Politics, Moderate

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Politics

The Woke Cleveland Guardians

Joe Guzzardi on

On December 7, 1941, Feller, in his spanking brand-new Buick Century with all the available extras – a heater and a radio – was driving toward Chicago to sign his new contract. At 24, Feller had notched 107 wins, and big money awaited him. Then, over the radio, Feller heard the news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Feller drove on, and on December 9 enlisted in the Navy at a Chicago recruiting office, the first professional athlete to sign up for World War II combat.

When Feller looked back at his war experiences as gun captain, he said that he was constantly surrounded by scares and tragedies. The worst, Feller recalled, didn’t occur in battle, but rather when the USS Alabama was caught in week-long Typhoon Cobra whose 180 mph winds sunk three U.S. destroyers. The choppy waves made refueling impossible. More than 800 American sailors drowned or were eaten by sharks after their ships capsized in the storm. During his service, Feller earned six campaign ribbons and eight battle stars. Ironically, because he was attending to his cancer-stricken, dying father, Feller had a military deferment.

Not only did Feller pass up the big money that his 1943 contract offered him, but he sacrificed nearly four years of his pitching career. About players who served in the two World Wars and Korea, fans speculate what they might have achieved had they not lost key baseball years fighting to protect their country. Ralph Winnie, a Seattle baseball statistician, calculated that Feller would have won 107 more games which would have brought his career total up from 266 to 373, notched 1,070 additional strikeouts up to 3,651, pitched five no-hitters instead of three, and 19 one-hitters instead of 12.

Feller and the other Indians greats are fading from memory, and wokeness is accelerating their disappearance. The Indians have thrilled or disappointed Cleveland fans for 115 years, but Indians – deemed “racist” to the woke – had to go.

Dolan said that an “epiphany” motivated his decision to rebrand the Indians as the Guardians. But Dolan is listening to the wrong people. Feller was often asked what his greatest win was. Instead of answering that moment came when he threw an Opening Day no hitter, Feller unhesitatingly replied, “World War II.” Defending America, her history and her greatness was Feller’s proudest accomplishment. If they would only heed history’s lessons, therein lies a valuable lesson for the Indians’ management and the wokesters.

 

Tearing things down is easy. Building is much more difficult

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Copyright 2021 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers’ Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.


Copyright 2021 Joe Guzzardi, All Rights Reserved. Credit: Cagle.com

 

 

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