As a teenager, Tony Gianunzio dreamed of pitching at Wrigley Field, propelling the Chicago Cubs to a World Series title and breaking a long championship drought … at the time, more than 30 whole years. World affairs had other ideas: A few months after drawing some attention during a Cubs tryout camp in 1942, Gianunzio would be in the Coast Guard, eventually headed into service in the Pacific as a gunner’s mate aboard the patrol frigate Machias. “The summer of ’42 had promised me the best of days,” Gianunzio would write in his memoir. “Youth had seemed a forever gift, and now all…
Browsing: World War II
Boston Red Sox shortstop, coach, manager and all-around legend Johnny Pesky died Monday at age 92. The Fenway fans’ seven-decade love affair with Pesky went well beyond his stat sheet, even though he hit .307 over 10 seasons and led the American League in hits three times — 1942, 1946 and 1947. What happened in 1943, 1944 and 1945? Like so many others, baseball icon or no, Pesky went to war. He began his naval aviator training in Massachusetts before the 1942 season ended, learning alongside Ted Williams at Amherst College. (Williams had it down cold, apparently — he would…
Not the typical sports career: Football star begins college at Michigan, takes time off after his sophomore season to join the war effort, gets shot down over Europe and hidden from Nazis who were working next door, then returns to school after the war and plays two more seasons, making the cover of Time magazine. Bob Chappuis’ life in the 1940s “was a virtual movie script,” as Mark Snyder put it in the Detroit Free Press. Chappuis, a College Football Hall of Fame member who led the Wolverines to an unbeaten 1947 season and a win in the 1948 Rose…
While Bob Feller’s greatness on the mound won’t go unnoticed upon passing — he died Wednesday — we also should remember his service to our country. Feller, who turned 92 last month, enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 8, 1941, one day after Pearl Harbor. He missed parts of four seasons serving in the Navy, most notably aboard the battleship Alabama for three years. He rose to the rank of chief petty officer and was in charge of a 40mm gun mount. He saw action in the Pacific theater during World War II. On to the obligatory rundown of his…
Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley. The first-year Vols coach compared his club to a young, inexperienced German force fighting the Allies during Normandy. “We’re like the Germans in World War II … like, ‘Oh my God, the invasion is coming.’ ” He said he didn’t “want the German people to get upset at me. I’m not attacking [them], but that’s what happened.” Not quite as bad as Bill Parcells’ quip several years ago about “Jap plays,” but surely this will draw some brickbats. Here’s a hint: analogies comparing football to (real) warfare, they fall flat.
