One of the soldiers on that bridge — and who barely managed to get off it in time — was a young Warren Spahn, who would receive a battlefield commission and be honored for his bravery. Imagine how different the story of Major League Baseball would be if the winningest left-hander in its history (and the winningest pitcher in the game after 1920) hadn’t gotten off the bridge in time. The war cost Spahn three years of pitching, but he always said it made him a more mature pitcher — and enabled him to keep pitching until age 43, after going a mind-boggling 23-7 the year before.