Author Archives: @keeneauthor

About @keeneauthor

Anne Raugh Keene is the author of The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win WWII, a book about Williams and members of a major-league fighter pilot baseball team who defined the Greatest Generation. For details on the book, see www.annerkeene.com

The World Series – A Season for Heroes

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Broadcaster Ernie Harwell visits with Ted Williams: The Definition of Baseball. Courtsey National Baseball Hall of Fame Library and Archives.

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” – Babe Herman Ruth.

In a world disrupted by hurricanes, recessions, politics and war, baseball is the constant that gives us heroes. Every fall, the World Series connects the generations. Fathers and sons come together; neighbors unite; strangers root for the same team as millions partake in the tradition that defines America.

In a world starved for heroes, baseball’s Fall ritual reminds us of players like Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived who fought in two wars as a Marine combat pilot. We remember miracles, like the “shot heard round the world” when Bill Mazeroski won the championship in 1960 with one swing of the bat. During this year’s Series, we hold our breath, spellbound by the raw and fearless talent of players like Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez as they go to bat for the Boston Red Sox.

In a world that loves storytellers, one of the game’s most beloved muses was Ernie Harwell, the Hall of Fame Major League Baseball sportscaster who enraptured generations of fans with the saga of our past time. In this 1981 induction (SPEECH LINK) delivered on the porch of the Hall of Fame Ernie tells us what we love about baseball in a world where our diamond heroes help us battle hurricanes, recessions, politics and war. Here are a few of Harwell’s classic lines to remember during the 2018 World Series:

Courtesy, The Ernie Harwell Sports Collection, Detroit Public Library.

“Baseball is the president tossing out the first ball of the season and a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm. A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from the corner of his dugout. That’s baseball.”

“Baseball is cigar smoke, hot roasted peanuts, The Sporting News, ladies day, ‘Down in front,’ ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game,’ and ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”

“In baseball democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rulebook. Color merely something to distinguish one team’s uniform from another.”

“Baseball is just a game, as simple as a ball and bat, yet as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion.”

“Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch, and then dashing off to play stickball in the street with his teenage pals. That’s baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, ‘I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.’”

“Baseball is a tongue-tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America. Still a game for America, this baseball! Thank you.”

Anne R. Keene is the author of the narrative about a major-league Navy fighter pilot baseball team, The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win WWII.

JOHNNY PESKY AND TED WILLIAMS: AN UNTOLD STORY BEHIND A RED SOX WINNING STREAK

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Navy Coach Don Kepler with aviation cadet Ted Williams, 1943. Courtesy US Navy Pre-Flight School, North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

When “106 Win” lit up the Green Monster scoreboard this week, breaking the franchise record, Boston Red Sox fans set their sights on a World Series championship. It was 1946, the last time the Red Sox achieved their 100th milestone victory, when they headed to the World Series. Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Boo Ferriss had returned from the service. They were changed men—bound by their fierce allegiance to country and friendships that lasted a lifetime.

Though the St. Louis Cardinals clinched the World Series that year with a 4-3 victory in game seven, Johnny Pesky did something extraordinary for Ted Williams that slipped under the radar of the press. Until now, this story has largely remained untold, and it serves as an example of the unshakable bond that cements winning teams.

Pesky’s Secret Telephone Call Before Game Five

Midway through the 1946 Series, Pesky made a secret telephone call to an old Navy buddy to lift Williams’s spirits when he was discouraged and hurting from a badly swollen elbow after being smacked by an errant pitch.

That friend was not a major-league player, nor a man who circulated in the most powerful baseball circles. His name was George Donald Kepler, the former Lt. Commander who taught fighter pilots how to survive on land and sea after bailouts and crash landings over jungles and oceans. Kepler also coached Williams and Pesky when they played service-league baseball for a Navy Pre-Flight team in the summer of 1943.

When the call came in, Kepler was living on a farm in the outskirts of State College near Penn State, where he taught outdoor survival, hunter safety, and served as an assistant baseball coach for the Nittany Lions. Kepler was known around Centre County as a big- game hunter, earning the triple crown title for shooting a turkey, deer and a very large bear every year.

One of Kepler’s best friends around campus was George Harvey, the “Dean of American Fly Fishing,” who wrote about angling, and ignited a national passion for fly fishing. Three years earlier, when Williams was an aviation cadet, Kepler bonded with his trainee over a passion that gave them a sense of peace—fishing.

Reporters scrambling to dig up dirt on Williams never caught wind of that meeting when Kepler slipped into the Fenway clubhouse, seemingly, from out of the blue. Pesky left tickets and a pass to the locker room at Will Call, specifically asking Kepler to talk about fishing to calm his friend’s nerves.

For about 30 minutes the officer and his former cadet carried on about fly casting in the cool Pennsylvania rivers snaking around Kepler’s farm. After the exchange, the Navy coach disappeared into the stands at Fenway, where he watched the rest of the game.

According to Kepler’s son, Williams never knew Pesky made that phone call.

Johnny Pesky at Turners Falls airport in early aviation training, 1942. Courtsey Pesky Family.

In rare form, The Kid burst into tears after the Series loss, and he never forgot Kepler’s act of kindness during one of his most vulnerable moments.

Years later, Williams hoped to cast a line for wild trout with his former Navy coach. Though he never got the chance to visit the farm near Happy Valley, they stayed in touch with letters until Kepler’s passing in 1988.

John Sain at Turners Falls, who also trained with Pesky and Williams at Pre-Flight.

On October 5th the Red Sox will open the Division Series on their home turf at Fenway Park against the winner of the American League Wild Card game between the New York Yankees, and most likely, the Oakland Athletics. Based on the Red Sox hard-earned winning streak, the dynamics of talent and trust are definitely in sync. With the steady guidance of manager Alex Cora and the support of the fans, in the words of a Navy pilot, one might say the “sky’s the limit” for a Red Sox victory.

Anne R. Keene is the author of The Cloudbuster Nine, The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win WWII. Dozens of major-league baseball players trained and coached at these special Pre-Flight Naval Aviation Training Schools along with George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, John Glenn and “Bear” Bryant and other members of the Greatest Generation. Today, less than 45 major-league World War II veterans remain with us, representing a generation of players who paused their baseball careers to serve their country. 

Johnny Pesky and Ted Williams: An Untold Story Behind a Red Sox Winning Streak

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http://gty.im/517326280 When “106 Win” lit up the Green Monster scoreboard this week, breaking the franchise record, Boston Red Sox fans set their sights on a World Series championship. It was 1946, the last time the Red Sox achieved their 100th milestone victory, when they headed to the World Series. Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Boo Ferriss had returned from the service. They were changed men—bound by their fierce allegiance to country and friendships that lasted a lifetime.

Though the St. Louis Cardinals clinched the World Series that year with a 4-3 victory in game seven, Johnny Pesky did something extraordinary for Ted Williams that slipped under the radar of the press. Until now, this story has largely remained untold, and it serves as an example of the unshakable bond that cements winning teams.

Pesky’s Secret Telephone Call Before Game Five

Midway through the 1946 Series, Pesky made a secret telephone call to an old Navy buddy to lift Williams’s spirits when he was discouraged and hurting from a badly swollen elbow after being smacked by an errant pitch.

That friend was not a major-league player, nor a man who circulated in the most powerful baseball circles. His name was George Donald Kepler, the former Lt. Commander who taught fighter pilots how to survive on land and sea after bailouts and crash landings over jungles and oceans. Kepler also coached Williams and Pesky when they played service-league baseball for a Navy Pre-Flight team in the summer of 1943.

When the call came in, Kepler was living on a farm in the outskirts of State College near Penn State, where he taught outdoor survival, hunter safety, and served as an assistant baseball coach for the Nittany Lions. Kepler was known around Centre County as a big- game hunter, earning the triple crown title for shooting a turkey, deer and a very large bear every year.

One of Kepler’s best friends around campus was George Harvey, the “Dean of American Fly Fishing,” who wrote about angling, and ignited a national passion for fly fishing. Three years earlier, when Williams was an aviation cadet, Kepler bonded with his trainee over a passion that gave them a sense of peace—fishing.

Reporters scrambling to dig up dirt on Williams never caught wind of that meeting when Kepler slipped into the Fenway clubhouse, seemingly, from out of the blue. Pesky left tickets and a pass to the locker room at Will Call, specifically asking Kepler to talk about fishing to calm his friend’s nerves.

For about 30 minutes the officer and his former cadet carried on about fly casting in the cool Pennsylvania rivers snaking around Kepler’s farm. After the exchange, the Navy coach disappeared into the stands at Fenway, where he watched the rest of the game.

According to Kepler’s son, Williams never knew Pesky made that phone call.

In rare form, The Kid burst into tears after the Series loss, and he never forgot Kepler’s act of kindness during one of his most vulnerable moments.

Years later, Williams hoped to cast a line for wild trout with his former Navy coach. Though he never got the chance to visit the farm near Happy Valley, they stayed in touch with letters until Kepler’s passing in 1988.

On October 5th the Red Sox will open the Division Series on their home turf at Fenway Park against the winner of the American League Wild Card game between the New York Yankees, and most likely, the Oakland Athletics. Based on the Red Sox hard-earned winning streak, the dynamics of talent and trust are definitely in sync. With the steady guidance of manager Alex Cora and the support of the fans, in the words of a Navy pilot, one might say the “sky’s the limit” for a Red Sox victory.

PHOTO CAPTIONS. – PLEASE INSERT BELOW IMAGES.
Courtesy of Pesky Family. 1) Rare 1942 images of Red Sox Johnny Pesky and 2) Boston Braves Johnny Sain at Turners Falls airport during preliminary flight training at Amherst station when they shelved their baseball careers to serve in the U.S. Navy. 3) Ted Williams with Coach Don Kepler circa 1943. Photos Courtesy of the United States Navy Pre-Flight School (University of North Carolina) Photographic Collection #P0027, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Passion – Ted Williams’s Gift to America and Baseball

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The national celebration of Ted Williams’s birth a century ago proves that Americans long for their old-fashioned baseball heroes. Though the hitter’s .406 mark may never be eclipsed, some of the least-known periods of Williams’s military training reveal the core values and work ethic of the greatest hitter who ever lived.

During the Second World War hundreds of major-league baseball players paused their athletic careers to serve in the military. In today’s world, imagine if Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez, and most of the Red Sox joined the service. By their side would be managers, coaches and staff who run Fenway Park, from ticket takers to concessionaires.

In 1942, Williams enlisted in the V-5 Naval Aviation Cadet Training Program. His goal was to join the ranks of America’s top gun pilots. When he left baseball at the end of the season, Williams channeled his passion into aviation and never looked back.

The greatest hitter who ever lived wrestled with a volcanic temper. Williams used epically profane language but he had a big heart. He was always worried about the kids who lacked the fiery passion that drove him.

By the time Williams celebrated his 25th birthday on August 30, 1943, he had just graduated from the toughest physical training program in the world for pilots. This 3 month course took place at the U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. During this time Williams was grateful to the Navy for protecting him from reporters who scrutinized his every move. Within the confines of this base, officers and fellow cadets gave Williams a nickname that stuck with him throughout the war – “Regular Joe.”

As soon as he joined the Navy, Baseball’s most famous Regular Joe disappeared into a mix of aviation cadets. The former D-student at Hoover High studied constantly, mastering difficult courses like aerodynamics and physics. He hiked hundreds of miles through the woods in survival training. In turn, he shaved ten pounds off his string-bean frame at the North Carolina camp. Not much of a swimmer before the Navy, Williams jumped into pools lit with gasoline fires and gained the endurance to swim a mile. The hitter played on the Navy baseball team and missed dinner to take extra batting practice, swinging in the dark until his palms bled. Unbeknownst to his fans, Williams also made a name for himself as a boxer. He even gained the attention of a pre-flight coach who thought he had the potential to fight at Madison Square Garden.

Williams paid attention to the little things that say “I care,” such as making his bed and polishing his boots. He mopped floors without complaint, and never received a demerit for foul language or disrespect.

Rare image of a hand-drawn sketch by Ted Williams during aviation training at Bunker Hill Naval Air Station. Circa 1943. Composite image of Williams also provided by the National Archives and Records Administration, (NARA) St. Louis.

After a short hiatus Williams shipped into Bunker Hill Naval Air Station on September 10, 1943. Nicknamed the USS Cornfield, Williams perfected his takeoffs and landings at this rural Indiana base, becoming one with the plane. Baseball’s Regular Joe finished his course work two weeks early, graduating at the top of his class. When Williams left for Pensacola, Florida, on December 6 to earn his golden wings he was one of the most respected men on base.

Right Stuff Values

The Splendid Splinter was unapologetic about the raw ambition forged as a lonely kid on San Diego’s sandlots. Passion drove his desire for perfection in every pursuit—from hitting to fly casting to his proudest pursuit as a Marine fighter pilot, where he served as John Glenn’s wingman in Korea.

Glenn trained in the same aviation program as Williams, becoming a Navy V-5 recruiter in 1942. When Esquire magazine shadowed Lt. Glenn on a recruiting tour, the reporter mentioned the right “stuff” traits that the flight board looked for—intangible, intrinsically rooted values that make a naval aviator. The words fearless, humble, loyal, and respectful come to mind.

Candidates selected for the program were modest, squared-away guys who never bragged about their achievements and were not afraid to fail. The aspiring young fighter pilots like Williams also had passion and shared a deep respect for country—core values that ultimately won the war.

Anne R. Keene is the author of The Cloudbuster Nine, The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win WWII. Today, fewer than 45 major-league World War II veterans remain with us, representing a generation of players who paused their baseball careers to serve their country.

75 Years Ago Today – When Ted Met Babe at Fenway Park at the July 12, 1943, Military All-Stars Game

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The Story Behind the Picture, a Conversation with a Player Who Was There

Seventy-five years ago, two of the world’s greatest hitters met in person for the first time at Fenway Park when the U.S. Navy granted Ted Williams leave to play on an armed forces team managed by Babe Ruth. The Fenway Park exhibition, where Ruth’s “All-Stars” faced Casey Stengel’s Boston Braves, was arranged to purchase eye glasses, leg braces and artificial limbs for war victims along with milk and food benefiting underprivileged kids.

“Hi Kid!” Sporting News clipping with Ted and Babe at the July 12, 1943, charity exhibition at Fenway.

Other military stars on Babe’s team included former Boston Red Sox “Dom” DiMaggio, a naval trainee, as well as 95-year-old George Yankowski, a former catcher with the Philadelphia Athletics who became an Army sniper and helped win the Battle of the Bulge.

Yankowski stood behind the photographer when the iconic homecoming photograph was taken in front of the Red Sox dugout. He said it was a “hot … hot humid day” with reporters and photographers hovering around Williams and Ruth like “ants on honey.” Yankowski recalled that Ruth was “drinking cold beer out of white pitcher.” That day Yankowski wore his woolen Fort Devens jersey and Williams returned to Fenway in his 1942 Red Sox traveling uniform, baggy from months of intense physical training as a Navy cadet. According to recent discoveries, the Bambino is dressed in a pin-striped Yankees uniform made by Western Costume Company for his role in “The Pride of the Yankees,” which is currently displayed at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum exhibit, Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend.

As Williams beams with an exultant smile, another behind-the-scenes story unfolds—most revealing of his humble character.

In mid-1943, war raged in the Pacific where Navy fighters gained the advantage over the Japanese in the skies. That summer, the 24-year-old slugger was spending three months on a North Carolina Pre-Flight Naval Aviation training base, drilling alongside his good friend and Red Sox shortstop, Johnny Pesky. In a Southern heat wave, cadets slogged through the most difficult ground training program in the world for pilots—tackling feats the best athletes would struggle to complete today.

Like Pesky, Williams’s second job at Pre-Flight School was to play baseball on command and though he was exhausted, and bug-bitten from hikes, and stressed from long hours of studying, he never disappointed the crowds—especially the kids.

During the war most fans assumed that players like Williams yearned for the limelight. While the military was careful to limit appearances of celebrity athletes, the Red Sox slugger insisted on being treated like every other cadet in a dog tag, shunning perks and special attention. When the All-Star invitation to Boston arrived, Williams initially expressed a desire to remain on base to focus on his work, proving that his passion for flying equaled his aspiration to become the greatest hitter who ever lived.

When Williams came home to Fenway the media blitz was tremendous. In sweltering humidity, he swaggered up to the plate before a youthful crowd of 18,000 fans and knocked the hide off the ball. That day Williams smacked three home runs in a pregame contest against Ruth, with 20-year-old Yankowski, crouched behind the plate as the catcher. Then the Splendid Splinter belted a tie-breaking homer ten rows deep into the center-field stands in the exhibition game where Babe’s team beat the Braves, 9–8.  When the former Philadelphia Athletic catcher got a single at that game, (which knocked in the winning run) Ruth put his arm around Yankowski, and in a husky voice, he said, “Nice going Kid.” When we spoke by phone this week, Yankowski said, “I’ll never forget his words if I live to be 100, which I very well may.”

In the color Fenway Park image carried over the wires, Sporting News, and military publications around the world Williams is tanned and in the best shape of his life, shaking hands with a declining Ruth, who leans on a bat. With packed stands in the background, and music furnished by the U.S. Coast Guard and Army bands, Williams realized that he would soon return to rigors of training. He did not know if he would live through the war or step foot in another major-league ballpark. But for a moment he was home.

During WWII, ninety percent of baseball’s professional players put their careers on hold to serve Uncle Sam—driving tanks, flying airplanes, and fighting the war in many other useful capacities to win the biggest game of all. Less than 45 major-league WWII vets remain with us today, including Cambridge native, George Yankowski, who resides in Florida, where a Bronze Star, a Combat Infantry Badge and the French Legion of Honor award are framed on his hallway of fame.

Ted Williams, who would celebrate his 100th birthday on August 30, 2018, came to symbolize America’s ultimate major-leaguer and Marine Corps fighter pilot serving in both WWII and Korea. Baseball fans will forever speculate what further heights Williams may have achieved in his baseball career had he not stepped off the diamond to serve his country. But perhaps it was Williams’s voluntary absence from the game, his tireless work ethic, and his ability to step back up to the plate as a humble naval cadet, performing as if he had never left Fenway Park, that truly defined Williams’s legacy of greatness.

 

Anne R. Keene is the author of The Cloudbuster Nine, The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win WWII. Dozens of major-league baseball players trained and coached at these special Pre-Flight Naval Aviation Training Schools along with George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, John Glenn and “Bear” Bryant and other members of the Greatest Generation. Today, less than 45 major-league World War II veterans remain with us, representing a generation of players who paused their baseball careers to serve their country.