Infamy
In the December 7, 1941 Durham Morning News, sports columnist Edward Mitchell commented on the speculation that six-time all-star Joe Cronin was considering stepping away from the shortstop position to focus on managing the Boston Red Sox. The impetus for this career-altering decision was the emergence of a recently promoted infielder, Johnny Pesky. Mitchell wrote, “Pesky has come along faster than a weed under an April shower since he entered professional baseball. The boy has everything.”
In the Rockford (Illinois) Morning Star, Cronin added, “I hope Pesky is so good that he can make me stay in the dugout.” Sadly, on the front page of that paper were headlines emboldened in dark and menacing font,: “U.S. Fleet, Planes Meet Jap Attack.” The invasion by the empire of Japan at Pearl Harbor had been decisive. The battleship USS Arizona sunk in 20 minutes, taking with it to its eternal entombment over a thousand men, including 34 sets of brothers and the commander of the ship Admiral Isaac Kidd.
Eighteen ships sank in the harbor, including the USS West Virginia, which flipped upside down. The hull-up ship trapped men in sealed air pockets beneath its iron floor. The encased men spent 16 days tapping on the floor—now the ceiling—begging for rescuers to save them. The sound of the pounding would torture men on the docks who were ordered to stand guard.
After raising the ship, officials made their way into the room where the men had survived all those days. They found their bodies and 16 red Xs on the wall representing a heartbreaking calendar kept by the men who would eventually succumb.
Hours after the attack, President Roosevelt stood before Congress and talked of infamy and deliberate deception. In the end the commander-in-chief declared war upon Japan and pledged, “With confidence in our armed forces with the unbound determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us, God.”
Less than a quarter of a century had passed since the “war to end all wars” had been fought and won. Now America was again obliged to commit its sons to the corners of the globe in defense of freedom.
One month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the country was in a state of shock. Families hadn’t even exhaled when they found themselves kissing their sons and husbands at gangplanks and train platforms. War came to the country’s shores for the first time in over a century. Americans now had to prepare themselves to fight and support the war. Millions of American men were called to span the globe in the fight for freedom, while back home its citizens sacrificed, rationed, and worked like they never had before. The country had been challenged, and its people were ready to rise as one to answer the call.
Despite a brave spirit, the American people subsisted within a somber state. They worked double shifts and went without. It seemed almost unpatriotic to live a life that allowed your mind or body to drift beyond the war. There was guilt that accompanied any activity that didn’t directly support the effort. No one was quite sure how he or she should behave when not working or serving the country. Many found it difficult to justify pursuits of amusement when American men were dying on beachheads, on decks of ships, and in foxholes.
It was this state of mind that caused Major League Baseball to pause and weigh the wisdom of playing the 1942 season. With protocol undefined, Commissioner of Baseball Judge Kenesaw Landis decided that a decision of this magnitude was beyond his powers. He was aware that baseball was the national pastime, but it was still just a game.
Seeking direction, the commissioner decided to write a letter to the president to ask whether baseball should carry on or stand down. In the letter, Landis wrote, “These are not ordinary times, I venture to ask what you have in mind as to whether professional baseball should continue to operate.”
President Roosevelt read the letter, accepted the complexity of the issue, and recognized that a decision of this consequence was the responsibility of the man in the oval office. It was his job to provide an opinion that brought certainty to the issue. Ultimately the president recognized that the morale of the American people was critical to the war effort. He also acknowledged that the sport of baseball could serve as a galvanizing force to connect the American people from one continent to the other.
In his mind, the more Americans who were stateside existed within a state of relative “normalcy,” the more their sons and husbands could focus on the task at hand in Europe and the Pacific Ocean. And there was no higher institution in the country to convey “normalcy” than baseball.
Ultimately the president hoped that the game of baseball would play a role in the war effort. Back home it would provide employment and diversion. Across the seas, the sport would grant service members a tangible attachment to their lives they knew before the war. It would be in the reading of box scores or in arguments with mates about Williams or DiMaggio that would connect them with home.
President Roosevelt believed that the sport was critical to the war effort. So much so that after receiving the commissioner’s letter, FDR immediately grabbed his pen and wrote back to Judge Landis blessing the 1942 season, pronouncing the importance of the game to the American people, and wishing for the sport to carry on for the good of the nation: “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed, and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before.”
With the war in full bloom, Roosevelt came to Fenway Park to address more than 50,000 fans. The following day, the papers lauded him with praise, “no conquering hero who performed victoriously on the baseball field ever won the thundering din that poured into the field.”
Before the event, Frank Sinatra sang the national anthem in duet with 50,000 proud Americans. Following Sinatra’s rousing rendition, actor Orson Welles addressed the disparaged Adolf Hitler in vain and brought the fans to a lather. It was when the massed were in full voice that the centerfield gate opened and a car with President Roosevelt sitting in the passenger seat drove onto the field.
Unbeknownst to the public, the president was riddled with neuropathy as a result of his polio and was unable to extricate himself from the car. So the car drove over to a stage on the grass in center field where a ramp extended from the side, allowing the automobile to climb next to the rostrum. Up above the press box and left field wall, eight sets of floodlights cast light upon the president.
From the passenger seat of the car, the sitting president delivered a spell-binding presentation. During the speech he wanted to make sure that those gathered, and the national radio audience, knew that it was never his intention to go to war, but when he issued the declaration of war, he made sure everyone knew that our adversaries messed with the wrong country.
When our enemies flung the gate of battle at us, we elected to fight them in the American way which meant that we went after them and we started punching and we are still punching, and we have driven our enemies into their own corner. Mussolini has been knocked out for the count. The other two are getting groggier [thunderous applause] and groggier [people stamping their feet now] and groggier every day.
The crowd was delirious. The president finished by saying, “The American people were ready. On the day of Pearl Harbor, they rose up as one man with a mighty shout—a shout heard around the world—a shout of “Let’s Go!”—and we went!”
At the end of the speech, Roosevelt’s driver rolled the car down the ramp of the stage and proceeded to circle Fenway Park on the dirt of the apron that framed the field. From the front seat the president waved his hat and smiled. In the grandstand and box seats, the crowd chanted, “We want Roosevelt!” When the car reached the gate in center field, the president was so taken by the Fenway Park crowd, he yelled to the driver, “Take another lap!”