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COURTESY OF AUTHOR
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
By Lieutenant Colonel Floyd C. Mims,
U. S. Army (Retired)
the British version of throwing out the ball to begin the Fourth of July game between U. S. Army and Navy teams, King George V regally handed the ball to the author as Flee Admiral William Sims looked on.
In whatever part of the world you find an American serviceman, you will invariably find a baseball, a glove, and a bat. No matter how far from home, n° matter how miserable the conditions, no matter ■fin a combat zone or not, he will take baseball with him. Lacking the actual bat and ball, 1 have seen •nen playing catch with C-ration cans and a gunner’s m>tten. I have seen them practicing with a stone for a ball and a G.l. shovel for a bat.
When 1 landed in France in August of 1917, I had n« reason to believe that I wouldn't finish the war 'here. After touring the western front with Major General George T. Bartlett, to whom I was assigned,
1 returned to A.E.F. Fleadquarters at Chaumont. General Bartlett and I were promptly ordered to London to establish “Base Section 3” to become American Headquarters in the British Isles. Besides General Bartlett, his aide, and I. the only other American soldier in London at the time was the military attache at the American Embassy.
I was appointed first lieutenant and detailed as 'he detachment commanding officer of all our enlisted personnel, soon to arrive. I had to locate living barters and messing facilities as well as fabricate some kind of recreation program. My first thoughts °f recreation turned toward baseball. We got a few balls and a bat from the American Red Cross and held our first practice in the garden behind the Goring Hotel. At that point, we were furnished with all 'he baseball equipment we required and informed °f where we could play golf, tennis, and rugby. Whenever time allowed, we would go to Chelsea Soccer Field, choose up sides, and have a scrub game.
We soon organized the Anglo-American League
with four teams—Army, Navy, Air Corps, and a Canadian team. Our American pastime was somewhat “quaint” to the British, though they were much too polite to say so. American baseball was not something they saw every day, and many of them had never heard of such a peculiar method of assembling a ball game—only nine men on a team, a round bat. no wickets, that sort of thing. We played exhibition games all over England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Every weekend found us playing baseball somewhere, usually as a benefit for a charitable cause and often before such notables as Princess Pat of Connaught, Lady Astor, and Lady Dudley Ward. Our baseball became so well-known that we could not meet the volume of requests extended to us.
We were not exactly an amateur sandlot league. World War I was a distinctly “popular” war, and large numbers of major league players cheerfully entered the military service until it was “over, over there.” They, naturally anxious to keep their professional skills honed, made up a good portion of our Anglo-American League teams.
One rainy day we sat in the hotel lobby and discussed the necessity of a special game on the Fourth of July. Whom should we invite as celebrity guests? We decided to go whole hog and ask Their Majesties, King George V and Queen Mary, or the Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VIII, or the Lord Mayor of London, Colonel Charles A. Hanson. Why not invite them all?
Back in London. 1 promised the team members 1 would speak to the Commanding General, Major General John Biddle. He was a kindly and gentle officer of the old school, not given to rash or speedy decisions. One morning soon thereafter, I was ushered into General Biddle’s office. I told him the Army team, with his permission, would like to play the Navy team on the Fourth of July. When 1 mentioned inviting members of the royal family, he straightened abruptly in his chair.
“Captain Mims, you can't be serious.”
“Yes, General, I am,” I replied. “I have discussed this with several British people I know. They all think it is a great idea.” One such Briton, Lord Northcliffe, publisher of the London Daily Mail, thought the ball game such a good idea that he publicized it widely through articles in his paper.
General Biddle, though, was not to be swayed so easily. “I will think it over,” was his reply.
Sensing that a decision might be longer in coming than Independence Day, 1 suggested that I should speak to Admiral William S. Sims, since his Navy team would also be involved.
Later, Admiral Sims telephoned General Biddle directly. “John,” he said, “1 have Captain Mims in my office, and we are talking about an Army-Navy game on the Fourth. I think it's a splendid idea.” With that concurrence, General Biddle’s inertia evaporated, and he quickly consented. Our project began to roll.
In his book Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, Elting E. Morison comments notably on the game.
“On July 4, 1918, the United States Army played the United States Navy in a baseball game, to which the King and Queen were invited. Protocol failed to cover the procedure when royalty attended such an event. No one knew who ought to meet the royal couple and escort them to their box. Wires flew to Washington. . . .Washington announced that in the absence of the Ambassador, Sims was to represent the country. The Admiral met the Queen at the gate and escorted her across the field on his arm, explaining the while to the King that he would be expected to throw out the first ball.”[1]
On the first of July, I made a circuit of northern England and Scotland to pay the American troops, and I took this opportunity to publicize the upcoming Fourth of July game. 1 arrived back in London about 3:00 A.M. on the fourth. Returning to my office, I noticed a message on my desk. “If you return before 10:00 A.M., please call Buckingham Palace.” I returned the call early that morning to Lord Standfordham, the King’s private secretary. Lord Standfordham informed me that His Majesty wished for me to come to the palace, coach him a bit about the game, and show him how to throw out the first ball—“Just as your President Wilson does it in America.”
King George never did get himself up to actually throwing out the ball. Instead, his British sense of manners prevailed, and he came out onto the field to hand me the ball. With a sea of gold braid trailing after him—he was accompanied by his own military aide, as well as Admiral Sims, General Bid- die, their aides, some other assorted officers, and Mr. Wilson Cross (a U. S. civilian backer of the team)—the King thanked me for the invitation to attend our Independence Day game and then proceeded to meet and shake hands with the team captains and each member of both teams. The first ball was later autographed by His Majesty, mounted on a stand of three silver baseball bats, and presented to President Wilson.
We had such an overflow crowd at Chelsea Soccer Field that they swarmed onto the playing field and delayed the start of the game for some 30 minutes. The game itself turned into a pitching duel between Herb Pennock of the New York Yankees and Ed LaFitte from the Detroit Tigers—this during the days when the Tigers’ Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford were the major personalities in baseball. The game went nip-and-tuck for eight innings, with Navy finally winning 2-1 in the ninth inning.
Artie Latham, a former New York Giant under manager John “Muggsy” McGraw, was the umpire. Crouching behind the plate with his silver hair flowing from under his mask and cap, his arms shot up like jumping jacks at the call of each pitch, and his voice penetrated to every corner of the field as he marked the strikes and balls. His strident judgment of each pitch was reechoed from thousands of throats at each call, a performance which showed that the British were quick to catch the spirit of baseball. Our team’s bench was near the royal box, and I could observe His Majesty barely controlling his impulses to leap up and shout with the rest of the crowd.
If all this seems to have been quite a celebration and a good deal of pomp for a Fourth of July exhibition ball game, it must be remembered that it did, after all, take place in 1918.
The Fourth of July was the holiday of the year. In America, it was very often the only time a person got out on purely social grounds. Hence, Americans were close to fanatical, whether at home or abroad, to make the Fourth of July as memorable a celebration and as large an event in their lives as they could. For American soldiers in England, then, during World War I, we considered that being first to play American baseball before the King and Queen of Great Britain was sure to be a landmark among Independence Day events in our lives.
When I finally left England in 1920, I could not but reflect, as I sailed past the white cliffs of Dover, on the warm and courteous treatment we were accorded by the British. It may seem odd to think that introducing American baseball could in any way repay the hospitality extended to our nation by their nation, but I had a curious feeling it did.
Lieutentant Colonel Mims, who enlisted in the Army i/l 1902, celebrated his 95th birthday this past year and A currently residing in Jacksonville, Florida.
[1]Elting E. Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942). p. 425.