Hank Bauer
My father and I used to collect baseball cards when I was a kid. I was always fascinated by the old Yankee players like Moose Skowron and Hank Bauer. They had great names. They looked different than the ball players I saw on TV. they looked like tough-ass men. They all had interesting immigrant backgrounds or came off of farms in the mid west (which, to be honest, was just as foreign to me). A lot of them served in WWII. They were amazing to me. They still are.
Hank Bauer
Born in East St. Louis, Illinois as the youngest of nine children, Bauer's Austrian immigrant father was a bartender who had earlier lost his leg in an aluminum mill. With little money coming into the home, Bauer was forced to wear clothes made out of old feed sacks.
One month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bauer enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. While in the South Pacific, Bauer contracted malaria, but recovered enough to earn 11 campaign ribbons, two Bronze Stars and a pair of Purple Hearts in 32 months of combat. His second injury came during the Battle of Okinawa, when he commanded a platoon of 64 men. Only six survived the brutal siege, with shrapnel hitting Bauer in the thigh and sending him home.
Returning to East St. Louis, he joined the local pipe fitter's union and stopped by a local bar where his brother Joe worked. A New York Yankees scout signed him for a tryout with the team's farm club in Quincy, IL. The terms: $175 a month (a $25 increase if he made the team) and a $250 bonus. -From Wikipedia
He was a three time All-Star and a member of the NY Yankee teams that won seven World Series in ten years. He also coached the Baltimore Orioles to their first World Series title in 1966.
My favorite bit:
"Hank crawled on top of the Yankee dugout and searched the stands, looking for a fan who was shouting racial slurs at Elston Howard. When asked about the incident, Bauer explained simply, 'Ellie's my friend'."
Hank Bauer died today. He was 84.