The American Game: Baseball and World War II

A game program from the 1945 GI World Series. This copy belonged to Sgt. Ted Herman of the 278th Field Artillery Battalion. Sgt. Herman played baseball in Germany with a U.S. Army team in 1945. He attended several of the GI World Series games in September of that year.

Photo courtesy of Ted Herman

Walt Whitman called it “the American game.” Dwight Eisenhower played baseball as a young man and was a lifelong fan of the sport. For as long as Americans have been playing it, the history of baseball has mirrored the history of America.

During World War II, America’s servicemembers brought America’s pastime with them all over the globe as they waged a war for democracy. From big leaguers like Ted Williams and Bob Feller to coal miners and shop keepers with a passion for the game, wherever Americans fought, baseball went with them. Teams were composed for different battalions, brigades, and commands all over the world. Baseball served as a way to maintain morale and fitness for those in the ranks, bringing a valuable piece of home abroad for millions of servicemembers.

In September 1945—80 years ago—U.S. forces in Germany staged a G.I. World Series, featuring the OISE (Overseas Invasion Service Expedition) All-Stars, against the best of the 71^st Division from General George Patton’s Third Army. Both teams featured major league players who traded in their baseball uniforms for U.S. uniforms during the war.

The OISE All-Stars also featured two Negro League players, making it a racially integrated team. Two years before Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby integrated the Major Leagues in 1947--and three years before President Truman ordered the desegregation of the U.S. military--Black and White players played side by side during the September 1945 GI World Series.

The setting of these games also provided another stark reminder of what the U.S. and Allied forces had fought against during the war. In an ultimate triumph of American democracy, these baseball games were played in Nuremberg, Germany—at the same stadium used for Nazi party rallies years before—as well as Reims, France, where the German surrender took place just a few months prior in May 1945.

The first game of the series saw a crowd of 50,000 spectators, including servicemembers and local civilians, coming out to see the best of the U.S. military square off in America's favorite pastime. After the first two games in Nuremberg, with the series tied one to one, the series shifted to Reims, France, where two more games were played at Headquarters Command Athletic Field. Once again, the two teams split the games, and the series returned to Nuremberg tied two games a piece. On September 8, 1945, the OISE All-Stars won the decisive Game 5 by a score of 2-1, claiming the GI World Series to great fanfare. Upon returning to France, the OISE team was celebrated with a steak and champagne dinner.

 

Sgt. Sam Herman, standing at Soldiers' Field--a baseball field built in the same stadium once used for Nazi rallies--in Nuremburg, Germany, in September 1945. That same month, American servicemembers played a GI World Series on the same field.

Photo courtesy of Ted Herman

One of those in attendance for the Nuremberg games was Sgt. Sam Herman, a ballplayer from Pennsylvania.

A native of Snyder County, Pennsylvania, Sam Herman joined the U.S. Army on June 1, 1943, two days after he graduated from high school. He served with the 278th Field Artillery Battalion, part of the Third Army. Sgt. Herman oversaw a 25-man gun crew firing 240 mm heavy artillery. He was wounded on December 15, 1944, outside of Aachen, Germany, later rejoining his unit.

After Germany’s surrender, in June 1945, Sgt. Herman wrote home to his mother to ask her to mail his baseball mitt to him overseas, noting, "all I want to do is play baseball."

That same summer, Sgt. Herman joined the baseball team for the 13^th Field Artillery Brigade while on occupation duty. He spent the summer of 1945 playing baseball in Germany against other teams of servicemembers, even hitting a triple off major league pitcher Ewell Blackwell of the 71^st Division in one game. He returned home in December 1945. After the war, Herman played six seasons of minor league baseball for the New York Giants and the New York Yankees. He left professional baseball following the 1952 season.

Today, Sgt. Herman’s original World War II baseball uniform is on loan to the National Park Service as we commemorate the 80^th anniversary of the war’s end and the 1945 GI World Series, as well as the impact the war had on baseball, a game beloved by General Eisenhower.

 

Duration:

11 minutes, 27 seconds

Join Park Ranger Dan Vermilya to explore our National Pastime during WWII. From ballfields on the home front to the front lines in Europe and the Pacific, baseball was a big part of the wartime experience for millions of Americans. This program also features the story of Harry O'Neill, one of two major leaguers to give their lives during WWII. Join us at Kirchhoff Field, on the campus of Gettysburg College, for the story of baseball during the Second World War.