Veterans' Day

A day late, but here's a salute to our veterans. In baseball fiction, we can add the following to the list of those who have served our country.

There's Roy Tucker⁽¹⁾, pitcher for the John Tunis' fictional Brooklyn Dodgers who was shot down over France and returned after the war to lead his team to the World Series). Rick Norman's Jax "Gooseball" Fielder⁽²⁾, pitcher for the St. Louis Browns, was also shot down - over Japan - and tried to help out a Japanese father see his son realize a baseball dream amidst the closing days of World War II. Army Air Corps. members feature prominently in baseball novels. In Jumpin' Jimminy⁽³⁾An entire B-17 flight crew takes up baseball in neutral Sweden after their damaged plane has to make an emergency landing there after a raid over Germany. As part of their detainment, they take on the crew of a similarly stranded crew of a Japanese submarine.

From the ranks of those who served in earlier wars we have General Oakhart, commissioner of the fictional Patiot League in Philip Roth's The Great American Novel⁽⁴⁾, and the members of Company L, 14th Brooklyn Regiment who play a series of games against their Confederate foes during the 1864 Overland Campaign⁽⁵⁾. From the Confederate side, there is Joseph "Rebel Joe" Tyler⁽⁶⁾ who as a prisoner of war uses his baseball skills to escape, but later stars with the Terryville (NY) Niners after the war. In a similar story, we have Win McNaughton⁽⁷⁾, a Union prisoner in a Confederate prison camp in Texas, who uses baseball to survive and later prosper after the war.

Finally, from the non-player ranks we have Joe Tinker and Joseph Burke. Donald Honig's Joe Tinker⁽⁸⁾, a postwar newsreporter and World War II veteran, investigates a murder which will lead him to conspiracy surrounding Jackie Robinson's breakthrough year with the Dodgers. Robert D. Parker's character, Joseph Burke⁽⁹⁾ is a former marine, and wounded veteran of the Battle of Guadalcanal, who becomes bodyguard to Jackie Robinson during that same season.


⁽¹⁾ The Kid Comes Back, John Tunis, Morrow: 1946
⁽²⁾ Fielder's Choice, Rick Norman, August House: 1991
⁽³⁾ Jumpin' Jimminy - A World War II Baseball Saga, iUniverse: 2004
⁽⁴⁾ The Great American Novel, Philip Roth, Henry Holt & Co.: 1991
⁽⁵⁾ Play for a Kingdom, Thomas Dyja, Harcourt Brace: 1997
⁽⁶⁾ Perfect Silence, Jeff Hutton, Breakaway Books: 2000
⁽⁷⁾ Camp Ford, Johnny D. Boggs, Thorndike: 2006
⁽⁸⁾ The Plot to Kill Jackie Robinson, Donald Honig, Dutton: 1992
⁽⁹⁾ Double Play, Rober D. Parker, Berkley Books: 2005