In Memorium

Everything is connected.  Ex-White Sox outfielder Oscar Gamble dies this week, and I reach for my copy of Official Baseball, the 1945 edition.

This is what happens to people drawn to the past; something happens to make them want to poke around in all sorts of dusty places.  With me, it’s about wanting to better understand the world my parents lived in, and their parents.  But I don’t have a clue why anyone would be interested in the Middle Ages.

Would my father have bought this compendium of baseball facts?  Probably not; he never showed much interest in that kind of thing that I can recall.  Would he have known any of the players listed in the Southern Association or International League?  Maybe, because he did mention knowing Bridgeport boys who played pro ball.  Would he have gone to Comiskey Park in 1945?  Well, duh.

The book starts off with an honor roll of ballplayers in the armed forces.  There are Robert Feller and Theo. Williams, Henry Greenberg and Joseph DiMaggio, as well of a host of players I’d never heard of, like Ardys “Art” Keller, a catcher in the St. Louis Browns’ organization.  Keller was killed in action September 29, 1944, in Vosges, France.  On the next page are the names of Elmer Gedeon and Forrest Brewer, both in the Senators’ system.

A centerfielder, Gedeon had his cup of coffee with Washington in 1939.  Baseball-reference.com included a picture, so I could see he was an officer.  According to Wikipedia, Gedeon died on April 26, 1944, when the B-26 he was piloting was shot down over St. Pol, France.  Oddly enough, I’m reading a book right now about pilot who flew B-26s.  Everything is connected.

As for Forrest Brewer, he never made it out of D-ball, even after going 25-11 one year as a starter.  Brewer died at Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944.  For some reason, Baseball 1945 missed Harry O’Neill, who caught an inning for the A’s in 1939.  My guess is the magazine went to press before O’Neill, a first lieutenant, was killed on Iwo Jima, March 6, 1945.

It’s snowing out, Oscar Gamble died, and I took out Baseball 1945.  There are so many connections.