and informative. You can also take a ride to the top of the Liberty Memorial which affords an excellent view of downtown. From the top of the Memorial, you can survey the potential sites for the new Royals ballpark and imagine what downtown will look like once it's built.

World War One is often called “The Great War.’ There was nothing great about it other than the scale of destruction. War is a terrible thing and it’s amazing that we still tolerate it. For all intents, the Great War kicked off June 28, 1914, when Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. Things got out of hand quickly, and by August most of Europe was fighting. The United States tried to stay neutral but German submarine warfare, often on civilian targets, finally drew in the United States. The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. The US government instituted a draft and in 1917 alone, 2.8 million young men were drafted into the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). You may be asking, what does all this have to do with baseball?

Many professional baseball players either voluntarily joined the service or were drafted into the AEF. Participation wasn’t limited to minor leaguers and scrubs. The list of big names who served, and fought, includes Grover Cleveland “Pete” Alexander, Ty Cobb, Johnny Evers, Kennesaw Mountain Landis, Christy Mathewson, Herb Pennock, Grantland Rice, Branch Rickey, Jeptha Rixey, and George Sisler. In fact, any able-bodied man, ballplayer or not, who tried to get out of serving, was often treated with scorn and branded as yellow.

Several players died either from wounds or from illness. Ah, the illness part. Due to a quirk of Mother Nature, the final months of the Great War overlapped the beginning of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. Some of the first reported cases of the flu came out of military camps located in extreme western Kansas. The flu ravaged not only tightly packed military training camps and eastern cities, but also spread worldwide.

By the time it ran its course, the flu was estimated to have killed as many as 50 million people, or nearly 1% of the world’s population. When I looked over the list of ballplayer casualties, I counted seven from the flu, most coming in October and November of 1918. Once the flu ran its course through congested eastern cities like New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia and moved west, it started to peter out. A second and third variation, less lethal than the original eventually ran through the country. By comparison, Covid has killed around 7 million people worldwide. Better treatment and communication have helped.

Before we talk baseball, I have another rabbit hole of history to go down. One of the first Americans to die in the war, was a young man from Glidden, Iowa, named Merle Hay. Hay and two other Americans died while repulsing a German attack on November 3, 1917, near Artois, France. If you’ve lived around Des Moines, Iowa, or even driven through, you’ll recognize the name of Merle Hay Road. The Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines is also named for him.

The first baseball player to lose his life in the war was Eddie Grant. Grant was an interesting character. An outstanding athlete, Grant played both baseball and basketball while attending Harvard. He picked up an undergrad degree in 1905 and a law degree in 1909. That timeline is interesting because Grant started playing for the Cleveland Naps towards the end of the 1905 season. He spent 1906 in the minors but joined the Phillies in 1907. He was the Phillies starting third baseman and leadoff hitter for three seasons. He had his best year in 1910 when he hit .268 with 67 RBI and 25 steals. He was traded to the Reds in 1911 and finished his career with three seasons playing for the New York Giants. It’s kind of amazing that he got his law degree while playing big league ball.

Grant was a bit of a baseball oddball when calling for fly balls. Most players say, “I’ve got it.” Grant, ever the Harvard man, would say, “I have it”.

In retirement, Grant opened a law practice in Boston. When the United States declared war, Grant was one of the first to enlist. Grant was serving as a Captain of the 77^th Division during the fierce fighting of the Meuse-Argonne offensive. After all his superior officers were killed or wounded, Grant took charge and led his troops on a four-day search for what is called the “lost battalion” which is a fascinating story in its own right. The fighting during this offensive was ferocious. Over the 47-day battle, the United States alone suffered over 26,000 deaths. On October 5, 1918, an artillery shell exploded near Grant, killing him. He is buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in Lorraine, France. A plaque commemorating Grant’s sacrifice stands at Oracle Park in San Francisco. The Edward Grant Highway in the Bronx is also named after him.

Several other current or former major league players gave their lives during World War I. They were:

• Tom Burr, who played one game with the Yankees. Burr was killed in an aviation training accident, when his plane collided with another.
• Harry Chapman, of Severance, Kansas, who played for the Cubs, Reds and Browns, succumbed to the flu while in an Army training camp.
• Larry Chappell, who played for the White Sox, Indians and Braves. He died from the flu on November 8, 1918.
• Harry Glenn played six games with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1915 and died from the effects of the flu on October 12, 1918.
• Newt Halliday played in one game for the Pirates in 1916. He was lost to the flu on April 6, 1918.
• Ralph Sharman played 13 games for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1917 and hit a respectable .297. He drowned in a training exercise on May 24, 1918.
• Robert “Bun” Troy had one of the more tragic and ironic fates. Troy, a pitcher, played one game for the Detroit Tigers in which he dueled Walter Johnson on equal terms through six innings. Troy fought in the First battle of the Somme and in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. On October 7, 1918, Troy was killed in the Argonne Forest by a bullet wound to the chest. Troy had been born in Germany. His family immigrated to the United States when he was a young boy. He was killed fighting against his native country.

Several Negro League ballplayers also fought, and died, for their country. The most prominent was Arthur “Ted” Kimbro who played for the St. Louis Giants and the New York Lincoln Giants. Kimbro died from the flu on September 29, 1918.

• Norman Tripplett played for the Hilldale Athletic Club. He too died from the flu on October 20^th, 1918.
• Pearl Webster had a long career in the Negro Leagues, playing for the Chicago and Brooklyn Royal Giants as well as the Hilldale Daisies. He was also a victim of the flu, dying on November 16, 1918, just five days after the armistice was signed.

Three of the biggest stars of the day also served in France. Pete Alexander served as a Sergeant in the 342^nd Field Artillery Unit. His battery was caught in a German artillery counteroffensive which left Alexander deaf in one ear and what was then called shell shock. We now recognize shell shock as PTSD. His war experience led Alexander to the bottle, which plagued him for the remainder of his life. He died November 5, 1950, and is buried in his native Nebraska.

Ty Cobb, who many thought was more suited for the infantry, served in the Chemical Warfare Unit alongside Branch Rickey and Christy Mathewson. During a training exercise, Cobb, Mathewson, and others missed the signal to put on their gas masks. Eight soldiers died and Cobb and Mathewson suffered serious exposure to the gas. Cobb spent weeks in the hospital before recovering. He credited his recovery to divine intervention.

Mathewson wasn’t as lucky. The exposure to mustard gas greatly affected his health. He died on October 7, 1925, at the young age of 45. Mathewson retired after the 1916 season with a record of 373 wins and 188 losses and a career ERA of 2.13. He was posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame, part of the inaugural class of 1936.

One thing that made World War I unique is that there was no winding down of hostilities in the days prior to the Armistice being signed. It wasn’t until the last hour that word reached the front that a ceasefire was in the works. When word reached the front, soldiers on both sides just wanted to lay low until they knew if the agreement would hold.

One of the most tragic baseball deaths was that of Calvin Bryant. Bryant never played in the major leagues. In fact, most baseball fans have never heard of him. He only made it as far as Class D ball before being drafted into the military. He was part of the final assault in the Meuse-Argonne offensive and was killed in action on November 11, 1918, shortly after 10:00 am, less than an hour before the guns fell silent.

The last documented American death was that of Henry Gunther of Baltimore. Ignoring pleas from his fellow soldiers to stand down, Gunther made one last charge at the German line. The German soldiers tried waving him off, but after Gunther began firing at them, they had no choice but to return fire. Gunther was mortally wounded at 10:58 am on November 11, just two minutes before the Armistice took effect.

Despite all the carnage, doughboys, as American soldiers were known, brought the game of baseball with them to France. Nearly every unit had at least one team and baseball leagues flourished across France. US troops built dozens of baseball fields in France during their stay. Troops also participated in football, track and boxing. During that time, baseball was the national pastime with boxing and horse racing coming in a distant second and third. Football, college and professional, were still years away from being the juggernaut that it is today.

Hopefully, we will never see another world war. Many baseball players were also active participants in World War II, which will be another story for another day. On this Veterans Day, take a moment to remember the sacrifices of not just the athletes who served, but all of the men and women who answered the call.