The Pecan Park Eagle

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?”

Three men represented the Trinity of baseball’s post World War II Era and no others will ever lay claim upon tat order of things. In fact, had it not been for World War II, and, in the case of one, also the Korean “police action”, there’s only conjecture left to us as to what kinds of stats they each might have produced over their war-abbreviated careers.

Today we are just taking a snapshot look at  the days they each broke into the big leagues. Joe DiMaggio (1936-51), Ted Williams (1939-60), and Stan Musial (1941-63) all went on from here to greatness, but, hey, they started out pretty good too. A group batting average of .429 (8 for 14) for all three of their MLB debut games is very good stuff for two kids breaking in at age 20 and one at 21.

Korea was Ted Williams’ second call to war from baseball.

Check out the following chart of their three debut stats as individuals and  a group.

Joe DiMaggio’s 1936 Yankees would defeat the St..Louis Browns, 14-6, before 25,000 at Yankee Stadium on May 3, 1936. Lefty Gomez started for the Yankees that day, but gave up all the Browns’ runs over four innings. Reliever Johnny Murphy shut out St. Louis over the last five to notch the win as the kid from San Francisco flashed both his foot speed and bat speed as a preview of many great days to come. The dynasty inclined 1936 Yankees would go on from here to take the New York Giants in the first of four consecutive World Series adventures.

Ted Williams was no Teddy Ballgame in his April 20, 1939 debut start for the Red Sox against the Yankees at The Stadium before 30,279 fans, but his one double did send notice of some frequent good times to come. The BoSox threw Lefty Grove at the Yankees, but ended up dropping a 2-0 shutout to Red Ruffing in the Bronx. The 1939 Yankees, whom many value as even greater than the 1927 Yankees, would go on to defeat the Cincinnati Reds in the 1939 World Series for their fourth straight title as king of the baseball world.

Stan the Man!

Stan Musial was a late season call up by the St. Louis Cardinals. He started in right field of Game 2 of a doubleheader at Sportsman’s Park against the Boston Braves, going 2 for 4, with a double and two RBI. The 3-2 Cardinal win secured a DH sweep of the Braves. The Cardinals would lose the World Series to the Yankees in 1941, the fifth title in six seasons for New York, but the Cardinals, with Musial now in the lineup mix, would make 1942 a payback season by taking the World Series from the perennial champion Yankees.

Now, with the death of Stan Musial on January 19, 2013, all three of my seemingly invulnerable childhood heroes are all gone.

That will have to be OK because it’s how things are. But “how things are” includes the fact that many of us will never forget any of them, what they did on the field while they were here. And what  they might have done had they not been carried away by their duties to the war in the prime time of their careers..