Baseball in Wartime

Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice

 

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Welcome to Gary Bedingfield's

Baseball in Wartime!

 

World War II was a trying time for the United States and equally so for baseball. More than 4,500 professional players swapped flannels for military uniforms to serve their nation and future Hall of Famers like Bob Feller, Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams lost vital playing time in the prime of their careers.

But the war years also saw rise to a new dynasty of military baseball as teams all around the globe suddenly found their lineups stacked with former professionals. Teams like the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois were as strong as some of the major league clubs and indeed often beat big league teams in exhibition games. The Army also built formidable teams as did the Army Air Force and Coast Guard.

Undoubtedly, baseball's greatest sacrifice must be the professional players who lost their lives serving their country. Two players with major league experience (Elmer Gedeon and Harry O'Neill) along with 113 minor leaguers died while in military service in World War II. Baseball in Wartime honors those and all others who lost playing time during the dark days of the war. It also commemorates the great achievements of military baseball teams and the morale-boosting affects they had on all who watched them play.

I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has kindly made donations to the Baseball in Wartime project in recent weeks. Your contributions are much appreciated and help greatly in further WWII baseball research.

 

The Baseball in Wartime website currently contains:

 

464 Player Biographies

206 Biographies of Players who Died in WW2

 

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Baseball in Wartime is dedicated to preserving the memories of all baseball players (major league, minor league, semi-pro, college, amateur and high school), who served with the military during WW2. More than 16 million Americans and 1.1 million Canadians served with the Army, Navy, Army Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Royal Canadian Air Force and Merchant Marine in World War II. This site aims to preserve the memories of those whose baseball-playing lives were affected in some way by serving their nation.