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Today we welcome back Ron Christensen with a special Veteran’s Day tribute to Eddie Grant: the first ball player to enlist during WWI and who was later killed in action. As Ron mentions, Captain Eddie Grant deserves to be properly recognized for his service to his country, and so we’re glad to shine our baseball spotlight on this authentic American hero. -GL

Veteran’s Day Tribute:

Eddie Grant:

The True Measure of Courage

“The Germans won’t be able to win a game from us.  We’ll knock old Hindenburg out of the box in the first inning.” -Captain Eddie Grant writing to his sister during WWI

Those reading this, certainly those who frequent this site, will undoubtedly have heard of Eddie Grant, and might even know of his place in baseball history.  Likewise there will be many, including avid baseball fans, who have never heard of Eddie Grant, something truly unfortunate because his is a name that should be remembered.  While Grant never achieved the career accomplishments of peers such as Cobb, Wagner and Matthewson, his name should not be allowed to fade into the periphery of history, not for a man whose life is measured in honor, courage and sacrifice.  Eddie Grant’s memory deserves better.

Tall and gangly, with a sober countenance and a cerebral approach to life, Eddie Grant was a Massachusetts native, a Harvard alumnus and a professional ballplayer.  He played both basketball and baseball as a freshman at Harvard, but because he accepted $40 and free room and board playing baseball with a semi-pro team that summer, he was deemed ineligible for further play with the Harvard nine.  He did play intramural ball at Harvard, and each summer played semi-pro ball in Lynn, a small factory town north of Boston. Lynn, a small factory town north of Boston — a community where local fans followed the sport passionately, long before online betting and modern fandom changed the way people engage with the game.

In the summer of 1905 following his graduation from Harvard, Eddie made a very brief and fleeting major league debut with the Cleveland Naps in a double-header against the Red Sox in Boston.  Naps star second baseman Napolean Lajoie, from whom the team took its name, was injured and the Naps scouted local talent to play in his stead.  They tabbed Eddie, who proceeded to impress them, going 3-for-4 in the first game, only to disappoint them with no hits in the second game.  When the Naps left Boston, Eddie returned to Lynn and semi-pro ball. 

In 1906 Eddie enrolled in Harvard Law School while continuing to play semi-pro ball.  He was signed by the Phillies in 1907 and the following year was their regular third baseman.  In 1909 he was also the Phillies lead-off batter, collecting 170 hits on the season, good for second most in the league.  1909 was also the year Eddie received his law degree from Harvard.  As a member of the Massachusetts Bar, Eddie began practicing law in Boston during the offseason.

In 1910 Eddie met Irene Soest in Philadelphia.  Conversation led to courting, and courting led to engagement, and in February of 1911 the two were married.  Their plans to remain in Philadelphia were upended when Eddie was traded to Cincinnati before the start of the season.  They returned to Boston and Eddie’s law practice when the season ended, but their time together would be tragically short-lived.  Less than nine months after they were married, Irene, only 22, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly from an undetected heart defect, an apparent lingering effect of typhoid fever she contracted as a child.   Eddie never fully recovered from Irene’s loss. 

The following season Eddie returned to Cincinnati, and in 1913 was traded to the New York Giants.  He was a favorite of Giants manager John McGraw, and in 1915 spent much of the season serving as one of McGraw’s coaches.  Eddie retired from baseball at the close of the 1915 season, returning to Boston and a career in the law. 

When America entered World War I in April, 1917, the war in Europe had been raging almost three years.  Possessed of a strong sense of duty and love of country, Eddie enlisted immediately, the first former major leaguer to do so.  In basic training, Eddie was reunited with his close friend and law school classmate Charles Whittlesey, then an attorney practicing banking law in New York.  Within the year the two would find themselves in France as part of the American Expeditionary Force, Grant a captain in the 307th Infantry and Whittlesey a major in the 308th Infantry.  Both were part of the 77th Division, known as the ‘Statue of Liberty’ Division because so many of its recruits hailed from New York City.  Their uniforms bore a Statue of Liberty patch sewn on its sleeves.

Eddie was eager and optimistic when he first arrived in France.  But unbridled optimism is often the first sentiment shed or lost on war’s bloody landscape.  By July, 1918 Eddie’s regiment was worn down with fatigue from near continuous fighting, and depleted of too many good men, many of whom had shared Eddie’s optimism for a quick end to the war, only to be buried in makeshift graves in the fields of eastern France.  By September the regiment was consumed with exhaustion, short of food, ammunition and water, and even shorter of hope. 

In late September, the Allies made a push to breach the Hindenburg Line, a series of heavily fortified defensive positions stretching across the Western Front, including trenches, barbed wire entanglements, machine gun nests, artillery emplacements and 44 Divisions of German soldiers.   The 77th Division was part of an attack launched on October 2nd, and while much of its line was repelled, Major Whittlesey’s regiment somehow made it through, moving deeper into the tree lined hillside of the Argonne Forest than any other regiment, to a location known as ‘The Pocket’.  Unbeknownst to them at the time was that they were alone, 600 men who were now completely surrounded by the enemy.  They would remain that way for six days, and come to be known as ‘The Lost Brigade’.  When rescued, only 194 men survived.

Eddie’s regiment was involved in attempts to rescue Whittlesey’s Lost Battalion, but each time were repelled under intense fighting.  In one such attempt, Eddie and his men came across Major Jay, who had been wounded and was now being moved by stretcher to the rear of the line.  Jay told Eddie to take command of the Battalion, as Eddie was now the senior surviving officer.  Eddie moved his men forward, but they were soon racked by exploding mortar shells, felling his lieutenant and several of his men.  In the ensuing chaos, Eddie ordered his men down, to take cover.  He stood and yelled for stretcher bearers to tend and move the wounded, and as he did another mortar round whistled through the trees, striking next to where he stood, the exploding shrapnel killing him instantly.  It was October 5th, three days before the Lost Battalion would be rescued, and thirty seven days before the Armistice would be signed and the War would end. 

Eddie Grant was the first major league ballplayer killed in World War I.  He was buried in the Argonne Forest, and his remains were later transferred to the Romagne American Military Cemetery in France, where he lies at rest alongside 14,245 American servicemen who gave their lives in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. 

Ron Chirstensen

REFERENCES:

1. Smithsonian Magazine: When Major Leaguer Eddie Grant Made The Ultimate Sacrifice, by Kevin Coyne.
2. SABR: Eddie Grant, by Tom Simon
3. Wikipedia: Eddie Grant (baseball)
4. Baseball Egg: Remembering Eddie Grant, by Dan Holmes
5. Real Clear Public Affairs: Honoring Eddie Grant, By Carl M. Cannon
6. Library of Congress: Echoes of the Great War, Meuse-Argonne
7. Wikipedia: Meuse-Argonne Offensive
8. Wikipedia: Lost Battalion (World War I)
9. This Day In Baseball: May 30, 1921

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