The St. Louis Browns in Wartime

If any team might symbolize the tumultuous years of major-league baseball during World War II, the St. Louis Browns would be a prime candidate.  During the war the quality of play at the major-league level deteriorated as players were drafted into the service.  They were replaced by untested youngsters, passed-over minor leaguers, resurrected veterans, or those deemed physically unqualified for military service.  The Brownies became increasingly adept at molding a team from sources like these, especially from those considered unfit for the armed forces.   

The draft figured capriciously in the fortunes of all teams season to season as players came or went depending on military demands. Brooklyn’s Dodgers finished third in 1943; then seventh; then third.  Washington’s Senators were second in 1943, last in 1944, and barely missed the pennant in 1945.  And, after the Browns finished sixth in 1943, they won the only pennant in the 52-year history of their franchise the following year.  Many observed that it took a world war for the St. Louis Browns to take the flag.

That sentiment was born out of St. Louis’s consistent substandard performance in the American League.  Although the Washington Senators were “First in war, first in peace and last in the American League,” they had won three pennants and one World Series by 1944.  The Browns, “First in shoes, first in booze and last in the American League” (referring to St. Louis’s proclivity for producing beer and making shoes) finished as high as second just twice in the history of the franchise in St. Louis.  They never won a pennant, finishing in the second division most of the time. 

By the early 1940s the Browns had experienced years of undercapitalization; operations were managed on the cheap.  Local investor Don Barnes had purchased the moribund team in November 1936.  Attendance was horrible in 1936; it was just over 93,000, part of a run from 1926 through 1943 in which the Browns were last in attendance in the league every year.  Barnes sought to spur interest by creating a contest to come up with a new team logo, promoting season-ticket sales, and publicizing the team to attract more fans.  Attendance increased to just over 120,000, not enough to gain fiscal stability.1 Barnes was eventually forced to take out personal loans to cover expenses.  Frequently, the only way to stave off creditors was by selling promising young talent to other teams.  This hand-to-mouth existence carried into the 1940s when the effects of World War II created an extraordinary set of circumstances favoring the Browns. 

The team’s fortunes changed during the war, gaining a considerable boost when Luke Sewell was hired to manage the team in June 1941.  Sewell, then a coach for Cleveland, was approached by Barnes and general manager Bill DeWitt about the job.  Not thrilled with taking on a perennial second-division team, Sewell drove a hard bargain before accepting the position.  In addition to getting the salary he wanted and a contract through 1942, Sewell demanded a say in running the club.  “I came out with a good agreement.  I could shake that ballclub up any way I wanted to,” he said.  “Trade them, hire them, fire them, do anything I wanted to do.”2  And shake up the club he did.  Sewell rid the club of malcontents accustomed to losing and went after men who showed a desire to play hard.  The Browns played .500 ball the rest of 1941 to finish sixth and post their best won-loss record since 1929, in turn generating a sense of optimism for 1942.

That they played in St. Louis in 1942 was directly attributable to the outbreak of World War II.  Despite the team’s improvement, Barnes realized he could not successfully compete with the Cardinals for fans.  After the 1941 season ended, he arranged to shift the team to Los Angeles, where they would play at Wrigley Field.  Phil Wrigley had approved sale of the ballpark to Barnes, and other American League owners, weary of constantly losing revenue at sparsely attended Browns games, had unofficially given consent to shift the team.  The date to officially confirm this action was December 8, 1941, the day the United States entered World War II.  With the nation in a state of crisis, the move was shelved.3                             

With his plans denied and the team anchored in St. Louis for the duration, Barnes talked St. Louis businessman Richard Muckerman into buying $300,000 worth of stock in the club.  This infusion of cash allowed the Browns to purchase players like Don Gutteridge and Al Hollingsworth from the Cardinals’ minor-league system.  Gutteridge played steady ball at second and Hollingsworth bolstered the pitching staff.  The improved financial situation allowed the Browns to keep, rather than sell off, players. Muckerman’s infusion of cash not only permitted the Browns to obtain Gutteridge and Hollingsworth but also to retain promising minor-leaguer Vern Stephens.  Their collective ability contributed to a third-place finish in 1942.4

Gutteridge epitomized the wartime ballclub.  A retread and 4-F, his record did not impress – in 1944 Gutteridge hit .245.  Yet as first baseman and teammate George McQuinn observed, “He couldn’t do much except win you ballgames.”5 

The Browns fell from third to sixth in 1943 as the military took several of their key players.  While their pitching staff was untouched, they lost outfielders Walt Judnich (.313, 82 RBIs) and Glenn McQuillen (.283).  These losses and disappointing seasons from McQuinn and outfielder Chet Laabs contributed to their second-division finish.  The Browns’ poor performance in 1943 proved just a temporary setback, though.  As the war continued, their manner of filling the roster became increasingly effective.  Bill Mead described how St. Louis responded to an ever-changing environment in his book Even the Browns: 

“[T]he Browns were rich with aged and ailing journeymen who failed to qualify for military service.  … [T]hey were skilled at acquiring and managing more players of the same variety, including drunks and rouges cast off as troublemakers by other teams. … The Browns had been knitting their teams from such scraps well before Hitler’s first blitzkrieg; the war placed a premium on that kind of knitting.” 6         

The entire infield of McQuinn, Gutteridge, Stephens, and Mark Christman was 4-F, the military classification deeming an individual unfit for military service.  Outfielder Milt Byrnes, who had a bronchial condition, was 4-F.  A fellow outfielder, 34-year-old Gene Moore, did not have any cartilage in his knees and was therefore judged unfit for military service.  Thirty-six-year-old Mike Kreevich had two children, exempting him from the draft. If his children had not exempted him, being an alcoholic might have. Catcher Red Hayworth was 4-F as were pitchers Jack Kramer, Sig Jakucki, Nels Potter, and Al Hollingsworth.  Jakucki was 34; he rejoined the Browns in 1944 after last having pitched in the majors in 1936.  Overall, 13 players on the Browns had been classified 4-F – the most in the major leagues. 

As the war went on, another factor began to favor the Browns.  The Selective Service System began drafting younger men.  Sixteen of the 38 players who graced St. Louis’s roster in 1944 were at least 30 years old. They also caught a break when Laabs, one of their best hitters, received a deferment from active service.  He had finished second in the league in home runs in 1942 and was on the verge of being drafted when a ruling came out granting deferments for men working in a defense plant.7  DeWitt obtained a job for Laabs in St. Louis, which enabled him to play night and weekend games.8 Denny Galehouse’s employment in the defense industry also allowed him to pitch for the Browns, albeit on a limited basis; he worked during the week, caught  train to St. Louis on the weekend, pitched Sunday, then got back on the train to the plant for work on Monday.9

In spring training the Browns received another stroke of good luck.  The Senators, whose pitching staff was dominated by knuckleballers, sought to obtain Browns catcher Rick Ferrell, who excelled in handling the pitch.  Ferrell was traded to Washington for catcher Tony Giuliani.  Giuliani balked at reporting to the lowly Browns and retired, negating the deal.  Desperate to get Ferrell, Washington offered outfielder Gene Moore to St. Louis, replacing Giuliani. The transaction was made – but not before Moore, knowing how frantic Washington was to get Ferrell, made Washington pay him a bonus before he reported.  Despite having bad knees, Moore proved a valuable addition to the Browns. 

If ironing out flawed trades, getting defense jobs for players, or worrying about deferments were not enough, Sewell went into the season knowing he had to babysit several alcoholics and carousers to ensure that they were game-ready.  Kreevich was released by the A’s after the 1942 season because alcohol had got the better of him.  Sewell went after him, signing Kreevich to a contract and arranging for help through Alcoholics Anonymous.  Kreevich made progress but Sewell had to constantly ride herd on him.10

Sig Jakucki was another of Sewell’s projects.  He had pitched a few of games for St. Louis in 1936, bounced around in the minors, drifted into semipro baseball in Texas and was not heard from until the Browns, acting on a local tip, signed him for the 1944 season.  Jakucki was a drunk, a brawler, and a man without any sense of discipline; as teammate Ellis Clary put it, “He had about the mentality of a twelve-year-old.”  Sewell had no control over him.  Jakucki pitched, took off for several days and showed up when his turn in the rotation came up.  He went 13-9 for the Browns during the pennant run.11          

Shortstop Vern Stephens, probably the Browns’ best player, also liked to drink and chased women as well. In an attempt to get Stephens to cut back on his fast lifestyle, Sewell assigned Gutteridge, one of the more mature players on the team, to become Stephens’ roommate.  Gutteridge had no success in curbing Stephens’ ways.  An active night life didn’t materially affect Stephens, who went on to lead the league in RBIs.

As the season began, pennant prognosticators paid little attention to the Browns.  Dan Daniel, writing for The Sporting News, picked them for sixth, although grudgingly offering, “[T]hey could finish in fifth place.”  Daniel hedged his bet, however, at the end of the article, observing, “[T]he stoppage of induction of men over 26 … could prove a vital issue.”12  A week later, Fred Lieb, writing for The Sporting News, followed up Daniel’s forecast with an article, “4-Fs Likely to Decide Pennant Races,” which said closer analysis of player personnel rosters indicated that the Browns could be stronger than original conjecture placed them.13 St. Louis newspapers added little to the projections; the Globe-Democrat, noting American League President Will Harridge’s pontificating that “Every club in our league has a chance at the pennant,” offered, tongue in cheek “Even the Browns.”14         

Once the season started however, the Browns quickly gave evidence that they would not follow the script, winning their first nine games, setting an American League record for most consecutive wins at the start of the season and stunning the baseball world.  Though they cooled off in May, winning just 15 of 33 contests after that 9-0 start, they retained first place as none of the other teams could put on enough of a drive to overtake them. 

During the streak, the New York Yankees’ Spud Chandler, who was 20-4 in 1943 and the league’s Most Valuable Player, was ordered to report for induction.  After pitching in just one game, he was lost for the season, a blow to the Yankees’ hopes for a fourth straight pennant.  At virtually the same time, pitcher Bob Muncrief received permission to leave his job at a shipyard and rejoin the Browns.  He went 13-8 for the year.  These two opposing actions reflected the charmed life the St. Louis Browns experienced in 1944.15 

New York, the World Series winner in 1943, had already lost Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, and Phil Rizzuto.  In 1944, in addition to losing Chandler, the Yankees found themselves without second baseman Joe Gordon and outfielder Charlie Keller.  These cumulative actions unsettled the organization.  Sewell noted New York manager Joe McCarthy’s failure to adjust. “Any number of games if he had dropped some sacrifices in and things of that kind he would have won them from you.”16  He was essentially saying McCarthy was waiting for home runs off the bats of DiMaggio or Henrich.  The likes of Mike Garbark and Bud Metheny proved poor substitutes.         

The draft affected the Boston Red Sox as well.  Their player losses were more painful because they came late in the season while in the thick of the pennant race.  Beginning in August, they lost pitcher Tex Hughson (18-5), catcher Hal Wagner (.332), and second baseman Bobby Doerr (.325).  When Doerr left the team in early September, Boston was just 2½ games behind St. Louis.  They went 7-16 the rest of the way, finishing fourth.

The only major player taken from the Browns in 1944 was Steve Sundra. Despite being 34 years old, Sundra was inducted in early May after contributing two of the nine wins during the Browns’ season-opening streak.  Jack Kramer took his spot in the rotation.  Kramer could play thanks to a medical discharge from the Seabees because of an asthmatic condition.17  St. Louis did lose the services of its best pitcher in late July, however.  It was not because of the draft; and luckily for the Browns it was only for 10 days.  

In late July the second-place Yankees came to St. Louis for a four-game series.  On July 20 New York’s ace Hank Borowy (12-4) went against the Browns’ best, Nels Potter (9-5).  Potter, long suspected of throwing a spitball, was warned by umpire Cal Hubbard to stop putting his fingers in his mouth.  Potter ignored Hubbard’s warning and was ejected from the game. He was subsequently suspended for 10 days, the first pitcher ever thrown out of a game for violating the spitball rule. Usually loss of a team’s best pitcher would be detrimental to a team’s fortunes.  Not so with the Browns.  When Potter next pitched, on August 6, St. Louis was in the middle of a 10-game winning streak, the team buoyed by Denny Galehouse’s decision to pitch full time.

Galehouse, pitching once a week while working at a defense plant, found he could not keep in shape with sporadic mound appearances.  He asked his draft board what would happen if he left his job at the defense plant.  Advised he would not be called until after the season ended, Galehouse quit to pitch full time as the Browns’ fifth starter.18 

Their streak pushed St. Louis 6½ games ahead of Boston as the Yankees faded.  By August 17 the Browns had extended their lead to seven games.  It proved their season high mark.  Over the next several weeks three four-game losing streaks brought them back to earth. By early September they were locked in a close race with New York and Detroit, with Boston fading out of the race.  Detroit had surged into the chase, receiving an unexpected break when Dick Wakefield, their outfield sensation of 1943, was released from the Navy in mid-July.  He went on a tear and hit .355 for the year, sparking Detroit’s late-season pennant drive.19  

On September 4 the Yankees swept a doubleheader from the Athletics’s while St. Louis split with Cleveland.  New York took first, a half-game ahead of the Browns, 2½ in front of Detroit.  It was time for St. Louis to fade; they always had.  History was on the side of New York and Detroit; between them they had won the last 10 American League pennants.  St. Louis was the decided underdog.   

As the season went into the final month, the Browns’ underdog status brought support from unlikely sources.  Retired Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander, then living in St. Louis, voiced what many were thinking: “If they do what I and the whole country want them to do, they’ll finish on top.”20  Even umpires were pulling for the Browns.  In a game against Detroit, Bill McGowan told Sewell he needed to change his batting order.  Sewell followed McGowan’s advice.21    

By this time Sewell was doing everything he could to keep the Browns in contention.  Lineups changed daily.  Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich asked Sewell, “What the hell is going on here, Luke? You change these lineups every day! You must smell these guys on the bench getting hot.”  Sewell replied, “No, Shirley, I smell those bums out there on the field getting cold.”22 Sewell urged his team on. Gutteridge recalled that as the race tightened, Sewell always knew what to say. “Don’t get excited. We’re going to come out of this thing. We’re going to win.”23     

Sewell worked more than the lineups.  In one game he observed the White Sox score the first run on a single by a batter hitting out of turn.  After he brought it to the umpire’s attention, the batter was called out, negating the run.24  The Browns went on to win, fate on their side as it had been earlier in the season in a game against the A’s.  Down 4-2 with Moore on base, Al Zarilla lined out to right. The umpire had called time before the pitch; Moore, at first, was tying his shoe.  Zarilla went back to the plate and promptly homered to tie the game, which the Browns went on to win.25          

Looming over all the on-field action, however, was the draft.  The Browns had been fortunate; while nearly 350 major-league players were in the military, St. Louis had lost only Sundra during 1944.26 Then as the season went into its last few weeks, disaster threatened. The Army was going to take Zarilla, one of the team’s best hitters.  DeWitt appealed to the general in charge of the camp where Zarilla was to report, asking if his induction could be postponed for a couple of weeks.  The general must have been a Browns fan – Zarilla’s induction was delayed until after the World Series ended. 27         

New York held the lead for a week in mid-September, then faded, as Detroit and St. Louis stayed close to one another, never more than a game and a half apart. By September 27, Detroit held a one-game lead with four games left to play – all against the last-place Washington Senators.   St. Louis had four against the third-place Yankees. Despite the odds against them, the Browns swept the first three as Detroit won two of its first three, creating a tie going into the last game of the season.

Sewell went with Jakucki, who had promised not to drink the night before.  He arrived at the ballpark for the game, alcohol on his breath.  Coach Zack Taylor got on him, but Jakucki replied, “I told you I would not drink last night.  I had a drink this morning.”  He was not drunk, just loose.  Sewell went with him.28      

After getting off to a rocky start, giving up single runs in the first and third, Jakucki settled down. In the bottom of the fourth, Kreevich singled and Laabs homered to tie it. Then word came through that Detroit had lost.  It was the Browns’ pennant to win.  In the bottom of the fifth, Kreevich singled again and Laabs hit his second homer of the game, giving the Browns a 4-2 lead.  In the bottom of the eighth Stephens homered, driving in his 109th run of the year, a league-leading figure.  It was Stephens’ 20th homer of the year, two behind league leader Nick Etten, reflecting the less than lively nature of balls in use during the war.  With two outs in the top of the ninth and St. Louis leading, 5-2, Yankees third baseman Oscar Grimes popped up to McQuinn at first, who drifted into foul territory and made the final putout.

St. Louis took the pennant. They won with a record low .578 winning percentage. (The record has since been broken.) Pitching proved their strength.  Potter led the staff at 19-7, Jack Kramer won 17, and Bob Muncrief and Jakucki were credited with 13 wins each.  Kreevich led the team with a .301 average, followed closely by Zarilla’s .299, Stephens supplied the power.  They won a majority of their games against every opponent, including the season series 13-9 against Detroit. 

There was little time to dwell on statistics.  They were to face the rival St. Louis Cardinals in what became known as the Trolley Series. (All the games were played in Sportsman’s Park, which the Browns owned and in which the Cardinals were tenants.)  In contrast to the Browns’ narrow victory, the Cardinals had romped to the pennant by 14½ games over Pittsburgh.  With the likes of Stan Musial, Marty Marion, and Walker Cooper in the lineup, buoyed by pitchers Mort Cooper, Max Lanier, Ted Wilks, and Harry Brecheen who posted a combined 72-28 record on the mound,  the National Leaguers were heavily favored.

It was therefore a shock when the Browns took two of the first three games, narrowly missing another victory in an11-inning 3-2 loss in Game Two.  Eventually the Cardinals’ vaunted pitching asserted itself as the Browns could manage only two runs in the last three games, losing the fifth and sixth games by 2-0 and 3-1 scores and giving the Cardinals their second world championship in three years.  While the end was disappointing, most saw the larger picture: After 42 seasons the Browns had finally won a pennant.    

Celebratory though the Browns might be, Barnes and Muckerman had to ponder a key figure.  Attendance for the pennant-winning team totaled 508,644, just fifth in the American League, and this after a thrilling pennant race.  Rarely did they pull more than 20,000 fans for a game. Only on the last day of the season were they able to draw a large crowd, with 35,518 showing up to watch history being made.  

If 1944 was remembered for the Browns winning the only pennant in their history, 1945 would be recalled as the year they played a one-armed outfielder.

Pete Gray, who had lost an arm in a childhood accident, broke into professional ball at the age of 27.  He was a wartime novelty and an example of bravery in the face of adversity.  Over the next few years he played well before adoring crowds; in 1944 he was the Most Valuable Player in the Southern Association with a .333 batting average and a league-leading 68 stolen bases for the Memphis Chicks. 

Gray became an example for others to follow, especially disabled soldiers.  His understanding of his role in baseball and across the nation was summed up in 1943 when, upon accepting an award as the Most Courageous Athlete of 1943, he said, “Boys, I can’t fight. And so there is no courage about me.  Courage belongs on the battlefield, not on the baseball field.  But if I can prove to any boy who has been handicapped that he, too, can compete with the best – well, then, I’ve done my little bit.” 29           

Gray’s play in 1944 attracted the attention of the Browns, who bought his contract from the Chicks.  While the team asserted that it had purchased Gray for his ability, in reality a strong factor was his ability to attract crowds.  That factor, understood but not admitted, would prove as distasteful to Gray as it would to his teammates.30 

Sewell insisted, “Gray is just another player to me.  He has to stand on what he has.”  During spring training Sewell realized that despite Gray’s drive and determination he would not cut it in the majors.  “When I got him I knew he couldn’t make it.  He didn’t belong in the majors and knew he was being exploited,” the manager said.  Many of his hits with Memphis had come from bunts; Sewell knew that would not work in the majors: “[I]nfielders just came right in on him, and he couldn’t get on with those bunts and drags.  He had no power.  Pete just couldn’t play major league ball.”31 

Sewell’s assessment was correct.  Infielders were able to throw him out on bunts, and in time pitchers learned that while he could hit a fastball, he had trouble with off-speed pitches.32  In the outfield his ability to catch and then throw a ball, although it reflected a high level of dexterity, was not of major-league caliber.  Runners took extra bases on him.33

Gray, frustrated that he could not fully compete and increasingly aware that he was mostly a gate attraction, became sullen and withdrawn.  Moreover, his presence on the team generated resentment from his teammates. They felt their chance to compete for another pennant was jeopardized when Gray played.  Although his teammates admired him for having overcome adversity, they resented his use as a drawing card and saw him as a detriment on the field.  George McQuinn recalled, “Even though he was a miracle man in a lot of ways, he still couldn’t do as good a job as a guy with two arms, let’s face it, there’s no question he cost us quite a few ballgames. … We did get to resent Gray being played over a player with two arms just to draw people into the ball park.  … It was unfair to do that when we were trying to win a pennant.”34 

Mark Christman offered much the same observation, “Pete did great with what he had.  But he cost us the pennant in 1945. … Pretty good runners … could keep on going and wind up at second base.”35

Gray appeared in 77 games, exactly half of the schedule.  He hit .218 with no home runs.  In those games, St. Louis’s record was a sub-.500 35-42.  Although he had a few big hits, his presence, as McQuinn noted, reduced other outfielders’ playing time.  Kreevich became disgusted.  “Gee if I’m not playing well enough so that a one-armed man can take my job, I quit.” The Browns had no choice but to waive Kreevich to Washington.  After leading the Browns in hitting in 1944, Kreevich was so dispirited that he was hitting just .237 when he left the club in early August.  Tellingly, he went on to hit .379 against his former teammates. 

Gray’s presence also led to another player leaving the team. For much of the season Jakucki had been riding Gray, pulling vicious pranks on him which raised Sewell’s ire to the breaking point.  In early September Jakucki, skating on thin ice, arrived drunk at the train station for a road trip.  It was the last straw. “You’re not getting on the train,” Sewell told him. “Turn around and go back. You’re through.”  Jakucki started to fight.  Police were called to restrain him.  The man who had pitched the pennant-winning game in 1944 was through.  The Browns were in third, just four games behind Detroit, when Jakucki pitched his last game.  Although they went 39-26 the last two months of the season, it was not enough.  The final game of the season pitted them against the Tigers.  St. Louis was out of the race, but Detroit needed a win to avoid a one-game playoff against Washington for the pennant. Nels Potter nursed a 3-2 lead into the top of the ninth when Hank Greenberg, who had returned from the service in early July, came to bat with the bases loaded and hit a grand slam to give Detroit the title. 

St. Louis finished third, six games behind Detroit.  Virtually all on the team felt Gray had hurt their efforts and that just his mere presence had created a negative influence on the positive team chemistry so beneficial in 1944.  It was more than Gray, though.  After going 19-7, Potter fell off to 15-11; Kramer went from 17-13 to 10-15.  Although Stephens led the league with 24 home runs, Kreevich’s decline as well as the subpar performance of others led to St. Louis scoring nearly 100 fewer runs than in their pennant-winning season. 

Perhaps a bigger factor in the race was that as the war wound down, veterans were returning. Greenberg hit .311 with 13 home runs in half a season.  Washington’s Buddy Lewis boosted the Senators’ hopes for a pennant when he returned in late July, hitting .333.  St. Louis’s wartime ballplayers were slowly outclassed.

Their third-place finish in 1945 was the Browns’ last run at competitiveness. That year Barnes sold his share of the team to Muckerman.  Muckerman, with cash on hand, chose to upgrade Sportsman’s Park.  He did so at the cost of player development. 36  Within a few years St. Louis was back to its prewar habits, selling off its best players to meet payroll. After 1947, when they finished last, the Browns sold Stephens and Kramer to the Red Sox. No longer competitive, they struggled on for several years trying to compete against the Cardinals for fans. Bill Veeck bought the team but even his skills failed to improve the franchise.  In 1954 the team was sold to a Baltimore syndicate and moved there to become the Baltimore Orioles. 

Most of the Browns’ 52 years in St. Louis were spent in the bottom half of the American League.  In 1944, however, a bunch of castoffs came together and won a championship.  It did, in the final analysis, take a war to obtain a pennant for the St. Louis Browns. 

GREG ERION is retired from the railroad industry and currently teaches history part-time at Skyline Community College in San Bruno, California. He has written several biographies for SABR’s BioProject and is currently working on a book about the 1959 season. Greg is one of the leaders of SABR’s Baseball Games Project. He and his wife Barbara live in South San Francisco, California.

 

Notes

1 baseball-reference.com/teams/SLB/1937.shtml.  

2 William B. Mead, Even The Browns, The Zany True Story of Baseball in the Early Forties (Chicago: Contemporary Books, Inc., 1978), 69.

3 Mead, 34-35; Peter Golenbock, The Spirit of St. Louis, A History of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns (New York: Avon Books, Inc., 2000), 280-281.

4 Golenbock, 281-282.

5 David Alan Heller, As Good As It Got; The 1944 St. Louis Browns (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2003), 83.

6 Mead, 19.

7 Mead, 117-118.

8 Mead, 148.

9 Golenbock, 299-300.

10 Mead, 112.

11 Golenbock, 294-295; Mead, 117.

12 Dan Daniel, “Card Runaway in Chart At Start, The Sporting News, April 20, 1944, 1.

13 Frederick G. Lieb, “4-F’S Likely to Decide Pennant Races,” The Sporting News, April 27, 1944, 1.

14 Mead, 136.

15 Bill Borst, The Best of Seasons: The 1944 St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, Inc., Publishers, 1995), 53; Mead 139.

16 Mead, 160.

17 Mead, 113.

18 Golenbock, 300.

19 Mead, 155

20 Heller, 88.

21 Heller, 84.

22 Mead, 161.

23 Golenbock, 299.

24 Heller, 91.

25 Heller, 71.

26 Golenbock, 293.

27 Mead, 165.

28 Golenbock, 303.

29 William C. Kashatus, One-Armed Wonder, Pete Gray, Wartime Baseball, and the American Dream (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1995), 65.

30 For perspectives on the purchase of Gray to attract fans see Golenbock, 309, Kashatus, 89-90, Heller, and Richard Goldstein, Spartan Seasons: How Baseball Survived the Second World War (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1980), 125.

31 Mead, 208-209.

32 Kashatus, 110-111.

33 Mead, 209

34 Heller, 126.

35 Mead, 209-210.

36 Golenbock, 319; Mead, 241.