Playing With The Enemy

[Russell 1910]

Playing With The Enemy

A Baseball Prodigy, a World at War, and a field of Broken Dreams

 

If you have an interest in WWII (both the United States as well as Germany) and baseball or sports in general (even just the "history" of baseball), I suggest picking this one up.

 

I am generally not a reader of full length books, and prefer quick reference articles, pictures, etc. However I could not put this one down and got through it in about a week of a chapter at lunch time during the work day, then practically the whole second half of it yesterday.

 

The basic plot of the book is a kid in small town USA gets drafted into the Brooklyn Dodgers farm system at 15 years old and he goes off to play in what is now the minor leagues. December 1941 rolls around and Pearl Harbor is attacked and he gets papers from the Dodgers allowing him to join the Navy's Baseball exhibition team and he travels to North Africa to play ball and entertain the troops. Prior to D-Day the teams are sent home as there will be no time for baseball. They end up being moved to Louisiana to guard the crew of the Nazi U-boat U505 (which is on display in Chicago). The subject of the book Gene and the other players eventually are allowed to play baseball with the Germans and they have great success (the players are able to practice and the Germans get entertainment rather than just being couped up all day).

 

Gene is injured and after several tries eventually is unable to reach his dream of getting to the Majors.

 

That is the really short synopsis...

 

 

 

 

http://playingwiththeenemy.com/

2006 Best Non-Fiction book of the year by the Military Writers Society of America

 

I don't work of the author or the publisher and am getting no money for this "advertisement". Just a really good read about a real life event.