(Don’t) Play Ball!
Since the first World Series in 1903 there have been only two seasons in which a World Series champion was not crowned. In 1904 the National League’s champion New York Giants (now San Francisco Giants) refused to play the American League’s champion Boston Americans (now Red Sox) because the Giants thought the American League was a “minor” league not worthy of the honor. The second season was in 1994 thanks to a strike by the MLB Players Association — the longest work stoppage in major league history – this week (Aug. 11).
The players struck in
medical care. Many shots before going over. I forgot to mention, in front of the Church the Army placed a canvas bag to hold water for drinking. On its side were strapped two pockets of yellow atabrine tablets to forestall maria.
We received good information on malaria and were told to take those tablets with water so the female anopheles mosquito could not give you that dread disease. The bad part was that it turned your skin yellow
after so long. ...
I took tablets all the time. Several city boys ...refused to take them. In a month they had malaria and the mess seargent and I had to feed them native soups which could even contain monkey. We had killed a python and ate the eggs and the army mules that were left from Corregidor or Bataan would soon be on the table.
I preferred C rations and when with Australian troops, I ate their food, which was always home cooked.
A note: I received a letter last year from Queen Elizabeth that
thanked me for my service with the Aussie troops.
We also took care of the war’s prisoners who were imprisoned in the camp at Cabanatuan. They had some from the Bataan death march. They were brought down on Carabao carts.
I got bit one time while over there. We were cleaning when a large spider bit my neck. My friend behind me swatted it with a bamboo whip and damn near killed me. I was laid up in the jungle where I received a malaria shot every three hours for 2 weeks (penicillin).
I was lying on the jungle floor in my sleeping bag with my rifle standing on its bayonet to hold plasma or other fluids. A nurse and a tank was there where I was. I never stayed in more than a tent or under the jungle trees while there.
There was always something exciting going on in the islands. I often went to the nearby Barrio of Florida Blanco, where that day, Maundy Thursday, there was a great celebration on the streets.
Being several days before Easter there was a celebration of flogging and self infliction by
young men, penitents. Some carried crosses and would prostrate themselves under the cross, which was strapped to their back.
Others flogged their backs with long vines embedded with thorns. It was a very bloody scene ending at the old church.
Sometimes I took care of Japanese prisoners of war. Sometimes they were a work detail and mostly never had to be told how to work. They could build excellent fences.
They often played monopoly with me and one time one of them landed on Go Directly to Jail and he said, “O Golly
Mistah Dick, we already in jail.”
When they found out I was going they made me two beautiful threedimension pictures of Japan with Samurai swords and Mt. Fiji.
At the end of the day there is the most precious thing on earth: You can’t find it in a book. It is your memories. Years later (1980s) a birthday party was held for me at what is called the
Brick. The man who organized it was a pilot in the 13th Air Force while over on Luzon. We were considered “blood brothers” joined together at the heart.