Billy Southworth by John C. Skipper

Author:John C. Skipper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2013-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

For Southworth, perhaps his redemption as a big league manager was complete when, eight years after he had been tossed overboard and was selling cotton seed oil in Columbus, The Sporting News named him the National League’s Manager of the Year.

Billy went home to Ohio to work on the home he was building for his family on an acreage in Sunbury, about 20 miles southwest of Columbus. It would be a year before the house was built, a perfect spot for the Southworths, close to the big city and yet a get-away, a place for Mabel to establish her special brand of homelife for Billy, for six-year-old Carole and there would be a room for Billy Jr. for when he came home, filled with his books, his sports awards, his memorabilia. And not far from the family home, there would be places to hunt, fish and horseback ride.

Billy began hauling 104 loads of stone from a nearby quarry on December 7, 1941, a quiet, not-quite-winter Sunday afternoon when the people of Sunbury and across the nation were shaken by the news that the war had reached American territory. On this day, “a day that will live in infamy,” as President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it, the Japanese bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, killing and injuring thousands of Americans. Within 24 hours, the United States declared war on Japan.

Billy’s mind and his heart had to be racing. Where was Billy Jr.? Would he be cast into battle? Would he be safe?

And what would this mean to America, to the God-fearing, peace loving people of Sunbury and their brothers and sisters all across the country?

And what would this mean for baseball which was, next to his family, the heart and soul of Billy’s countenance?

Baseball’s commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who had been the czar of the game for more than 20 years and who had overseen the rebirth of the game after the Black Sox scandal of 1919, would now have to see the sport through another troubling time. Landis, a lifelong, die-hard Republican who detested President Roosevelt and had said so publicly, now wrote to the commander in chief, the nation’s most prominent Democrat, pledging baseball’s support to the war effort, whatever sacrifice that might mean, including cancellation of the upcoming baseball season.

Roosevelt responded with what has come to be known as the “green light” letter. On January 15, 1942, he wrote to Landis, saying the ultimate decision concerning the upcoming baseball season was up to the owners. So he would offer a personal, rather than an “official” point of view.

“I honestly feel it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before ... if three hundred teams use five thousand or six thousand players, these players

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