History lesson: Joe Nuxhall, baseball’s rawest rookie
When the United States entered World War II after the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, patriotic fever spread nationwide, and among the millions of young men who enlisted in the armed forces were some of the greatest major league baseball players of the era, including the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams, Joe Dimaggio of the New York Yankees, Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers, and Pee Wee Reese of the (then) Brooklyn Dodgers.
Many hundreds of lesser known players also volunteered, seriously depleting the ranks of the major leagues and causing Baseball Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis to consider temporarily suspending baseball, but then-president Franklin Roosevelt wrote to ask that he allow the game to continue. Roosevelt argued that, given the massive unemployment caused by the Great Depression, suspending baseball would result in a further loss of jobs, not only among the players, but also the vendors, ticket takers and stadium personnel, plus those who worked at businesses supplying goods and services (such as beer and hot dogs) to baseball fans. Additionally, Roosevelt argued, baseball was the national pastime and a morale booster that temporarily took people’s minds off the war.
Landis agreed and major league baseball played on, although the
WA statue of Reds pitcher Joe Nuxhall stands outside the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, Ohio.
challenge was finding replacement players, and ball clubs weren’t picky. Players who had previously retired returned to their clubs, while younger players, many of them teenagers who normally would have been playing in the minor-league farm system, suddenly found themselves in the big leagues.
Among those younger players was Joe Nuxhall who, this week (June 10) in 1944, became the youngest player ever to play major league baseball. At just 15 years old, Nuxhall went from being a ninth grader to pitching the ninth inning of a game between his Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals. The Reds were trailing 0-13 when Reds manager Bill Mckechnie sent Nuxhall to the mound, and
although he retired the first batter, he then issued five walks, gave up two hits, and threw a wild pitch before being pulled with the Reds trailing 0-18. He spent the rest of that year in the minor leagues.
However, he returned to the Reds in 1952, pitching in 484 games – still a team record for left-handed pitchers – and compiling a record of 135-117 during a 16-year career that included All Star appearances in 1955 and 1956. He then spent 37 years broadcasting Reds games on the radio.
When asked later about his major league debut, Nuxhall’s answer was priceless. “I was pitching against seventh-, eighthand ninth-graders … All of a sudden I look up and there’s Stan Musial at the plate. It was a very scary situation.” Bruce G. Kauffmann Email author Bruce G. Kauffmann at bruce@history lessons.net.
DEAR ABBY: I tend to react poorly when someone pulls a prank on me. My reaction is usually anger, hurt or embarrassment, and I end up saying or doing things I later regret because emotion took over.
My husband has always liked playing pranks, and my children have started to follow his lead. The pranks tend to be things like ice down the back of my shirt, bopping the end of a glass or bottle while drinking so it splashes in my face, snapping wet towels, etc. I don’t like it, and I never do it to them. If I react, I am made out to be the “bad guy” because I “can’t take a joke.”
I feel guilty about the latest incident because when my l0-year-old daughter bopped a drink in my face, I slapped her across the face. When I apologized for responding that way, she said, “Dad does it all the time.”
I never get an apology from the pranksters. Is this normal? Are there others out there who don’t like being the object of pranks? How do I get my family to understand that being subjected to these “jokes” isn’t funny to ME? – UNAMUSED IN INDIANA
DEAR UNAMUSED: Jokes at the expense of others can be funny, as long as EVERYONE AGREES that they’re funny. Because you have told your husband you not only don’t find his pranks amusing but find them hurtful, I can only conclude that his sense of humor is sadistic. Further, it has set a poor example for the children.
I wonder how your husband would feel if you informed him after a hard day that his accountant had called saying he owes $25,000 in back taxes. (Ho, ho!) Or if you poured a pitcher of ice water on him at 2 a.m. Would that be equally “funny”? I doubt it. Normally, I wouldn’t stoop to that level, but this may be an exception. Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips.