American Legion Baseball in The 1940s

American Legion Baseball in The 1940s.

All summer long, on sandlots across the nation, 500,000 U.S.
kids (all under 17) had been fighting it out, with a grimness
not always to be seen in big league baseball. They were entries
in the annual American Legion baseball championships. Last week
the best four teams (from Trenton, Cincinnati, New Orleans and
Los Angeles), toting their favorite bats and solemnly oiling up
their mitts, journeyed by day-coach to Charleston, S.C. for the
American Legion's tenth annual Little World Series.
Scouts from 15 big league clubs were on hand. They knew from
experience that the Little World Series is baseball's best proving
ground. In the early '30s at Houston, they had seen a young pitcher
named Phil Cavarretta (now the Chicago Cubs' rightfielder) beat
out fuzzy-cheeked Kirby Higbe (now the Brooklyn Dodgers' pitching
mainstay). A few years later in Charlotte, N.C. 17-year-old Hal
Newhouser (now the Detroit Tigers' 23-game winner, and the
American League's most valuable player in 1944 and 1945) wept
in the locker room after losing a big game. About 275 big leaguers
, one in five, have been Legion alumni.
This year scouts had their eye on Trenton's 185-lb. first baseman,
Dick Geidlin, batting an impressive .464. He promptly bounced a
triple off the rightfield wall to break a tie, and beat Los Angeles
in the fourth game. But Dick was only 16, and by baseball rules the
scouts couldn't even talk to him until he was 17 and no longer
eligible to play Legion ball. Another whose name may some day
shine in big league lights, Jack Carmichael, was a lanky righthander
from Los Angeles with a burning fast ball. He fanned twelve New
Orleans players, allowed but two hits, scored a 6-0 shutout.
The winning team: New Orleans, victor over Trenton in the
finals, 3-1.