Lou Brissie watched the 2010 World Series and was impressed by the champion San Francisco Giants.
“They’ve got some great young pitchers,” Brissie said.
Brissie knows greatness, and he’s not easily impressed. After all, as a pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics, he faced the likes of the great Ted Williams — and did so with a metal brace on a leg that had been shattered in battle during World War II. Brissie went through 23 major operations from the time he was in a battlefield hospital in Italy in December 1944 to the time he stepped on a major league baseball field in 1947.
We all should be impressed with Lou Brissie.
In World War II, many of the able-bodied men who played baseball went off to serve in the military. Brissie and three other ballplayers who served during that time of turmoil — Yogi Berra, Jerry Coleman and Negro Leaguer John “Mules” Miles — are part of a program sponsored by the Washington Nationals, along with the American Veterans Center, at 5:30 p.m. on Friday at Nationals Park to salute players who served in the military during World War II.
Brissie, born June 5, 1924, in Anderson, S.C., was a left-handed pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics from 1947 to 1951 and the Cleveland Indians from 1951 to 1953, compiling a record of 44-48 with a 4.07 ERA. He was a member of the American League All-Star team in 1949, when he went 16-11.
Five years earlier, Brissie was in a hospital in Italy wondering whether he would lose his left leg after he was hit by an artillery explosion. His leg was shattered, and doctors considered amputating it.
You could say that baseball — and a great Army doctor — saved Brissie’s leg.
“I told the doctors I was planning on being a ballplayer and needed that leg and asked them to try to save it,” Brissie said. “I was fortunate to have a doctor who did magnificent work and saved it.”
Brissie also had a letter from Philadelphia Athletics owner Connie Mack, who had scouted Brissie as a high school player, promising him a chance to play again.
“He wrote, ‘When you feel ready, I will see you get the opportunity,’?” Brissie said. “Opportunity can be the difference between a hopeless situation and hope for the future. So I didn’t give up and worked toward that goal.”
He became a major league pitcher, and Williams — himself a war hero — once lined a shot off the brace Brissie wore on his left leg.
“The ball knocked me off my feet,” Brissie said.
Williams came over to the mound after reaching first to make sure Brissie was OK.
“I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you pull the ball?’?” Brissie said. “He got a laugh out of that one.”
Later that season, Williams blasted a home run off Brissie. As Williams rounded second, Brissie yelled to him, “I didn’t mean to pull it that far!”
Baseball players. American heroes. There was a time when they were one in the same.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN 980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected]
