Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Chapter 1

It was one of those days in late winter that promised good things to come. The sun was shining; the temperature was rising, and while buds had yet to appear, there was no doubt that spring was on its way. And when spring is on the horizon, men's thoughts automatically turn to that favorite pastime.

"Birds?"

"L'amour?"

An exasperated Carter put down his pencil and glared at Newkirk and LeBeau.

"You both have a one-track mind," he exclaimed. Shaking his head, he picked up his pencil and then stopped. Closing the diary sent to him in a recent care package, he stood up, picked up the book, and said, "If you want to know, I'm talking about baseball. And why are you looking over my shoulder? This is private!"

"Making sure you aren't writing anything that shouldn't be public. What if the Krauts found it?" Newkirk asked.

"Oh, c'mon. We already went over this. I'm not stupid. And besides, I'm practicing creative writing."

"Ah, taking that course over in the rec hall, Andrew?" Olsen had just returned from being outside for over a week, and he was a bit out of the loop. But he had heard that one of the newer prisoners was an English teacher at a high school in Maine, and he eagerly offered to help with running some courses.

"I already did basket-weaving, pottery, Shakespeare, and the history of Ancient Greece," Carter told him. "Lesson one. Write a descriptive paragraph. Gets you thinking."

"Thinking about women," LeBeau muttered.

"What's this I hear about baseball?" Hogan, like many of the Americans, was a rabid baseball fan. He walked over to the common room table and folded his arms across his chest.

"My creative writing assignment, Colonel."

"Good." Hogan looked at the rest of the men in the hut. "Anyone else?" The men in the hut were lounging about. Some were reading; others napping. A few were just staring into space. "I know things are a bit boring right now. It would do you some good to take these classes before we get busy again." Operations were at a lull for the moment. Recent bad weather curtailed bombing, and things were quiet in both Hamelburg and on the mad scientist front. No one had shown up for dinner at camp for several weeks.

The men groaned and muttered and then continued doing nothing.

"I think we're still a bit tuckered out, Colonel," Goldman offered. "Change of seasons?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind talking about baseball." This came from Kinch, who had just walked in. "Spring is definitely in the air. And you know what that means. And I have something…"

"Our camp-wide tournament!" Hogan, not realizing he had interrupted his radioman, clapped his hands together. His enthusiasm was contagious and garnered the interest of everyone in the hut, save LeBeau and Newkirk, who plopped down on their respective bunks and stared at the ceiling.

"Okay. Okay. Quiet down." Hogan pulled some paper out of his pocket. "Carter, can I borrow your pencil?" Hogan took the pencil and stared at it for a moment. He handed it back. "Can you run into my office and sharpen this, please?"

Everyone waited for Carter to come back to the common room. He handed Hogan the pencil and leaned against his bunk.

"Ideas. Players. Positions. Go." Hogan, who was now seated at the table, saw one man quickly raise his hand. "Garlotti?"

"Well, sir. I've been thinking. The, um. The, um, odd versus even barracks numbered thing didn't go too well for us last year."

That stopped everyone in their tracks as they were reminded of the humiliation suffered in the first camp-wide tournament.

"I'd say." Newkirk rolled over. What was it, 10-1?"

"Two."

"Sorry, Carter. Two."

"We would have had three runs if we hadn't been rained out," Mills stated.

"That was sadly unavoidable." Hogan shook his head. "Now, I would have continued playing, but the crew chief had the final say."

"What do the Krauts know about umpiring baseball anyway?" Olsen complained. "I mean, I like Langenscheidt; for a guard, he's pretty tame, but seriously?"

"You had a Kraut umpiring?" asked Zimmerman, a new resident of the hut. The Milwaukee native and fluent German speaker had been shot down a few months back and temporarily replaced another man in Barracks 2 so he could receive some training in operations.

"It was the only way Klink would allow the tournament," Hogan explained. "Besides, I didn't want any signs of favoritism. Langenscheidt is a quick study, and he already knows a bit about baseball. He spent a summer in the States with his family back in the early 30s."

"I see," Zimmerman said, although he really didn't.

"You play, Zimmerman?"

"Not really well, sir."

Hogan frowned.

"But I'm willing to do whatever it takes to help the team. Teams? I can play catch. Do we have mitts?"

"Good man. You'll be on our practice squad. And yes. The Red Cross sent mitts. Although we have to share."

"We'll be clobbered." Carter was thinking aloud. The humiliation was so great that when he wrote about the previous year's tournament in his letters, he could hear the laughter back in Bullfrog.

"Oh, don't be so pessimistic, Carter."

"Easy for you to say, Newkirk. This isn't your game. And besides, we lost 4 games to 0 in a best of 7."

This additional reminder silenced the rest of the hut.

"Um… Colonel. I have some news." Kinch had been visiting a new group of prisoners who had been processed the previous day. The group was already cleared by other men in camp, who served on the same base. They would be introduced to the operation later today.

"Oh, right, Kinch. How did the meetings go?"

"Good." He looked at his notes. "We have an engineering student, a volunteer firefighter, a math teacher, and… about the baseball tournament?"

Hogan raised his eyebrows. "Yes?"

"We have a ringer."

"What's a ringer?" LeBeau whispered to Newkirk.

"I think it means someone with certain skills," Newkirk replied.

"Don't leave us hanging, Kinch," Hogan said.

"Sergeant Daniel Berg from Illinois. Played college ball and minor league ball before volunteering in 42. Pitching, first base, shortstop. And, he was assigned to…"

"Sixteen!" A happy Hogan exclaimed. Barracks were at capacity, and the new crew was assigned to one of the newer empty barracks until things were sorted out.

The news in the hut brought back the men's enthusiasm for the tournament, and they quickly filed out of the hut, carefully hiding their joy from anyone walking by who resided in the odd-numbered barracks. After all, for quite some time, they lauded their win over the others, becoming completely insufferable in the process. Fortunately, when asked about the tournament after the important mission briefing, Berg had no issue volunteering to help. At first.

"I really want to help out your team, Colonel. But people are bound to find out, sir," Berg reminded Hogan as they both sat around the common room table. "The men who came in with me know, of course. And let's see…" He began counting on his fingers. "There are three other men from our base who know all of us. So, they also know I played some ball." He looked up at Hogan. "And then…"

"And then?" Hogan leaned forward, and the rest of the men in the hut did the same.

"Well, is it really fair, sir? I mean, I've had some second thoughts."

Hogan leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. He was clearly frustrated, and this was immediately noted by the rest of the men in the barracks, as well as his new ace in the hole.

Finding out that one of our new POWs was a professional ball player gave us hope, Carter wrote. But that hope was fleeting, as our new man, a nice guy all-round, believed in fair play and after thinking it over, decided it would not be fair to play. And Colonel Hogan? Well, our leader was nothing if not fair. Our C.O. reluctantly agreed.

"War isn't fair, Berg. Life isn't fair. But I won't ask you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. It's not like this is a crucial mission."

That line got the attention of the rest of the men in the hut, and the noise it garnered caused Berg to sink into his chair and Hogan to stand up and order everyone to shut it.

But, to make matters even worse….

Our joy at the prospect of having a shot at winning this tournament was quickly destroyed. Shot down. Ruined…by not only the honest sergeant from Illinois but the Kommandant himself. It was a solemn, no, somber, colonel who strode, walked, into the hut later that evening. He brought up the subject of the tournament to Klink, and the Kommandant replied emphatically with a loud no!

According to our fearless leader, whose hair seemed to turn gray in front of our eyes, the Iron Colonel brought up the disruption from last spring, including the guards taking time away from their duties in order to learn umpiring skills.

"The guards are trained to be guards, not to officiate American games. Play football instead."

"We already have a seasonal football tournament, sir," was our leader's response, which I heard elicited a loud harrumph from Kommandant Klink. Carter put down his pencil, closed the diary, and listened to the conversation between Kinch and Hogan.

"I don't think we should cave, Colonel. The tournament is good for morale. Well, at least the morale of half the camp, anyway. And they're usually sitting on the sidelines."

"Most of the camp population actually sits on the sidelines." Hogan ran his hand through his hair. "Well, what do you all think?"

"I'd rather play than do nothing," Goldman offered. The rest of the hut agreed. And after polling all the barracks, the team found everyone else agreed with Goldman. It was just after that message was received that Kinch reminded Hogan of a very important issue. "The three men from Berg's base are in Barracks 8, Colonel. Just in case Klink and Berg change their minds."

Hogan got a gleam and glint in his eye. "Well, isn't that fortunate," he said. "Let's hold practice anyway. No one knows what tomorrow or even next month will bring."

A/N: I am a rabid NY Mets fan. Since 1968. I've always wanted to write a story using baseball as a plot.

from the website baseballinwartime dot com:

Ball games were a regular occurrence during the summer months, with their limited supply of equipment, which often included crudely made bats and balls. Informal games of catch, pick-up games, and even organized league play took place, often encouraged by camp commanders as a means of maintaining morale and discipline. At Stalag Luft VIIA in Moosburg, Germany, for example, a camp baseball league existed with many games between the Wildcats, Bomber Aces, and Luftgangsters. Stalag IIIB in Furstenberg, Germany, went a step further and had major and minor leagues divided into national and American divisions.

But baseball—on a much smaller scale—also served another purpose with the camps. The typical noise generated by the spectators and players at a ball game was sometimes used to disguise the sounds emitting from the excavation of escape tunnels. There are also reports of radio transistor parts being smuggled into prison camps inside baseballs and softballs.

I named my semipro (and honest) player after Morris Berg. He was a major league catcher and coach who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.

If Carter's diary and the writing class sound familiar—I had recently seen a MASH episode that has Radar taking a creative writing correspondence course (he found an ad in a comic book) M*A*S*H S5 E14: The Most Unforgettable Characters.