Although the fact is largely forgotten, the United States began drafting its World War II Army in late 1940, more than a year before the U.S. was drawn into the war by Japan's attack on the Naval base at Pearl Harbor. On October 16, 1940, every American male be­tween the ages of 21 and 36 was required to register for the draft. Since President Frank­lin D. Roosevelt and most members of Congress were still promising that they would try to keep the United States out of the war, the draft supposedly was for training only; each man would be released after serving one year. With millions registering and only thousands then needed, selection was to be by lottery. The lower a man's lottery number, the more likely he would be drafted.

Setting the tone for its coverage throughout the war, the Sporting News tempered that patriotic drumbeat with the suggestion that baseball players might warrant special favor. Brands wrote: "Whether they will be excused for the one-year training period because of their indispensability to baseball, whether they will be permitted to serve in off-season hitches, whether a team loses none, only one player, several, a star or only an ordinary performer—all these 'ifs' rest in the laps of the gods, the final policy adopted and the drawing of numbers, which will designate those who must don the uniform, beginning November 18." Brands speculated, correctly as it turned out, that many players might spend their service time entertaining the troops.

Among the players registering that day were Hank Greenberg, 29, left fielder of the Detroit Tigers, and Hugh Mulcahy, 27, right-handed pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. Among regular performers, two players of more widely differing fortunes could hardly have been found in the major leagues. Greenberg was baseball's leading home run slugger. In 1938 he hit fifty-eight homers, only two short of Babe Ruth's record. In 1940 he batted .340 and led the American League in home runs with forty-one, doubles with fifty, runs batted in with 150, and slugging average with .670. The Tigers won the 1940 American League pennant and Greenberg was voted the league's Most Valuable Player. He was known throughout baseball as "Hammerin' Hank."

But in fact, no major leaguers were drafted immediately and none enlisted. Toward the end of 1940, the owners of several major league teams talked of forming a committee to discuss the draft status of ballplayers with government officials. But Judge Landis, the tyrannical and puritanical commissioner of baseball, killed the idea and forbade any lob­bying by baseball men.

The commissioner's order was consistent with the patriotic stance adopted by baseball during World War I, which drew 247 major league players into service. In June of 1918, the government had ordered all civilian men of military age either to join the armed forces or to take a job in an industry considered essential to the war effort. Actors and opera singers, among others, sought and got exemptions from this "work or fight" order. Baseball did not apply, asking only for permission to complete an abbreviated 1918 sea­son. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker allowed the season to run through Labor Day. He also permitted a World Series, in which Babe Ruth pitched two victories as the Bos­ton Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs, four games to two. Only the Armistice saved baseball from skipping the 1919 season.

Fearing that World War II might lead to another such curtailment, other baseball offi­cials echoed Landis's message of self-sacrifice only to a point. "Baseball is ready, yes eager, to do its duty in national defense," said Ford Frick, president of the National League. "Baseball wants no favors in this respect. It expects no exemptions, except," Frick added, "such as the authorities may decide to favor it with."

Unknown to Judge Landis, Clark C. Griffith, a turn-of-the-century pitching star who had owned the Washington Senators for more than two decades, was watching things at first hand. Griffith, nicknamed "The Old Fox," knew the pathways of power in Wash­ington, and truly believed that baseball's most appropriate contribution would be not the mobilization of players but the building of morale, resulting from soldiers and war workers watching games and playing ball themselves. During World War I, Griffith contributed enthusiastically to a drive in which the major leagues donated a vast amount of balls, bats, and other equipment for use by our doughboys in France. A freighter carried off this precious cargo with great fanfare, only to be torpedoed and sunk by a German subma­rine.

On April 24, 1941, the Sporting News led off with a wildly optimistic story by Daniel M. Daniel of the New York World-Telegram. Daniel quoted Griffith as predicting that the government would soon announce a plan to limit the induction of major league players.

"Just what the plan will be, I cannot say," Griffith said. "There may be an order which would prevent the drafting of more than one player of any major league club until the 1941 season is over. Perhaps the limit will be fixed at two players. Then again, the Adju­tant General's office may allow all our draft eligibles to remain in the major leagues until October, and in the meantime order military drill for all players in baseball. This, you will recollect, was done in 1917 and 1918." (Indeed it was. At the request of Ban Johnson, then president of the American League, all American League teams were given Army in­structors in 1917 and competed for a $500 prize in pregame drills. The Browns won the drilling award and perhaps spent themselves; they finished seventh in the league stand­ings.)

Besides Greenberg and Mulcahy, the only major league players of any note who faced induction that spring of 1941 were the two batting stars of Griffith's Washington Senators, Cecil Travis and Buddy Lewis. In 1940, Travis batted .322 and Lewis hit .317. When Travis's draft board in Georgia and Lewis's in North Carolina announced in early April that the two ballplayers would be inducted within a month, Shirley Povich of the Washington Post wrote in the Sporting News that the result would be "virtual deva­station of the Washington infield.

"The United States may be gathering its greatest peace-time Army, but Manager Buck­y Harris of the Senators is of the mind that Uncle Sam has already declared war—on the Washington club," Povich wrote. As it turned out, both players were deferred until after the 1941 season.

By August of 1941, 193 minor league players were in service. The minor leagues were then so vast, with forty-three leagues and nearly 5,000 players, that the loss averaged less than one man from each of the 287 teams.

Greenberg's induction made Detroit the first team to be harmed by World War II. From first place in 1940, the Tigers sank to a fourth-place tie with Cleveland in 1941, twenty-six games behind the champion Yankees. But even with Greenberg, Detroit would have been hard pressed to catch the Yanks. Early that season, Joe DiMaggio hit safely in fifty-six straight games, still a record. After being blanked in one game on July 17, he then hit safely in the next sixteen. DiMaggio led the American League in runs batted in with 125, three more than teammate Charlie Keller, and was voted the league's Most Valuable Player. His .357 batting average ranked him third; Ted Williams hit .406, and Cecil Travis of Washington celebrated his draft deferment by batting .359.

Although the Phillies finished last again, Mulcahy's induction may have affected the National League pennant race. Kirby Higbe, Brooklyn's $100,000 acquisition from the Phils, won twenty-two games as the Dodgers edged the Cardinals for the pennant. Mulcahy, who might have been in Higbe's shoes were it not for the draft, meantime learned the artillery trade in Massachusetts.

To be continued ...