"To invest one's youth in pursuit of a big league career that averaged four years in duration was an awesome commitment, and players were rightly paranoid about its sudden ending. Moving day, even for regulars, was never far off."
"Say young man, who ever taught you to bunt with two strikes on you?"
"Nobody did," I said, "but I like to bunt and nobody was looking fora busher to do that."
"Everything seemed all right in the ball yard until the band played 'Let It Rain.' The elements seemed to regard this as an invitation and down came the rain in a thin drizzle about 1:30 PM."
In 1943, the United States was at war in Europe, Africa and the Pacific. The 'Home Front' included Emerson Field on the campus of the University of North Carolina, where the Chapel Hill Cloudbusters team fielded a starting nine of naval airmen and baseball legends.
Feb. 29 – As the Leap Year calendar takes us into baseball season in 2016, we mark the day by helping English readers and Spanish students parse a question that might puzzle them.
¿Cómo se dice “¡Play Ball!” en español?