What if Marchildon, Fowler, Feller, Williams hadn't lost time to military service?
Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inductee and Philadelphia A’s ace Phil Marchildon (Penetanguishene, Ont.) lost nearly three full seasons to military service from 1943 to 1945. Photo: Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame
April 30, 2020
By Neil Munro
Canadian Baseball Network
With many hundreds of games scheduled for the 2020 baseball season lost already and a cloud of uncertainty looming over the rest of the season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems like a good time to reflect on former major leaguers who lost significant portions of their careers from other catastrophes that were beyond their control.
Certainly injuries have curtailed many a career of all-stars and utility players, but since politicians on both sides of the border are prone to compare the impact of the coronavirus to the sacrifices that people made during the war time, we will limit consideration here to players missing games because of their service in the military. Many outstanding Hall of Famers actually lost significant playing years while serving in the armed forces, particularly in World War II but some in the Korean War as well.
It is difficult to estimate the impact on the records of a profession ball player losing as many as five of his best years in the prime of his career. Try to picture what Mike Trout’s batting statistics might be if he had spent the last five seasons in Afghanistan instead of terrorizing pitchers in the American League. Well, the main purpose of this essay is actually to try to estimate the statistical effect of those missing seasons. Stan Musial serves as a good example of my method of reckoning the additional batting and pitching statistics that might have been accumulated had the world enjoyed a peaceful 20th century. Musial spent the entire 1945 baseball season enlisted in the United States Navy during the waning months of World War II and thus did not have the chance to add even more runs and hits to his already illustrious record.
During his military service, Musial was assigned to a ferry launch unit to bring back damaged ship crews returning to Pearl Harbor, as so he was able to play baseball every afternoon in the naval base's eight-team league. He received his honorable discharge from the Navy as a Seaman Second Class in March 1946, just in time for spring training that year. In 1944, Stan the Man had batted .347 while banging out 197 base hits. He was even better in his first season back in the big leagues. In 1946, he won the batting crown, hitting .365, while leading the NL in a dozen batting categories, including base hits (with 228) and runs scored (124). If we average the statistics from the season before and after his military service, we might project him with a .356 batting average from collecting 213 base hits. Since Musial managed to win six batting crowns in his nine playing years between 1943 and 1952, it is quite likely he would have picked up another batting title in 1945 (which would make a total of eight in his stellar career). In calculating these missing statistics, it is assumed that Musial (and the others that follow in this article) would have played almost every game in the seasons that they missed.
Of course, there is a possibility that a player may actually have suffered a career-ending injury, during these years of fictional performances. Take the case of Willie Mays. Mays missed almost two seasons while serving in the US army during the Korean War (approximately 266 games lost in the 1952 and 1953 seasons). Despite that lost playing time, you could still make a compelling argument that Willie was the greatest all-around player in the history of the game. He may well have finished with 700 home runs and held the MLB career record for runs scored by playing in those 266 missed games. On the other hand, he might have suffered a debilitating injury early in 1952, and been remembered only as a footnote as Bobby Thomson hit his “Shot Heard Round the World”. Rookie outfielder Willie Mays was actually waiting in the on-deck circle when Thomson’s ninth inning, three-run blast doomed the pennant aspirations of the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers.
On the other hand, serving in the armed forces might have dramatically changed a player’s career for the better. If Herb Score had been drafted into the armed forces in 1957 instead of pitching for Cleveland, he would have avoided the line drive blast off of the bat of Gil McDougald that struck him in the face, breaking his facial bones and injuring his eye. Score was never the same pitcher after that incident. After missing the rest of the 1957 season, Score would win just 17 more games, struggling through parts of five more years in the majors. After such a promising start to his career in his first two seasons, Score may well have been remembered today as one the greatest pitchers ever to play in the game. Score set the rookie record for strikeouts by a pitcher in 1955 (leading the AL with 245 whiffs) and was perhaps the best pitcher in the majors in 1956 when he won 20 games and struck out 263 American League batters.
It is even possible that the lost seasons as a result of military service might well have kept a few otherwise deserving candidates out of baseball’s Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. One pitcher that may possibly have suffered this fate as a result of a military conflict was Don Newcombe. Not only did the ace of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ powerhouse of the 1950’s lose two important seasons (and in both 1952 and 1953, the Dodgers were outstanding enough without him to become National league pennant winners), he probably lost at two more years because of baseball’s “unwritten” colour bar. Newcombe was an outstanding pitcher in the Dodgers’ farm system, patiently waiting as Branch Rickey carefully allowed just one black ball player per season to suit up with the parent club in Brooklyn. When he debuted in May of 1949, he immediately became the staff ace, winning 17 games and leading the NL in shutouts. He was named a National League all-star and was also recognized by The Sporting News as the NL rookie of the year.
After winning 20 games and leading the league in strikeouts for those ill-fated Dodgers of 1951, Newcombe spent two years of military service during the Korean War. Those two lost seasons undoubtedly cost him 45 to 50 lost victories as those Dodger ball clubs were truly outstanding. In fact, it could be argued that it was only their lack of quality pitching that prevented those teams from being labelled the greatest of all time. Certainly their eight regulars have few, if any peers. The team consisted of four Hall of Fame greats at the peak of their careers (Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese and Roy Campanella), one more standout who should be in the Hall of Fame (Gil Hodges), a batting champ (Carl Furillo) and another rookie of the year (Junior Gilliam). Their third sacker, Billy Cox, has often been tabbed as the greatest fielding third baseman ever to play.
When a rusty Newcombe returned to big league action in 1954, he was slow to resume his all-star stature (posting a modest 9-8 won-lost record). However, he won 20 games in 1955 and posted 27 victories in 1956, being named the very first recipient of the Cy Young Award. I for one believe that those missing World Series appearances and 80 to 90 lost wins (to go along with his 149 that he actually captured) probably kept him out of the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.
In fact, World War II and the Korean War were not the only far-reaching conflicts that posed dire consequences for some baseball superstars. Grover Cleveland Alexander was the mound ace for the Philadelphia Phillies between 1911 and 1917. In his rookie campaign he won 28 games, while leading the NL in strikeouts, innings pitched and shutouts. From 1915 to 1917, “Pete” Alexander won a total of 94 games, while hurling 36 shutouts, and averaging better than 380 innings pitched each year. He consistently led the league by a wide margin in virtually every important statistical pitching category in each of those seasons.
Alexander spent most of 1918 in France as a sergeant with the 342nd Field Artillery (missing all but three games that year). While he was serving in France, he ingested some German mustard gas as a shell exploded near him. This caused him a partial loss of hearing and triggered the onset of epilepsy. After his return home from the war, he suffered from shell shock and was afflicted with epileptic seizures, which may have led to his drinking problems. Alexander hit the bottle particularly hard as a result of the physical and emotional injuries inflicted in the war. Many fans and fellow ball players often misinterpreted his seizure-related problems as drunkenness. Despite his trials and tribulations, Alexander still managed to post a record of 181 wins against 119 losses during his remaining 12 years in the majors. He managed to post three more 20-wins campaigns and won two more ERA titles during that span of years, and did so by pitching in the most batter-friendly stadiums in the NL.
As if those physical and psychological problems were not enough to torment poor Alexander, he lost one his most cherished records in rather bizarre circumstances. He finished his 1929 campaign by winning nine games for the St. Louis Cardinals and then retired as the winningest pitcher in National League history with 373 victories (one more than the legendary Christy Mathewson had been thought to have won at that time). However, during the off-season, a pesky baseball researcher uncovered the fact that Mathewson had been wrongly charged with a loss in what should have been a win, giving him 373 victories as well. So the 43-year old Alexander caught on with his old Philadelphia team for the 1930 season in an attempt to regain sole possession of the all-time NL victory record. Unfortunately, he failed to come close to that elusive 374th win in 9 appearances, while posting a dreadful 9.14 ERA. If World War I had never occurred, it is very likely that Grover Cleveland Alexander would be remembered today as the finest pitcher in major league history.
Now we will examine the hypothetical records that might have been achieved by four of the greatest players ever to don a baseball cap and spikes, and for good measure, two very fine Canadian hurlers who also lost the chance to pad their already impressive big league records. As indicated earlier, the revised career records assume that the playing seasons immediately before and after the years spent in the armed forces are a good barometer of the records that they might well have achieved if the world has learned to leave peacefully in the 1940’s and 1950’s. As well, we presume that the players in question would have remained healthy throughout those missing seasons.
Hank Greenberg was one of the greatest sluggers and clutch batters in MLB history. However, he lost about four and a half years of major league playing time while serving in the US Army and later the Army Air Forces (as it was known at the time). Greenberg actually registered for the draft in the spring of 1941, and was originally classified for light duty since his physical examination indicting that he had “flat feet”. Upset with this development, he requested to be re-examined and was indeed found to fit for active duty. So he played just 19 games in 1941 before being called up for service. Interestingly enough, he was given an honourable discharge on December 5, 1941 (two days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor). It was customary before America entered the war to release service men at the age of 28. Greenberg then re-enlisted in early 1942 and served as a first lieutenant in the Air Corps. After initially being assigned to physical education training, Greenberg requested overseas service and then captain Greenberg served in the China-Burma-India Theater, scouting locations for B-29 bomber bases. He was a Special Services Officer of the 20th Bomber Command in China when they began bombing Japan in June of 1944. Greenberg was given his honourable discharge (for the second time) and returned as an active player with Detroit for the last half of the 1945 season. His 47 months of military serve during the war years was the longest of any major league ball player.
In the waning months of the 1945 baseball season, Greenberg batted .312 with 13 HR and 60 RBI in the 78 games he played. His exploits helped propel the Tigers into the World Series that season, and they would claim the championship by defeating the Chicago Cubs in seven games. In his last full season before serving in the army (1940), Greenberg led the Tigers to another World championship title – this time in seven games over the Cincinnati Reds. The American League MVP that year, Greenberg led the league in HR (41), RBI (150) and batted .340. In his first full season after returning to the big leagues (in 1946), he again led the AL in HR (44) and RBI (127) in just 142 games played.
Greenberg was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956, despite having played in just 1,394 career games. The highlights of his career included batting in 183 RBI in 1937 and slugging 58 HR in 1938. Of course, he managed these slugging feats long before the era of juiced up baseballs and juiced up batters of recent decades. In actual fact, he had just seven seasons in which he played a minimum of 130 games. During those years, he led the league four times in home runs and four times in RBI. His military service almost certainly cost him another couple of HR and RBI titles. My projection for his missed playing time serving in the military sees him collecting an additional 185 HR and 606 RBI. The tables at the end of this essay delineate the actual calculations and show him with new career totals of 506 HR and 1882 RBI.
Joe DiMaggio was a baseball superstar who lost three seasons to military service during World War II, and typically, he would have been in the prime of his Hall of Fame career during those years. DiMaggio was the prototype five tool player – he could hit, hit for power, catch, throw and run the bases. In fact, Joe McCarthy (his manager for much of his career) really discouraged DiMaggio from attempting to steal bases, fearing an injury. Joltin’ Joe was really an exceptional base runner, frequently stretching out routine base hits to doubles and triples. He was generally considered to be the best all-around outfielder in the game for much of his career. In his rookie season of 1936, Joe scored 132 runs, hit 29 HR (a Yankee rookie record until Aaron Judge came along), drove in 125 and batted .323. He accomplished all of this while participating in just 138 games. His debut that year was delayed because of a foot injury in spring training. His sophomore year was even better, as he led the AL in runs scored (151), total bases (418), HR (46) and slugging percentage (.673) while batting in 167 Yankee teammates.
Actually the Yankee faithful were a little slow to warm up to the gifted outfielder. In those years (long before the advent of the players’ union), a ball player had to hold out for more money if he was dissatisfied with the club salary offer. DiMaggio frequently did just that and his much-celebrated holdout before the 1938 season left fans thinking he was more interested in his own welfare than that of the team. His best season was probably 1939 when he hit 30 HR and drove in 126 runs while appearing in just 120 games because of injury. That year, he won his first of two batting titles (hitting a robust .381) and was named the American League MVP. Of course, DiMaggio is best known for his 56-game hitting streak of 1941. It was during that streak that the public really warmed up to the Yankee superstar as they followed his streak intently in the news. Even though there was a war raging in the rest of the world, the nightly newscasts always ended with a story about how Joe D. had extended his streak during the day. His .357 batting average, 30 home runs and league-leading 125 RBI earned him his second MVP Award in 1941. His streak ended after he was held hitless by the Cleveland Indians’ Al Smith and Jim Bagby Jr. on July 17, 1941. DiMaggio went on to collect base hits during his next 16 games, so he might well have had a 73-game hitting streak! In fact he had a penchant for running up long batting steaks as he hammered out a 61-game hitting streak with San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League in 1933. Amazingly, that is just the second longest hitting streak in minor league history.
In fact, playing half of his games in Yankee Stadium actually hurt DiMaggio’s power production. The extensive left field was as much as 457 feet in the power alley (DiMaggio was a right-handed pull hitter). Baseball historian Bill James determined that DiMaggio lost more home runs due to his home park than any other player in major league history. DiMaggio hit 148 home runs in 3,360 at-bats at home versus 213 home runs in 3,461 at-bats on the road. His slugging percentage at home was .546, and on the road it was .610. DiMaggio enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces on February 17, 1943, where he would rise to the rank of sergeant. He was stationed at Santa Ana, California, Hawaii, and Atlantic City, and served as a physical education instructor during the war, just as so many other famous ball players did. On his return to the majors after his service, he would chalk up one more MVP Award in 1947, and continue to lead his Yankee ball club into the fall classic. During his 13 year big league career, DiMaggio’s New York team played in ten World Series, winning nine times.
Unlike many sluggers of his time, and especially today’s home run hitters, DiMaggio rarely struck out. Indeed, during that memorable 1941 season, he was fanned by opposing pitchers just 13 times, and he never once struck out as many as 40 times in a season. During his entire major league career, he struck out just 369 times, compared to his belting 361 home runs. My projection for the statistics of his missing three seasons serving in the military would see him blast an additional 88 HR and collect 380 more RBI. This combined with his actual batting statistics project him to have mythical new career totals of 449 HR and 1917 RBI in 2,186 games played.
Bob Feller was occasionally referred to as the “Heater from Van Meter” for his blazing fast ball. He was a phenomenon from the moment he first appeared in a major league game. Just to put into perspective the difference in salaries back in 1936, his signing bonus was one dollar and an autographed baseball! Feller would join the big league Cleveland Indians directly out of high school, without pitching an inning in the minor leagues. He made his big league debut as a 17-year old relief pitcher on July 19, 1936, where he struck out one batter and walked two in a scoreless inning of work. His first starting assignment was on August 23, when he fanned 15 St. Louis Browns batters (then a rookie record). Three starts later, he struck out 17 Philadelphia batters to tie the major league single game strikeout record set by Dizzy Dean in 1933. Despite the fact that he walked 9 opposing batters, Feller pitched a complete game victory, winning 3-2.
The Indians gradually increased the teenager’s workload over the next couple of years. In 1936, he struck out 76 batters in 62 innings; then fanned 150 batters in 149 innings the following season, finally leading the league with 240 strikeouts in 278 innings pitched in 1938. In his last start of 1938 (on October 2nd) he set the new major league record by striking out 18 Detroit Tigers, twice fanning the aforementioned Hank Greenberg. Unfortunately, Feller lost that contest by a 4-1 score. He really came to dominate opposing American League batters in the next three years, before signing up with the U.S. Navy just two days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Feller’s pitching totals (all, league leading figures) included 24 wins and 240 strikeouts in 1939, 27 victories with 261 strikeouts in 1940 and 25 wins to go along with 260 strikeouts in 1941. His best year was probably 1940, when he also led the league in innings pitched, shutouts and earned-run average.
During the war, he originally signed up as a fighter pilot, but actually failed the hearing test for that role. In 1943, Feller served as a Gun Captain aboard the battleship Alabama, docked in the British Isles at the time. However, in August of that year the ship was reassigned to the Pacific Theater of Operations where Feller got his first taste of direct combat action. He participated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea before his combat duty ended in January of 1945; he spent the rest of the war at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station as an instructor. In all, Feller spent the better part of four full years in the armed forces, and those would have almost certainly have been his best seasons when he would have been a 23 to 26 year old.
Feller returned to the Indians near the end of the 1945 season, and posted a 5-3 won-lost record in 9 starts. The 1946 season may well have been his best effort as a pitcher. He won 26 games while losing 15 for the sixth place Indians who collectively won just 68 games. His ERA was a sparkling 2.18, and he pitched 10 shutouts and completed 36 of his 42 starts that season. Even more impressive was his single season strikeout record of 348 K’s in 371 innings pitched, an enormous workload for pitchers in the 1940’s. At the time, Rube Waddell was thought to have the existing strikeout record by fanning 343 batters back in 1904. Various sources posted arguments speculating that Waddell had actually struck out 349 batters that season, but the American League office confirmed that Feller had indeed established the new mark in 1946.
Despite losing those prime seasons, Feller did finish his career with 266 wins (against 162 losses) and 2581 strikeouts in 3,827 innings of work. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. For “Rapid Robert”, my projection for the lost time serving in the military would see him win another 101 games and strike out an additional 1082 batters in 1345 innings of work. Combined with his actual pitching statistics this predicts him to have won 367 games (losing 211) while strikeout out 3663 opposing hitters. Had they occurred, these hypothetical numbers would very likely have cemented his place in baseball laurels as the greatest pitcher ever to suit up in a baseball uniform.
A few notable Canadian ball players also lost significant playing time during World War II. These include Phil Marchildon and Dick Fowler, whose work will be expanded on here. In addition, Joe Krakauskas missed most of three seasons and Sherry Robertson missed two seasons serving in the armed forces. However, these (and a few other part-time utility players) never made it as front line major league performers during their careers in the majors.
Phil Marchildon was born on October 25, 1913 in Penetanguishene, Ontario. He made his big league debut in 1940, losing both of his two starts with the Philadelphia Athletics. Those Philadelphia ball clubs struggled mightily to say the least, often finishing in last place, so Marchildon (and later his teammate Dick Fowler) never had the kind of hitting support that might have padded their pitching records. Marchildon joined the starting rotation on a regular basis in his rookie campaign of 1941, when he finished with 10 wins against 15 losses. However, Connie Mack’s club could muster just 64 victories (against 90 losses) that year, and so Marchildon’s 15 complete games in 27 starts with an ERA of 3.57 would have easily reversed his W-L record had he pitched with a first division team. Phil was even better in his sophomore season, winning 17 times against 14 losses. He ranked third in the league in wins. However, this powerhouse pitcher also tended towards wildness as he led the league in bases on balls and wild pitches in 1942. Sadly, the last place Athletics fared even worse than the year before, winning just 55 times against 99 losses. You can see that Marchildon actually accounted for more than 30% of his team’s victories, and was recognized for his achievement by placing ninth in the MVP vote.
Following his fine effort in 1942, Marchildon signed up with the Royal Canadian Air Force to fly in bombing missions in Europe. Stationed in Britain, Marchildon served as a tail-gunner in a Handley-Page Halifax III bomber while serving with the RCAF. He became a prisoner of war at the infamous Stalag Luft III in Germany for the final nine months of the war after his plane was shot down. As their bomber flew above the Baltic Sea, it was attacked and set ablaze by a German fighter plane. The bomber’s pilot gave orders for the crew to bail out but only the navigator and Marchildon survived. They were stranded in the icy water until they were eventually picked up by a Danish fishing boat and handed over to the German authorities. By mid-January 1945, the Russian forces had advanced to within 150 miles of Stalag Luft III so the camp was evacuated and the German guards marched the prisoners to Bremen. Then they were moved again, this time as the American forces closed in. Suffering from exhaustion and frost bite, many died along the way in what became known as the infamous Death March., Marchildon and his fellow prisoners were finally liberated on May 2, 1945. Marchildon came back from the war as a changed man, rarely ever smiling, while carrying the awful memories of the extreme hardships and brutality that he must have endured as prisoner of war.
Marchildon did get back to the big leagues in time to pitch at the very end of the 1945 season, losing one game in three appearances. Then back pitching full-time in the majors in 1946 (with the still struggling A’s) Marchildon had a 13-16 losing won-lost record (tying for the league lead in games lost) but he did post an excelled ERA of 3.49. Again that last place Philadelphia ball club could muster little in support, this time garnering just 49 victories, 17 games behind the seventh place Browns. In 1947, Marchildon had his best season by far, and if truth were told, one of the very best campaigns ever put together by a Canadian baseball pitcher. He posted a 19-9 won-loss record (that year the A’s did improve all the way up to fifth place), had an ERA of 3.22 and completed 21 of his 35 games started.
His 19 games won were second only behind Bob Feller’s 20 wins that year. In his best outing on August 26th, Marchildon came within two outs of pitching a perfect game against the Cleveland Indians giving up the game-tying run in the ninth. In the end, he pitched all 12 innings of a 2-1 victory, eventually doubling in the game winning run himself.
Marchildon tailed off badly in 1948, winning just nine times against 15 losses. His ERA ballooned up to 4.53 even though the Philadelphia club improved to fourth place. That was effectively the end of his career. He pitched just nine more times over the next two years, bowing out after just once pitching appearance with the Boston Red Sox in 1950.
On Canada Day, July 1, 1995, Phil Marchildon was finally honoured for his pitching career by the Toronto Blue Jays. Throwing out the first ball, he was celebrated as a Canadian hero for his baseball talent and for his bravery in World War II. He was named to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1976 and was also elected to the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. In 1983 he was elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, one of six original inductees in its inaugural year of recognizing Canadian contributors to the game of baseball. My projections indicate that his military service cost him an additional 46 big league wins. That combined with his actual carer record would have given him 114 wins against 117 losses in 258 career starts, and as indicated, mostly achieved with losing ball clubs.
Dick Fowler was a teammate of Phil Marchildon’s with the Philadelphia A’s for much of his time in the big leagues. Fowler pitched in parts of 10 seasons between 1941 and 1952, also serving almost three full years in the Canadian Army during World War II. Dick Fowler was born on March 30, 1921, in Toronto, Ontario. Fowler was 20 years old when he broke into the big leagues on September 13, 1941, with the Connie Mack’s Athletics. Fowler pitched a complete game. 4-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox in his very first game, but wasn’t so fortunate, losing twice in his next outings. He did manage to finish with a 3.38 ERA in 24 innings pitched.
In 1942, Fowler split his time as a starter and out of the bullpen. He finished with a 6-11 W-L record in 140 innings (and as mentioned previously, his last place club won just 55 times that year). Fowler was in the armed forces before the start of the 1943 season. During World War II, he served with the 48th Highlanders of Canada regiment in the Canadian Army, whose members actually wore kilts as part of their ceremonial dress. He returned to Canada to serve with the Royal Canadian Infantry but was hurt while on maneuvers and assigned to a military post office job. He did manage to play ball with some pick-up teams during 1943 and 1944 however. On August 15, 1945, Fowler was honourably discharged from military service. He returned home to his family in Oneonta, New York, before joining the Athletics at the end of the month.
In his brief 1945 season, he warmed up with a few relief appearances before resuming his role as a starter. His very first starting assignment on September 9, 1945 was truly a classic as he tossed a complete game, no-hitter against the St. Louis Browns. Certainly, ball clubs scrambled to field “major league” baseball during the war years, but the Browns’ lineup did include several former and future stars in the likes of Lou Finney, Chet Laabs and Vern Stephens. Dick struck out six batters and walked four in his no-hit gem. James Paxton joined Fowler as the only other Canadian to toss a no-hitter, when he blanked the Blue Jays in Toronto on May 8, 2018.
By 1946, Fowler was a key member of the A’s starting pitchers, as he posted a won-lost record of 9-16 with that woeful last place ball club. He tied teammate and fellow Canadian Phil Marchildon for the league lead in losses. His fortunes improved substantially during his next three years. In 1947 although his W-L record was just 12-11, he posted an outstanding ERA of 2.81, finishing third in the American League behind only the White Sox Joe Haynes and Bob Feller. He won 15 games in each of 1948 and 1949, completing more than half of his starts each year. He had a 15-8 W-L record in 1948 (and finished fifth in the league with .652 winning percentage) and also tossed four shutouts during 1949. Unfortunately he was hobbled by injuries in 1950 and never really regained the fine form of his previous seasons. His record showed just 7 wins against 18 losses during sporadic outings in his last three years in the big leagues. Fowler was elected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985.
My hypothetical projections give Fowler an additional 35 wins and 35 losses for the time spent in the armed forces during the war. That and his actual carer record would bump him up to the century victory mark, giving him 101 wins (against an estimated 114 losses) in 249 career starts. Thus Marchildon and Fowler would, in theory at least, join Ferguson Jenkins (284 wins), Ryan Dempster (132 wins), Kirk McCaskill (106 wins) and Reggie Cleveland (105 wins) as the only Canucks to achieve that victory level.
Finally we consider what might have been for the amazing Ted Williams. Williams not only lost three seasons from 1943 to 1945 during World War II, but was called again to military service during the Korean War and lost almost two more seasons. Williams arrived as a much touted rookie for the Boston Red Sox in 1939. Perhaps no other batter in history had such a remarkable inaugural season. Williams batted .327, with 31 HR and a league leading 145 RBI. He also set a rookie record for drawing 107 walks and led the AL with 344 total bases.
In 1940, he batted .344 and led the league in runs scored with 134. However, the 1941 season really saw Williams explode as an exceptional slugger. Williams batted .406 and to this day remains the last batter to have reached this exceptional batting plateau. He also drew 147 walks to set the all-time major league record for on-base average with a .553 mark. For good measure, he led the league with 37 HR and a .735 slugging percentage. Of course, 1941 was the year of Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak, so the final vote count for the American League MVP would be interesting indeed. In the end, it was not close, as DiMaggio took 15 first place votes to Williams’ eight and won the award by 37 points. As a footnote, to Williams’ credit, he entered the final day of the season batting .400 on the nose. Joe Cronin, his manager at the time, asked him if he wanted to sit out the last double header to protect his place in history. Of course Williams decline the invitation and blasted six hits in his eight at bats in that doubleheader to raise his average to .406.
In January 1942, as the U.S.A had entered the war, Williams was drafted into the military, being classified as a 1-A recruit. Williams was advised to appeal the draft on the grounds that he was the sole support of his mother. As a result, he was reclassified to Class 3-A, and his service in the military was postponed. As you might guess, the public reaction was particularly negative and Williams was routinely scorned by the baseball writers. In actual fact, the baseball record book for that season observed that just four All-Stars and one first-line pitcher entered military service during the 1942 season. The controversy had little or no effect on Williams’ performance at the plate as he proceeded to win the triple crown in 1942, garnering a .356 batting average, 36 home runs, and 137 RBIs. If the MVP vote of 1941 was somewhat controversial, it paled to the 1942 outcome. The Yankees second sacker Joe Gordon captured the award besting Williams by 270 votes to 249. Gordon had batted .322 with 18 HR and 103 RBI in 1942. Although the existence of our current analysis stats would be many decades in the future, it should be noted that Williams’ on-base average exceeded Gordons by a margin of .499 to .409, and his WAR by a margin of 9.9 to 5.9. Williams (like many other observers) blamed the MVP result on his controversy with the draft board.
In any case, Williams joined the Navy Reserve on May 22, 1942, went on active duty in 1943. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps as a Naval Aviator on May 2, 1944. He missed a full three seasons during the war before returning to the Red Sox for the start of the 1946 season. As it turned out, Williams did not miss a beat that year as he led the AL in runs scored (with 142), bases on balls (156), on-base average (.497) and slugging percentage (.667). For good measure he slugged 38 home runs and batted .342. The Red Sox won the junior circuit pennant in 1946, but lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. Sadly, this was the only World Series appearance for the “Splendid Splinter”.
In 1947 Williams won his second triple crown, batting .343 with 32 home runs and 114 RBI. It should be noted that it was quite rare for batters to hit as many as 40 homers in a season during this era. Indeed, between 1941 and 1955, just four American League batters would reach the 40 HR plateau. Williams was one of those four, as he slugged a career high of 43 home runs in 1949. That year he lost another triple crown when he was edged in the batting race by Detroit’s George Kell by the slimmest of margins, .342912 to .342756. He did capture his second MVP Award in 1949 as he was also the league leader in runs score (150) and RBI (159, actually tied with teammate Vern Stephens). As usual, he led the American League in on-base average and slugging percentage. Amazingly, Williams led the league in on-base average in 12 of the 13 seasons when he had enough batting appearances to qualify for that batting title.
The MVP vote for the 1947 award provided one more controversial outcome for Ted Williams. For many years Williams continued his testy relationship with the sports writers – particularly those based in Boston. In 1947, Williams lost the MVP award to Joe DiMaggio by a margin of just 202 to 201 votes. Joltin’ Joe had far more modest batting credentials of 20 HR, 97 RBI and a .315 batting average that year. Incredibly, one of the twenty-four writers voting for the award left Williams entirely off his ballot, failing to give him even a tenth place vote. A confessed Williams’ hater, Melville Webb of The Boston Globe, who had clashed with Ted early in the 1947 season, extracted his revenge in that MVP vote. Williams took yet another batting title in 1948 (with a .369 batting mark), but his team lost a one-game playoff for the pennant to Cleveland, costing him one more shot at post-season play. Williams was off to another stellar batting performance in 1950, but he fractured his elbow in the All-Star game making a leaping catch off-the-wall catch from a Ralph Kiner blast. Even though Williams missed a total of 65 games that year, he still batted in 97 runs in his 89 game played.
Two years later in 1952, Williams' name was called from a list of inactive reserves to serve on active duty in the Korean War in January that year. Williams, who was quite upset at this recall after he had served three years in World War II, reported anyway. This time, he passed his physical with flying colours and it was rumoured that his eyesight was just about the best ever tested for the armed forces. So, after playing in just six games in 1952, he began refresher flight training and qualification prior to his active duty in Korea. Before he left, the Red Sox had a "Ted Williams Day" in Fenway Park, since some actually believed he would never play ball again. Williams was given a Cadillac and presented with a memory book that was signed by 400,000 fans. The Red Sox went on to win the game 5–3, thanks to a two-run home run by Williams in the seventh inning.
Williams served the better part of the 1952 and 1953 baseball seasons in Korea. In one harrowing incident, Marine Corps Captain Ted Williams crash-landed his jet plane at an advance airbase in Korea while flying his very first combat mission. The next day, he wrote a letter describing that traumatic event in which he landed his F9F Panther jet aircraft as it was engulfed in flames.
“I had holes all over the plane and I was riding on all the prayers people say for me because I was awfully lucky. My plane was burning like hell when I crash landed. Everybody around here now is calling me lucky,” proclaimed Williams.
As it turned out, he only suffered a sprained ankle in that ordeal, but it could have been a real tragedy. It is also interesting to note that the future astronaut John Glenn was randomly assigned to fly with Ted Williams during the Korean War. Williams was his wingman.
After he returned from the Korean War in August 1953, Williams practiced with the Red Sox for 10 days before playing in his first game. In the concluding days of the 1953 season, playing in just 37 games, Williams batted .407 with 13 home runs in just 91 at bats. On his first day of spring training in 1954, Williams broke his collarbone chasing after a line drive and thus missed the first six weeks of the season. Possibly in frustration, he co-authored an article with Joe Reichler of the Saturday Evening Post indicating that he intended to retire at the end of 1954. Williams joined the Red Sox on May 7, and he batted .345 in 386 at bats in 117 games. However, Cleveland’s Bobby Ávila, who had hit .341, was given credit for winning the batting championship. At that time, a batter needed 400 at bats to qualify for the title, and despite manager Lou Boudreau's attempt to bat him second in the lineup to get more at bats, Williams failed to reach that cut-off figure. Williams had led the league with 136 bases on balls and probably lost the batting crown because pitchers were so reluctant to pitch to him. Interestingly enough, he was credited with leading the AL in on-base average (an incredible .513 mark) and in slugging (with a .635 percentage). He was second in the league with 29 home runs (to Larry Doby’s 32 HR).
Williams batted a robust .356 in 1955 but missed 50 games at the start of the season in his premature retirement. After batting .345 in 1956 (losing the batting title to Mickey Mantle’s .353 mark), he really exploded in 1957 (at the age of 39) hitting .388. He combined this staggering level of batting with 38 home runs (in just 420 at bats) with an on-base average of .526 and a slugging percentage of .731. He won his sixth and final batting crown in 1958, hitting .328 (at the age of 40). Williams finished his stellar career by slugging a home run in his very last at bat in 1960 ( a year in which he batted .316 with 29 HR in only 310 at bats).
My projections for Teddy Ballgame give him an extra 163 HR, 562 RBI while batting .352 in the nearly five full seasons that he missed in service to his country. Adding these to his authentic batting record, sees him setting career marks of 2385 runs scored, and 2,401 RBI, to go along with 3,467 base hits. These hypothetical records complement his 684 home runs, a .346 batting average, a .638 slugging percentage and extend his own career on-base average to a stratospheric .488, aided by 2,717 career bases on balls.
Had Williams been able to play major league baseball regularly during those missing five seasons, there would probably be universal agreement that he was indeed the greatest hitter ever to play the game. He would probably have collected another two or three batting titles and won at least one more triple crown. Clearly he was not the best all-around player in MLB history. He stole only 24 bases in his entire career and he was not regarded as an exception outfielder. On more than one occasion, he was seen practicing his fluid swing while patrolling the outfield instead of concentrating on the opposing batter. Unlike DiMaggio, he only managed to lead his ball club to just one fall classic and no World Series championships in the post-season. Nonetheless, Williams truly had no peers when it comes to settling the age-old debate of which ball player was the greatest hitter of all-time. That batter is Ted Williams, with or without those missing five seasons.
The projections and revised hypothetical records follow. The “actual” stats line is the official record compiled by that player. The projected stats are my estimate for what the player would have recorded in the missing seasons time in military service. The “revised” totals simply add the mythical performance to the actual record to see what might have been.