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While World War II was racially segregated among the fighting troops, one U.S. Army baseball team was not as it boasted having Negro League greats Leon Day and Willard Brown in its lineup. OISE team only had two white Major Leaguers on their roaster, pitcher “Subway” Sam Nahem, who won 29 games with the Pirates in the late 30s and another mediocre pitcher Russ Bauers who won 31 games in eight Major League seasons. The rest were minor leaguers, but they were good enough to play in the the best-of-five German World Series that pitted the Army’s best teams based from Germany and France to determine the champion of the European Theater of Operations (ETO).
The Germany-based team was represented by the 71st Division of Gen. George Patton’s Third Army called Red Circlers, and were stocked with established Major Leaguers including two-time All-Star Harry Walker, who was put in charge of managing Patton’s best baseball team. In all they had six-time All-Star pitcher Ewell Blackwell who won 22 games for the Reds in 1947 and had a sidearm pitch that would strike fear into the batters he faced, outfielder Johnny Wyrostek (Phillies), infielder Benny Zientara (Reds), catcher Herb Bremer (Cardinals) and pitcher Ken Heintzelman (Pirates).
The OISE team was clearly the underdog going into this series
On Sept. 3, 1945 the series started and Blackwell had no problems winning the first game 9-2, but the following day OISE would tie up the series winning 2-1 behind the brilliant pitching of Leon Day. The two teams split the next two games in Rein, France setting up a decisive fifth game and Blackwell took the mound again for the Red Circlers in front of 50,000 servicemen. The Red Circlers took a 1-0 led into the 7th inning when Day was brought in as a pinch-runner and promptly stole second and third base and would come home on a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 1-1. In the 8th inning it would be Wilber Brown’s time to shine for the ragtag OISE team, he would double in the go ahead run for a 2-1 lead that would hold up and make them the very unlikely champions in a stunning upset.
-Ron A. Bolton
Photo and Info Source – Robert Weintraub, author of “The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball’s Golden Age “http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Season-World-Baseballs-Golden-ebook/dp/B008TV4NA0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447264642&sr=1-1&keywords=9780316205900
Wow! Great story, great picture. I’ve never heard of any of this before. Thanks for this post!
There is no such thing as the Overseas Invasion Service Expedition. Oise is the name of a river in France. Sam Nahem’s team represented the Oise Section, part of the numerous US Army communications zones in France during WWII. There was also the Seine Section, Normandy Base Section and Delta Base Section. Oise is pronounced “Wuz” or “Waz”