A Few Degrees of Separation

The idea of reincarnation allows for ex post facto claims to greatness: I was a king, a genius, a movie star...  I make no claim greater than waist gunner on a B-17 during World War II.  Of course, neither the gunner nor his plane was very lucky, hence the past life.  If only I could remember my plane’s name.

The above may or may not explain what I was doing on eBay yesterday, looking at B-17 photos.  One that caught my eye was autographed even, by one Clifford Chambers.  According to the seller, Chambers “joined the United States 8^th Air Force B-17 flew 25 missions.”  That low number of missions flown, 25, indicates that Chambers most likely flew over Europe in 1943, when German air defenses made life miserable and, all too often, short for American bomber crews.  Twenty-five may as well have been a thousand.

My next-door neighbor also flew twenty-five missions on what he called “17s and 24s,” and yet I can’t find autographed pictures of him on eBay.  The photo of Chambers shows him standing in front of a baseball scoreboard at Ft. Wright (the one probably in Washington state).  Baseball—that’s the clue.  Here’s what made Chambers different: “1948-1953 pitcher Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, and St. Louis Cardinals.  Pitched a No-Hitter on May 6^th, 1951.”

Chambers pitched for the Cubs in their minor-league system as a 20-year old in 1942; then it was off to war the next three seasons.  I couldn’t find anything specific about his military service, but the photo shows him to be an officer.  That means pilot, co-pilot, navigator or bombardier.  In that previous life of mine, I would’ve been saluting him.

The left-hander spent one season, 1948, on the North Side before being traded to the Pirates, where he spent the next 2-1/2 years.  Just a month before he was shipped to St. Louis, Chambers pitched a no-hitter against the Boston Braves.  The eight walks two wild pitches led thisgreatgame.com to rate Chambers’ game as among the most imperfect and unlikely of no-hitters.

Five weeks later, Chambers was on his way to the Cardinals in a six-player deal that brought catcher Joe Garagiola among others to Pittsburgh; two years later, Garagiola would move on to the Cubs.  (The broadcasting career had to wait a bit.)  Ed Fitz Gerald, who caught Chamber’s no-hitter, never played for either Chicago team.  But he broke the heart of every White Sox fan on June 27, 1958.

Sox left-hander Billy Pierce had a perfect game going against the Senators with two out in the top of the ninth at Comiskey Park.  Up came Fitz Gerald pinch-hitting for the pitcher. Fitz Gerald hit the first pitch for an opposite field double to right.

Cliff Chambers, with a career mark of 48-53 and 4.29 ERA, was out of the majors nearly five years by then.  I wonder if he read about ex-batterymate in the paper.