THE BASEBALL GREATS OF WORLD WAR II: WHO WERE THE BEST PLAYERS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR FROM THE PAGES OF THE BOOK "FOR THE GOOD OF THE COUNTRY"

PLEASE CHECK OUT THE BIOGRAPHICAL LINKS TO SOME OF THE GREATEST PLAYERS DURING WORLD WAR II. MORE WILL BE ADDED WEEKLY.

PLEASE CLICK ON BELOW TO LINK TO THE BEST BIOGRAPHIES ON THE WEB FOR YOU FAVORITE TEAMS, STARS AND MOMENTS FROM WORLD WAR II BASEBALL

As I began writing the Book " For the Good of the Country", " which chronicles the world war II baseball seasons 1942 through 1945, one of the subjects I wanted to explore was the Question: Which replacement player best took advantage the situation in a statistical way. What I found as I went through the research was not only a collection of players who were long since forgotten and should be brought back to the fore front to celebrate their contributions to the nations morale, but some brave stories of those who interrupted their careers to serve in the military.

Probably the highlight was a letter I received from Hugh Mulcahy, former pitcher with the Phillies and the first major leaguer drafted into the service. Mulcahy, who as I found out later was suffering from cancer at the time and died a few short weeks after I heard from him, detailed the adventures in his career and military service encapsulating what all of the veterans I talked to felt: That they proudly gave up their baseball careers to fight for their countries freedom. Mulcahy further went on to say when I suggested he was a hero, that the true heroes were the ones that died over there, not the ones who returned. The following is an excerpt from the book. If you'd like to buy "For the Good of the Country", please click on the above banner which will take you to Amazon. Com. The book can also be found on line at Barnes and Noble and The McFarland Publishers Baseball Book Page

When Franklin Roosevelt made the decision to continue the national pastime through the duration of World War II, in the interest of country morale, it began a time period in baseball that certainly was very unsure.

Most of the games great stars would eventually be sent abroad. Ted Williams and Bob Feller, among others, would make headlines more as war hero's rather than baseball hero's. The game would be left to the likes of Ray Sanders and Nick Etten. Sanders and Etten were certainly of major league caliber before the war, but the opportunity that would be provided to them between 1942-1945, made them stars. Where as there stars burned out once the war was over, Sanders would be traded from the Cardinals to the Red Sox's after 1945 to make way for a young Stan Musial at first and only have 274 at bats in the 3 years that followed compared to the 1908 during the war while Etten would have only one year and 14 games after '45 then he was out of the majors, the roll they played during the war can not be understated. Roosevelt was correct, the country needed baseball to provide a much needed lift during times when it was unsure whether or not the country would even be able exist in the democratic life it had been used to for some 166 years.

This report and web site in general are meant to give a long over due celebration of the careers of players such as Etten and Sanders and their long forgotten efforts to help pick up the nation in a time when it so desperately needed something to pick it up.

On the web site we will provide the following
A):Statistical reports on the players during the years 1942 through 45.
B):Statistical leaders in each category during that time.
C):A Similar report on pitchers during the war by June.
D):Biographies and statistics of some of the forgotten players of the time. We will try to add 3-10 players a month.
E): Check out the bottom of the page to see what new features will be coming in the next few months.

The basis of the report is two fold:
A): Through a formula based on the top 25 hitters in each of 10 hitting categories and the percentage of those figures attained during the seasons of 1942-45, to figure out which players most took advantage of their opportunities and turned what in most cases were average to below average careers, into ones that during that time period could be considered one of the best in the game. The highest point total in the report is named the George Bailey Award winner after the fictional character in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life". Bailey of course stayed at home during the war and provided many beneficial jobs in the war effort at home.

B): Through a point system that rewards the top 25 leaders of HR, Hits, Ave., Slugging, Total Bases, Runs and RBI's specific points in reverse order of their various positions in the specific categories (for example the tops in hits would receive 25 points and the 25th position would receive 1 point.), the top 10 positions in Doubles and Triples and the top 5 positions in stolen bases, we want to find out who is the Most Valuable Player of this time period.

THE FORMULA

The Formula is basically as follows: The total figure in HR, Hits, Doubles, Triples, Stolen Bases, Total Bases, Runs and RBI's for the player multiplied by the percentage of those stats attained during 1942 through 1945. We then divided HR, Doubles, Triples and RBI's by 3, Hits and Stolen bases by 5, and Total Bases by 6. The reason is to try and give each category their appropriate total weight in the final numbers. For Average and Slugging percentage, we took the total numbers achieved during 42-45 and divided it by their numbers over the course of there careers. We then took that number and multiplied Ave by 300 and Slugging by 200, again to give these numbers the appropriate weight in the final total. We only rated the top 25 in each category, making sure we were getting players that actually succeeded during that time.

INTRODUCING THE GEORGE BAILEY AWARD WINNER:

RAY SANDERS

THE GEORGE BAILEY AWARD REPORT

LEADERS BY CATEGORY

INTRODUCING THE MVP AWARD WINNER:

BILL NICHOLSON

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER POINTS
The best players from the War Years