Literary birthday greetings: Swish

December 11, 2010

Bill Nicholson was born this date in 1914.

He was considered one of the great sluggers of his generation, leading the National League in home runs in 1943 and 1944. He retired in 1953 with 235 four-baggers.

With so many athletes serving in WWII. I would love to see — just out of curiosity — the reasons that others had for not going into the service. In A League of Their Own, manager Jimmy Dugan, based loosely on Hack Wilson, was exempt because he had no knee cartilage. Other had similar medical exemptions while still more had various classifications as the sole support of the family, etc. (Mickey Mantle was ridiculed for being able to play ball so well, yet being found unfit to serve in he Korean War on by draft boards on several occasions). So if anyone out there knows of such a list, please let me know.

Robert Greenberg published “Swish Nicholson”: A Biography of Wartime Baseball’s Leading Slugger in 2007.

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