(The beginning of this memoir goes back to 1949 for those scrolling back)

BIG MOE

     Almost everybody in baseball who was young enough and able-bodied (hell, we were professional athletes, in our prime, cream of the crop of American manhood) went off to war, or at least joined some branch of the military. It wasn’t a time to think about yourself, or your career. Joining up was the decent and honorable thing to do. You didn’t want anybody patting you on the back for it, even though you were giving up everything you’d worked for all your life. A pro ball player only has so many years, and here I was, 28, just finding my niche, in my prime, and I had to go, knowing I was going to lose my best years, years I could finally make some decent money and establish myself, knowing the guys taking my place were either too old to go, or young guys who found a way to get out of it for their own good.

     We had this young kid, about 21, 22, a big left-handed pitcher, a real horse, had just about the best stuff in the league next to Feller, and he said he wasn’t going, and his mother supported him. He was a Momma’s boy, spoiled, arrogant, a bratty kid, couldn’t stand to lose or not get his way…I remember him tossing a card table over when he lost in cards…and then the big dummy went on radio in Detroit and popped off about why he wasn’t going, something about fighting his own people, and ended up getting some kind of medical deferment on some kind of heart condition.

     A couple of our players were cleaning out their lockers and getting ready to check out and go into the service, and they bounced him around pretty good. Tebbetts really went after him, boxed him around, called him yellow, and believe me, there were a bunch of us who wanted a piece of him.

     I thought about guys like him when I was over seas in the South Pacific, living the dogs life, the heat so bad the ground cracked and you went a little crazy, and the malaria, the crotch-rot, and wondering if you were ever going to get out of this hell-hole alive or in one piece; and you wondered about some of those poor kids storming those beach heads, little guys from the end of the line, taking it on the nose for the rest of us, doing the right thing, and you think about this big strapping kid back in the states, with his heart condition, having his biggest, best years, winning over 20 games, throwing more innings than anybody in the big leagues, making a reputation for himself, getting famous, a hero to kids, an all star, making good money, and you wanted to puke.

     The fans, they forget, because they’re fickle, and later on all you hear about is a guy’s great years and great records, and he WAS a hell of a pitcher, I admit, but as a man everybody on Detroit knew he was a horse’s ass, selfish, no guts, put himself before his country while the rest of us did the dirty work while he took the easy way out.

     Sometimes in life it’s the things you don’t do that haunt you, but then sometimes you have guys who don’t know any better, or do know better but don’t give a damn, and guys like that, well, you wouldn’t change places with them for anything in the world, because at least you wake get up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and know your team mates see the same guy you do

     (Next Sunday installment: “Dilemma and Despair.”)