As America prepares to remember those who sacrificed for their country during Memorial Day gatherings, it’s a good time to reflect upon the many baseball players who also sacrificed during wartime.As America prepares to remember those who sacrificed for their country during Memorial Day gatherings, it’s a good time to reflect upon the many baseball players who also sacrificed during wartime.
These days, with an all-volunteer military, you don’t hear much about ballplayers missing out on a prime part of their career to serve their country. That wasn’t the case in previous years, as plenty of ballplayers served in the military during World War I, World War II and the Korean War. Players like Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg served in the military during some prime years in the baseball careers.
So during this Memorial Day weekend take some time to look over Baseball in Wartime, a great resource to what players and their families sacrificed for their countries. The focus of the site is World War II, the event that severely impacted baseball to the point where MLB owners were looking at shutting down operations (and, indeed, minor-league baseball did shut down). They were told directly by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to keep player: the country needed the diversion offered by pro baseball.
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