Posted on 04/02/2017 4:38:47 PM PDT by ameribbean expat
Yet not making the ( West Point) baseball team may have been a blessing in disguise, because Ike had a potentially-explosive secret. After finishing high school in 1909, he spent two years working at a creamery to help pay Edgar's way through the University of Michigan. He also played baseball for money under an alias.
Taking money, regardless how small the amount, would have ended his amateur status. If he had made the Army team, and had word of his earlier play for pay leaked out, he would have been expelled for breaking the Academy's Honor Code.
Linky no worky.
I like Ike.
Let’s remember the times. Baseball was the American sport. Every little town had one or more teams. Most players were paid small sums. College players picked up spending money supposedly waiting tables, working on farms or office jobs “in theory” while actually just playing ball.
My Dad played on several town and company teams while “working” for a given company through the his collegiate career. That was how things were done. He went on to play top level minor league ball until the war intervened.
I recall the night that President GW Bush strode to the mound to throw out the first pitch in a World Series game. It was after 9/11, and I held my breath .. waiting for an explosion or for him to be attacked.
But to GW it was the culmination of a desire in his heart to be a part of baseball; as a player and/or owner.
I’ll never forget that night.
Far better diplomat than general. But Marshall wisely saw that was what the job of SCAEF required. Besides navigating prickly personalities like Churchill (soft underbelly, indeed) and de Gaulle, he managed the infighting among his generals. Maybe he learned about how to deal with that type of overarching ego during his time on MacArthur’s staff. He made his share of mistakes but in the end it’s hard to see how anyone else could have done better.
This was the same mindset and ‘gentlemen only’ sports limitation that lost Jim Thorpe his Olympic medals, he had played football for pay in the summers while at college. Disregard the fact that otherwise he would have had to quit school, the Olympics were for amateurs only.
It was only after he was long dead that this injustice was rectified by the IOC. Big whoop!
Oops, make that semi-pro baseball.
I’m always amazed at how Eisenhower balanced Churchill, DeGaulle, Patton and Montgomery during the war.
Lots of college kids still play semi-pro ball in the summer.
Summer of 1978, I played pro slow pitch softball for a beer distributor at home. We only played tournaments in the distributor’s territory. My official job title was warehouseman. Was paid $1000 week for Fri, Sat, Sun games. I didn’t know where the warehouse was. Sad to say...it was the best job I ever had. No stress, short hours, good pay and a college kids dream...all the cold beer I could drink for free.......red
ps...at 6’4”, 240 lbs, I was the smallest guy on the team.
In college, I was working at an office.... But it was for baseball, my college is not NCAA and when I got to UConn, I knew I was not good enough.
In college, I was working at an office.... But it was for baseball, my college is not NCAA and when I got to UConn, I knew I was not good enough.
"Throw from the mound - this is New York"
"Don't bounce it. This is New York, they'll boo you."
You mean Eisenhower, the communist stoolie for FDR whose fanatical hatred of MacArthur cost a million people their lives? Stalin never funded anywhere near the number of communist revolutions Ike did. MOST DESTRUCTIVE PRESIDENT EVER.
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