Imagine yourself back in 1953 in Philadelphia. You are on the mound for your major league debut, and you walk out to a thunderous boo. You begin your warm ups, and the booing continues. The game wears on, and nothing changes. You look at the opposing pitcher, Don Larsen of the St. Louis Browns, and he is dealing out there, making your teammates work for every run. The game finishes, and the booing just will not wear down. You walk out of Connie Mack Stadium, and the people just will not stop annoying you with booing and threatening words. However, you continue on your path to the hotel room and realize that you set the standard for integration for the Athletics organization. This is the day that Bob Trice made history, on September 13, 1953.

Bob Trice broke the color barrier for the Philadelphia Athletics at Connie Mack Stadium, and set the precedent for future Athletics teams, which would later move to Kansas City. His impact on the organization was more than just a sideshow attraction. He made it possible for not only African-American players like Jarrod Dyson and Derrick Robinson, but for Latino players like Joakim Soria, Jonathan Sanchez, and Salvador Perez on the current 40-man roster. His numbers were not outstanding, and his minor league success did not carry over into the Major Leagues. He was a combined 9-9 with an ERA around 6.70 in his three seasons in Philadelphia and Kansas City. He also had 28 strikeouts and 60 walks in 152 innings pitched.

Trice will never be remembered in the same way as the greats, like Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, or Roberto Clemente for running into a lot of prejudice and playing exceptionally well, but the people of Philadelphia will always remember the day he stepped on the mound and showed his skills against Don Larson. The stadium at the intersection of Lehigh Avenue and North 21st Street was filled to see how Trice would perform for a struggling A’s team, and even though he did not earn the victory, he set the bar relatively high with his first start. He threw eight innings, letting up five earned runs, no walks, and two strikeouts.

As we watch Royals baseball this spring, we will see a newly transformed team, with all sorts of different players from different parts of the world. From Mike Moustakos to Jarrod Dyson, Bruce Chen to Jonathan Sanchez, we see many different colors and ethnicities, and we should be thankful to the man that helped them be a part of the team. Thank you Bob Trice, for helping to make Baseball the game it is today.

[From an article on EM]

For anyone that’s never made the journey, five hours of driving past nearly 300 miles of corn, porn and fireworks isn’t exactly what would be referred to as a traditional vacation. But when you have old friends to meet and your favorite baseball team to see, the trek from Kansas City to St. Louis down I-70 is slightly easier to swallow.

I made it to my friends’ place on the outskirts of St. Louis in the afternoon. We hung out for a bit and went to eat at a pizza place in town, where I saw Lance Berkman‘s 24th homer of the year on TV. (Every TV in town has the game on). I got back to their house just in time to see Kyle Lohse give up a back-breaking four-run homer, only three of which were answered to by the Cardinals. 7-6 Diamondbacks.

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The next afternoon, we passed the ballyard in all its shining glory. To a denizen of the city (most of them being clad in the red of the hometown 25), it’s there every day. But when you have only seen it in person twice, never in the daytime and at home only when the team is on nationally, it’s a sight to see. The crimson block letters that resemble those on the Budweiser Brewery pronounce the brick and black steel building’s designation: BUSCH STADIUM.

We were heading to Crown Candy, a little restaurant–I guess you’d call it–built into the corner of a run-down, abandoned block on the south side of the city whose presence was hidden from the eyes of the Arch by a number of skyscrapers. I guess plenty of other people shared my friends’ enthusiasm for the place since we waited nearly an hour to get through a 20-foot-long line in which everyone was compacted together like a trash cube waiting for one of the 20-something tables to open up. After hearing a brief reminiscence of an old man and his St. Louis Browns who didn’t recognize the name “Pujols” on the back of one of my friends’ jerseys, we finally sat down. The hot dog drenched in chili, cheese and onions is essential to the story as you can well imagine.

We exited the old, corroding neighborhood with its collapsed and graffitied houses, empty shops, collections of druggies and homeless men under an overpass literally feet away from the nicer stone, steel and glass buildings of the upper district. We breached into bustling downtown, where we strategically entered into a makeshift parking lot beyond the third base side without engaging any of the heavy traffic around the Stadium a bit short of two hours before first pitch. While we drove down Spruce Street, I looked up from the back seat at the bright red neon lettering symmetrically divided by the line in the middle of the road that read “St. Louis Cardinals” in the same font on the fronts of the teams’ uniforms.

We turned a corner and went straight in as we passed the notorious(ly ugly) Stan Musial statue. As I said, I had only been to the place twice, but never early enough to tour it. I took a walk to see the backdrop beyond where the mythological St. Louis Cardinals do battle 81 days out of the year and passed thousands of people dressed similarly to myself in their various Redbirds paraphernalia, the hundred or so vending stations and food stands and thousands of Little Leaguers and their parents coming off the field and filing up the zig-zagging ramp that enthralled me in my very first visit a few years ago.

My friend and I made our way back to our seats in the left-center bleachers, where we waited in 90-something-degree weather for the game to start.

Everything started according to plan when Albert Pujols gave us an early lead in the first. Then, it all fell apart in an instant. I was seeing my favorite pitcher, Chris Carpenter, start in person for only the second time. I picked a bad day. Only moments after the should-be All-Star singled in that first run, Carpenter loaded the bases and with two outs and gave up a hit to the freaking pitcher; which wouldn’t have been so bad had Colby Rasmus not charged the ball. But he did. And it got by him. 3-1, Arizona.

Chris Young blasted a double past Albert to increase the deficit one more run. Kelley Johnson doubled in the sixth to crush everyone’s spirits and make it 5-1. Figures this is the game I get to see in my tentatively annual visit to Busch. The bases-loaded double play in a two-run inning didn’t do much to lighten my spirits, either. Ryan Roberts drove in yet another D-Backs run on Jason Motte in the top of the seventh. 6-3.

I should have been having more fun since I was with my friends in one of my favorite places on this earth; but I wasn’t. How could I? A comeback seemed impossible at this point.

But, my guys gave me a hint of something to root for. Ryan Theriot hit a fly ball deep to center–right in front of me but still well over the grass. Young looked up and had his glove ready, but dropped the ball right after catching it. Theriot was out, but Jon Jay scored from third. There’s always a little hope, I thought.

I looked over at the scoreboard to see that the Pirates, who the Cards were unbelievably tied with before 6:15, had given the Cubs the go-ahead run. Next thing I know, I’m looking at the other end of the barrel on a Pujols game-tying bomb 50 feet away from me.

I saw the blue ball loop into the away bullpen. I don’t know why it was blue or why I didn’t hear the rest of the crowd when he hit it. But when it was airborne, I waited until it touched down. Then, I lost it. (My voice is still cracking a bit.) Me and everyone around me went hysterical as the baddest hitter on the planet just gave our team a back-from-the-dead, tie-game hit. 6-6, Cardinals. (Yes, we were in the lead.)

I didn’t have another coherent thought all night. It’s something special to see your favorite player do something like that. Who’s washed up now? But it wasn’t over yet. With these relievers, it’s never over.

But, Tony LaRussa pulled out all the stops. The team’s best relievers: Mitchell Boggs, Lance Lynn and Fernando Salas were all used to preserve the tie. But that meant that if the game went into extra innings, Tony would be flushed of his best relief men. The game had to end in the bottom of the ninth.

Lance Berkman led off with a hit, and Yadier wasn’t far behind with a walk. In comes the only bat left on the bench after Jay, Skip Schumaker and Nick Punto were used: Tony Cruz and his three RBI. (Notably absent was his Ke$ha walk-up song.) Well, it isn’t the end of the world if he gets out. My brother, a casual baseball fan, asked me “Who’s Tony Cruz?” He found out.

This time, I yelled before the ball hit the ground. Utility man Tony Cruz had just hit a walkoff double to right! The crowd, naturally, was even louder this time after their guys came out of a three-run ditch. Me and my friends couldn’t stop talking about what we had just seen. I high-fived the Cool Papa Bell statue outside before celebratory Imo’s was ordered. Man, I love baseball.

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We said our early-morning goodbyes, said hi to my uncle after a conversation disparaging my boy Razz and left on the long trip for home. On the way, caught the day game and Iceman’s game-winning bomb on a TV at TGI Fridays in Columbia and three different radio stations. And now I’m back.

Postscript: Hit me up at my site

There’s nothing like lots of business travel to allow one an opportunity to catch up on some baseball reading. Recently I’ve been working through Bill Nowlin’s ‘Ted Williams at War’, which looks at the Boston legend’s military service years. Not from the perspective of what his statistics might have been had he played the 4.5 seasons he lost, but a chronicle of his day-to-day life while in the United States Marine Corps.

Williams trained in WWII but never saw combat. He saw lots of combat, however, during the Korean War. He had a one narrow escape from death on his third combat mission, and he returned to play almost 8 full seasons in Boston. No player with major league service time died in Korea, but some with minor league service did. As the book finished its ramp up to Williams’ 6 months in-theater, it listed a few of the many who gave their lives in defense of South Korea. Three of those men had ties to St Louis baseball, two to the Cardinals.

John Lazar was a pitcher in the St Louis Browns organization who joined the US Army. He died in Korea on 7 September 1951. I was not able to find any information regarding the circumstances of his death, and no statistical information for his playing days is contained on Baseball-Reference’s minor league page.

Edwin Adamcewicz was born in Norwich CT on 8 November 1929. He was signed by the Cardinals as an outfielder in 1947 at the age of 17, and played 4 minor league seasons for the organization; 3 in class D-ball, one at class C. He entered the US Army sometime during 1951 and was eventually assigned to 45^th infantry division, 179^th infantry regiment. On 5 May 1952 Corporal Adamceiwcz was severely wounded in action against North Korea (this website offers some details). He survived that day and was evacuated stateside, where he was brought to the military hospital at Fort Devens Massachusetts. Sadly he did not recover from his wounds, passing away on 21 November 52.

Raymond Jankowski was born in Locust Township (northeastern Pennsylvania, near Wilkes-Barre) on 23 June 1929. He was a left-handed pitcher and was signed by the Cardinals as a 19-year old in 1948, and played two seasons for the Cardinals in Class D. Minor league baseball was a lot different in the 1940s and 1950s than it is today. The Cardinals had multiple teams playing in at the D level; Jankowski and Adamcewicz did not play together. It appears he either joined the military in 1950 or had washed out of the Cardinal system in 1950, the data is somewhat sketchy. Jankowski joined the US Army and became an Aviation Engineer, meaning he was to help in the construction of airfields overseas where they were needed to support combat operations (it would seem these troops provided a service for the Army much like what Navy Seabees did during the Pacific island-hopping campaign in WWII). He was stationed at Fort Huachuca in 1951, but was involved in a training accident while at the Fort and died from his injuries on 5 November 1951.

The Major League players who served in the armed forces during WWII and Korea are well-known. Minor-league ballplayers that did the same are less so. I found some great websites beyond those linked above attempting the tough job of listing these men by name and what happened to them. Veteran’s Day is the Country’s way of formally recognizing the sacrifice our servicemen and women have made over the years, but remembering them doesn’t need to be limited to one day.

I’m sure there are other men who played for the Cardinal organization that did not return from the wars of 1941-1953. These men’s names happened to cross my path, and I thought they should be remembered.