Warren Spahn Was a War Hero Before He Was a Baseball Star

Today we go outside the Yankee universe and remember the great Warren Spahn, a native of Buffalo who became one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history.

On the October 1999 day when Warren Spahn and 29 other baseball immortals were honored for their selection to Major League Baseball’s All-Century Team, Spahn was asked if he’d ever felt more pressure than pitching in the World Series, which he did three times.

“Well, there was the Battle of the Bulge,” the Buffalo native said.

The former South Park High School star, who began his career playing first base for the junior squad of Buffalo’s Lake City Athletic Club, became a war hero before he began a major league career that would result in 363 victories, the most ever by a left-handed pitcher.

Spahn became the only major leaguer to receive a battlefield commission as he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his bravery in Europe, and his company earned a presidential citation. Spahn’s company supported the 101st Airborne Division, which turned back a two-week German counteroffensive in Belgium in late-December of 1944.

The Battle of the Bulge was the decisive defeat for Hitler’s Germany.

The 101st Airborne was the division that was popularized in the fantastic HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.

“The Germans were making a push toward England and we were surrounded,” said Spahn, who was hit with shrapnel in the fight. “I remember my company didn’t trust dog tags or anything, because they had our equipment and uniforms and spoke English well. One of our codes was who played second base for the Bums (the Dodgers). If a German wasn’t a baseball fan, he was dead.”

In a far more subtle way, major league hitters were usually rendered dead when they faced Spahn. Just before Spahn left for the war he began his big-league career for Casey Stengel’s woeful Boston Braves in 1942. One day Stengel ordered Spahn to throw a brushback pitch, Spahn refused, and Stengel demoted him to the minors. “It was the worst mistake I ever made,” Stengel later admitted.

Due to the war, Spahn didn’t return to the Braves until 1946 - Stengel was long gone by then - and in 1947 he won 21 games, the first of 13 seasons in which he won at least 20. A 14-time All-Star and a 1973 inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Spahn made it look easy and made it look fun because, after all, it was just baseball.

“After what I went through overseas, I never thought of anything I was told to do in baseball as hard work,” he said. “You get over feeling like that when you spend days on end sleeping in frozen tank tracks in enemy threatened territory. The Army taught me something about challenges and about what’s important and what isn’t. Everything I tackle in baseball and in life I take as a challenge rather than work.”

One thing you may not have known about Spahn is that for as great a pitcher as he was, he could swing the bat pretty well, too.

Case in point was a game at Milwaukee’s County Stadium on July 26, 1962. Then 41 years old, Spahn pitched a complete-game 6-1 victory against the first-year New York Mets, and he also hit a solo homer off New York’s Craig Anderson. It was the 31st home run of his career which enabled him to reach No. 1 on the all-time National League list for home runs hit by pitchers.

Spahn finished his career with 35 long balls, still the most by an NL pitcher, but he ranks third all-time behind American Leaguers Wes Ferrell (38) and Bob Lemon (37). His career batting average was a respectable .194 across 1,892 at bats.

Spahn also struck out five Mets in this game and thus moved past Lefty Grove into seventh place on the all-time strikeout list with 2,267. He now stands 30th on that list with 2,583. All in all, a pretty good day for the kid who played his high school ball at South Park High.

About a year after this night, Spahn was involved in one of the most famous games in MLB history. On July 2, 1963, Spahn battled the Giants’ Juan Marichal for more than 15 scoreless innings before he finally blinked and gave up a walk-off homer in the 16th to Willie Mays.

Former Giants great Carl Hubbell - then the head of the Giants’ farm system - was sitting in the press box and it happened to be exactly 30 years to the date - July 2, 1933 - when Hubbell had thrown an 18-inning complete game shutout victory for the Giants, winning 1-0 over the Cardinals in the longest 1-0 game ever. But Hubbell was in his prime when he did that, unlike Spahn who was far past his.

“Spahn is the greatest pitcher I have ever seen, bar none,” said one-time Dodgers pitcher and later Braves pitching coach Whit Wyatt. “I have seen others who had more stuff, but none had his savvy and his knack of setting up hitters. He knows how to pitch, he pitches to weaknesses.”

Spahn moved to Oklahoma after he made it to the majors, but he never forgot where he came from.

“I’m so grateful,” he said of his life in baseball. “Here’s a guy from Buffalo, New York, who managed to play in the big leagues and earn a living at it, even though I only earned $80 a month my first year. But other guys were earning $65 out of high school, going into the steel mills.”

• July 31, 2007: You have to give credit to White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen who apparently had the foresight to get thrown out of this game at Yankee Stadium in the bottom of the first inning arguing balls and strikes while Derek Jeter was at the plate. Guillen did not have to witness the carnage that followed as the Yankees tied a franchise record by hitting eight home runs in a 16-3 drubbing of the White Sox.

  Jose Contreras, who three years earlier to the day had been traded by the Yankees to the White Sox, gave up a three-run homer to Bobby Abreu right after Guillen went to the clubhouse, and he also was taken deep by Hideki Matsui in the first and by Robinson Cano in the third for a 7-3 lead. That was it for him, but the long ball barrage continued as Matsui hit another, and Melky Cabrera, Jorge Posada, Johnny Damon and Shelley Duncan all went yard as well.

• Aug. 3, 1998: Another offensive explosion from the Yankees and man, Oakland starter Mike Oquist had to eat this one. With a doubleheader scheduled for the next day, A’s manager Art Howe left Oquist in the game for five innings, during which he allowed 14 earned runs on 16 hits and three walks.

  The 14 runs were the most ever against an A’s pitcher, and the most allowed by a starter in MLB since Bill Travers of the Brewers gave up 14 to the Indians in 1977. “It’s a terrible feeling as a manager to do that to a pitcher,” Howe said. “I was bleeding with the kid. But sometimes you have to forget about today and worry about tomorrow.”