Happy Veterans Day! 11-11-2011
This will probably NOT come as a shock to most of you, but this post is going to involve some patriotic sentiments, alongside a healthy portion of history and….you guessed it…A SPORTS UNDERTONE! It has been a while since I have posted anything. There are many reasons for that, but without revealing the graphic details, (and thus incriminating the individuals in my life which are partly responsible for all of my recent discouragement) I will happily say that I am almost back to being myself, and the winds of change that were nearly tornado-like, have calmed to a manageable, yet still ever-present warm late-spring breeze. Unpredictable still, but the sun is shining and I am beginning to be found in quite moments, with a good book or snuggling with my daughters, watching a cartoon. As of late, (compared to the last time I opened the windows to my soul and let you peek in) the plans that me and my party-of-four are focusing on, are not so much about when and where to live; as they are about what foil packs of fresh baseball cards to open next.
Yeah, it seems like a drastic shift of focus in life, especially since (had we had the means) I was ready to pack and move anywhere but here. And you know maybe it is quite the swing of priorities, that now, instead of saving every dime like a broker during a market crash, I come home after nailing a math test (97%) with fifty bucks worth of unopened sports cards. I’m not proud, but I’m not ashamed to reward my efforts either. At least it’s not detrimental to my health, and it doesn’t impair my driving. To be honest with you, our dreams are still the same, we’ve just realized that not enough of the stars are aligned yet for us to make that kind of astrographic kind of a move. So, you’re thinking, what do fresh baseball cards have to do with our decision? And what does any of this have to do with my recent up close and personal experience with some of the greatest veterans to have ever represented the United States in and/out of war? Well, as you wish, I will tell you!
When we were planning the jump to Virginia, for school, for some football, for some time “away” to grow as a family in a part of America that we dearly love; we started to inventory our life. All things. Monetarily – and – spiritually. Thus pulling a few old Rubbermaid container of all things sports memorabilia (mostly cards) off the garage shelf. A slap of the lid to remove the dust and the finding by me and my best collecting buddy (MY WIFE) immediately turned our wheels from Anywhere, USA; to Memory-Road. A time in life when our “work” was also our best “play”. In truth, most of the contents were Kristina’s, as she is the more skilled organizer of the two of us. Okay, I’ll be honest, they were all hers. And they were very meticulously organized. And, I am ashamed to say that because I was still in the spirit pulling up tent stakes (and leaving the circus, or that’s how I still fill sometimes) I began to obliterate her system of organization and sort out (with plans of getting rid of) cards that “we just don’t need if we take these with us”.
NOTE: Husbands! YOU HAVE A BETTER CHANCE OF LIVING IF YOU COME HOME WITH LIPSTICK ON YOUR COLLAR AND SMELLING LIKE A BROTHEL THAN IF YOU SORT THROUGH YOUR WIFE’S 20+ YEAR OLD SPORTS COLLECTION WITHOUT HER PERMISSION.
REMINDER: NOT ALL THINGS ARE COMMON IN MARRIAGE.
Needless to say, we still have every Bo Jackson rookie card that we began with. And because of the latest developments, we have even more.
As usually happens, my wife softened my heart. At least about the sports cards. All she really had to do was start talking about where she got some of her first cards. Apparently she had a boyfriend named Dusty, and he was her supplier. This was in the first grade. I personally know this “Dusty” and he’s a real nice guy. Served in the Air Force, and has a family, so I suppose he’s not a threat today. So as my wife kindly took my hand and asked me to walk down memory lane, the first stop was back to my parents house to dig out the box that I thought was still in a remote corner underneath MT. ANNE (that’s what I call my Mom’s unhealthy collection of goods) in the back of my old bedroom. So, I strapped on my avalanche beacon, as per request of my siblings and father. Got my best pair of gloves and hiking Nike’s and began the ascent, and dig. As I dug, I came upon treasure after treasure. Not the baseball cards, but memories pertaining to my life still. And then, there it was. The red and white Xerox brand box, I was so familiar with from the days when my Mother would bring home paper work. She kept every box that ever came home. Apparently I used one as well. I returned home from my adventure in the wilderness of hoarding, with my collection of “things”.
I wasn’t very optimistic. Or at least I didn’t want to be. Let’s just say that I was refusing to take my mind off of the fact that what I was going to partake in with these cardboard photo representations of has-been washed up baseball players, was not going to change any feelings I had about moving AFAP (As Far As Possible) from the largest negative stressors in my life….who shall remain nameless. If my name was Paul, and I was an ancient apostle, you could say that I was kicking against the pricks. I’m sure I said one or more discouraging things to my wife who was patiently leading me through this experience, like the ghost Christmas past. And, like a real Scrooge, I commenced the work of counting and sorting and making an account of my “things”, or at least that’s what I took them for.
“Things”.
Just more “things” that I felt would keep us from living our dreams of independence and taking a swing at greatness. Of making history.
I suppose that the real change began when I slowed down, and was going through them one by one. It wasn’t long however until the anxious feeling of wasting time was replaced by child-like feelings of sentiment for the paper memorabilia which portrayed athletes who had once been my heroes. Nolan Ryan. Tony Gwynn. Cal Ripken. I went through a period of remorse when I came upon a Walter Payton rookie card. I remembered that I had stolen it from my best friend. Apparently, either the things I’ve done in life since then are heavier in consequence, or, the Lord forgives football card thieves automatically, because I don’t ever remember feeling all that bad about it, until I saw it again, 20 years later. Regardless, I began to realize the value of these “things”. Both intrinsically and also in pennies. Pennies…Only….except…some of these athletes are in the hall of fame now. Some of them even dead. And after all these years, I hadn’t even taken the time to authenticate the autographed Michael Jordan card yet. “Oh my goodness”, I thought, “some of these could really be worth a lot of money”. The German entrepreneur/ street-vending English colonist began to come out in me. To make a long story short…. Well, at least a little shorter. Over the last six months my wife and I have increased our sports card collection by about ten-fold. And we are enjoying the hobby which is also a small-time business. So much in fact that it’s not even thanksgiving, and our PayPal just about has Christmas for our extended family and some friends taken care of. We are working on getting organized, but it seems like these cards reproduce like rabbits. We are getting more skilled at finding things we “like” and we are getting ready to working on some personal collections of complete sets; including a 2004 Topps Baseball “Presidential Pastime” set. (1 card for each American president up to that time). We’ve acquired some cool stuff, and made money off of other not so cool stuff (apparently on Ebay, there are folks that will pay for Seattle Seahawks cards – who knew!) The best of all though I found one lazy day at work while perusing the online yard sale world of Craigslist. And this is how sport memorabilia, has led to a less restless spirit in our home, great learning opportunities and adventures, and a deeper appreciation for American War Vetran’s. Especially today, Veterans day.
The advertisement said something like this:
“FOR SALE. One old baseball in plastic case with the date of 1945. We can read one of the names “LEW RIGGS”. We googled him and it says he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. There are a lot of other names on the ball as well. We don’t know much about baseball. We have a baby and need money for clothes and food. Please call ###-####. Accepting offers.”
At first I thought oh yeah right. Then I thought, well maybe. It was posted locally, which means if it is a scam, it’s not going far. So, I called. The young woman described it some more, but as I asked questions, I began to really understand that she knew very little about baseball, let alone historical baseball. Without knowing what this baseball was, I left it at asking her to at least not sell it until I could come and take a look. She agreed, and the rest of the day at work, I began to google search anything and everything pertaining to Lew Riggs. The only conclusion I could draw was that this was a Brooklyn Dodgers team autographed ball. She said it had signatures all over it, it was dated 1945, and Lew Riggs played for the dodgers from 1941 to 1946. I knew from reading picture books as a kid, that Jackie Robinson had broken “the color barrier” in 1945, by being the first Black athlete to sign a professional baseball contract. It was with the Brooklyn Dodgers. I began to be excited. The work day couldn’t end fast enough, although it never really does, the intensity of my longing to exit “the box” (as I affectionately call it) deepened.
8:00 P.M. I parked across from the old house in an empty LDS church parking lot. I’m familiar with those and the lot was empty, so I didn’t even have to prove membership for a good spot, unlike most Sundays when it’s all a hustle and bustle to enter, supplicate and pay tithes. Ironically, in the back of my vehicle was a trash bag full of baby clothes Kristina and I had been trying to drop off at a donation center for a couple of weeks. I took those with me. Normally I try not to judge folks, but as I approached the front door, my mind made an allusion to the fact that any money I’d be spending was probably going to foster bad habits, and not provide for a baby. Like usual, my prejudices were proven wrong. Someday I will learn. Sure enough, the young couple answered the door and invited me in. I gave them the baby supplies immediately, glad they were gone whether or not I came away with the ball. They brought it out of the back bedroom, and let me handle it. The baseball was indeed old. In the young lads other arm was, in fact, a fresh-from-heaven baby boy. My heart softened…at least a little. I am a sucker for baby boys. The four of us had some more casual conversation, and upon offering them what I thought was a fair amount for a 66 year old baseball I knew nothing about, I was on my way. That night I was up until 2 am searching for anything about Lew Riggs. For anything about what he was doing in 1945. Now you would think that I would have remembered what most 20-something men were doing in 1945. I didn’t. It wasn’t until I had searched other names of the ball players who’d signed the ball that it donned on me. 1945… 1945…. 1945! In 1945, American soldiers; Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, were wholly engaged in putting to sleep the international tyrant that was Japan during world War II. I began to look a little bit harder at the ball, and next to where the date 1945 was written, there were some other words. They were very faint. But after stumbling upon an online article entitled “Playing Ball in the Mariana’s (the story of the 20th Air Force Pacific Tour of 1945), written by Gary Bedingfield for his website (www.baseballinwartime.com); things began to be very clear. Because of his research, I was even able to clearly identify 22 of the 28 signatures that are on the ball. Also, I was able to realize that above and below the “label” of the ball (traditionally, a spot on the narrowest part of the reveal of the seams, where the brand is stamped) read the words: TINIAN 1945 ARMY ALL STARS!!! Everything to date has gotten more interesting from the moment I realized what those words were.
I won’t relay all of the boring details about some events that followed, which make this ball so special, I’ll just tell you that it is a really cool feeling to receive a personal email from the official historian of Major League Baseball; Mr. John Thorn. I don’t normally divulge this kind of information, but usually when I check my email at 6:30 am and I am simultaneously going to the bathroom, it’s never that exciting! Basically, Kristina and I realized that we have an artifact, which because it is so unique, falls in a category that is not really marketable. It’s valuable, but only in a historical sense. Sure, we could donate it to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and by so doing, we’d be entitled to a lifetime membership. We wouldn’t use it often, since it takes a while to drive to Cooperstown, N.Y. So, we decided to just try and learn as much as possible about this ball, and see where it takes us.
A further reading of Dr. Bedingfield’s article explains how, three very special bombardment wings of the 20th Air Force, arrived at the islands of Tinian and Saipan, south of Japan, late in the spring of 1945. The specific missions of the forty-eight men, which made up the three baseball teams, representing the 58th, 73rd, and 313th bombardment wings of the 20th Air Force; were not the normal call of duty services orders. Yes these men were and are American war veterans, soldiers. In fact, there were some that died while so far from home. However, they were not heavily involved in combat missions. Sometimes these men were referred to as ground support troops. Theirs was the mission of defeating the discouragement which accompanied their fellow pilots, soldier, generals and captains. Their sole purpose was to lift the souls of the American soldier, who courageously fought for my freedoms. Who by day, flew b-29 super fortress bombing aircrafts from the Tinian North Air Field over Iwo Jima, and Hiroshima, and blew the Hell out of Japanese enemies; and who, if they were lucky enough to return to base alive in the evening, needed a way to escape the Hell of war. Around July 1945 Forty-eight professional athletes turned soldier arrived and immediately began building baseball fields. One on Saipan, the other on Tinian. They divided into three teams, and between pulling pilots out of wrecked airplanes, and maintaining buildings and machines, they played a 26 game round robin style season. On September 2nd, 1945, just over 66 years ago, a twenty seventh game was played, and the three teams split into two ‘All-Star Teams’, American and National leagues to be exact. They played a riveting game in front of tens of thousands of fellow Americans, and even some natives who crawled from the to watch. The irony of this, is, that even though professional baseball was still played in America in 1945, the Major League Baseball All Star Game scheduled to be played in Boston at Fenway Park, was cancelled that year due to severe flight restrictions, and the cost to get all the ball players there. So that was it. On a small island in the Central Pacific ocean, THE ONLY professional baseball “ALL-STAR” game of 1945 was played. Very few people saw it. Even fewer know it ever happened.
From Tinian Japan, to Nampa Idaho, I now have a baseball in the top drawer of my desk. Next to it sits the flight itinerary to get me to Milwaukee on Thanksgiving Day. From there to a quiet place called Dousman,WI. This is where I will meet with Marjorie Loeser, the wife of a man who played in the 1945 Army All Star game on Tinian Island. She is 87 years old. I only found her because I was gooling the names of Veterans who signed the ball, who played in that game. And out of the twenty two names on the ball, DON LOESER is the only one who returned any results. My web browser took me to a site that (4 years ago!) a Nancy Loeser Kopperud posted her name and email in hopes of finding information about her father who she had heard played in a baseball game in Japan. FOUR YEARS AGO! What are the chances? While everybody else has spent time on Facebook today, “honoring” and thanking the Veterans past and present, I have been thinking about Don and Marjorie Loeser, the twelve children they had as “baby boomers” when Don returned home from the war as a Veteran, and about a trip to Wisconsin.
HAPPY VETERANS DAY Don Loeser. If there is baseball in heaven, I hope you are enjoying it as much as I enjoy my freedom as an American today. Thank you.
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| The man with no shirt and his foot on the table is Don Loeser |
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