April 18, 1945: The Death of Ernie Pyle

April 18, 1945: Ernie Pyle is killed in the Battle of Okinawa. The columnist, whose work was seen in over 300 newspapers, was 44.

Born on August 3, 1900 in Dana, Indiana, on the State Line with Illinois, Ernest Taylor Pyle had previously served in the U.S. Navy in World War I. He wrote a column for the Scripps-Howard newspaper syndicate from 1935 through 1941, earning him wide acclaim for his simple accounts of ordinary people across North America.

When the United States entered World War II, he lent the same distinctive, folksy style of his human-interest stories to his wartime reports from the European Theater in 1942, '43 and '44; and then the Pacific Theater in 1945. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944, for his newspaper accounts of "dogface" infantry soldiers from a first-person perspective. He was responsible for ground forces getting an extra $10 a month "fight pay," just as pilots were getting that as "flight pay." Congress authorized it, and it became known as the Ernie Pyle Bill.

He was killed by enemy fire on Iejima, an island near Okinawa. He was 1 of only 3 civilians awarded the Purple Heart in "The War," and no one doubted that he deserved it. After victory was achieved, President Harry Truman said, "No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen."

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April 18, 1945 was a Wednesday. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The Stanley Cup Finals were between Games 4 and 5. The Toronto Maple Leafs went on to beat the Detroit Red Wings in 7 games.

And these baseball games were played, in a regular season that began 2 days earlier:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-2 at Yankee Stadium. Hank Borowy, a native of my original hometown of Bloomfield, New Jersey, and a hero of the Bronx Bombers' 1943 World Series win, went the distance to win this game. In midseason, he was traded to the Chicago Cubs, and was key in their run to the National League Pennant.

His former Bloomfield High teammate, Don Savage, played 3rd base for the Yankees, and went 2-for-4 with an RBI. But while Borowy had a solid career, going 108-82 in 10 major league seasons, Savage only played 105 games in the major leagues, and, clearly, only played in any of them due to the war's manpower drain.

* The New York Giants beat the Boston Braves, 8-4 at Braves Field in Boston. The Jints scored 4 runs in the top of the 9th inning to win it. Their player-manager, Mel Ott, went 3-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2 at Ebbets Field. Ben Chapman, normally an outfielder, made 1 of his 25 major league pitching appearances -- all but the last of them during The War -- but lost. Two years later, he would manage the Phillies, and launch the most disgusting racist attack in baseball history at Jackie Robinson.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 1-0 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. An error in the bottom of the 12th inning allowed Irv Hall to reach base, and he scored on a single by Ed Busch and a groundout by George Kell. Russ Christopher allowed 7 hits over 12 shutout innings for the A's.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Ed Heusser allowed 8 hits, but kept the shutout.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Browns, 11-0 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Paul "Dizzy" Trout pitched a 7-hit shutout. Roger "Doc" Cramer, a native of Beach Haven, on Long Beach Island on the Jersey Shore, went 3-for-6 with 6 RBIs. Jimmy Outlaw went 4-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Chicago White Sox and the Cleveland Indians were supposed to play at League Park in Cleveland, but it was too cold, and the game was postponed. It was played as part of a doubleheader on June 22, and with the expected larger crowd, was moved to Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Indians won the opener, 2-1. Allie Reynolds, later the ace of the Yankees, outpitched Thornton Lee. The White Sox won the nightcap, 3-0. Orval Grove, no relation to Lefty, pitched a 6-hit shutout. Over the 2 games, Lou Boudreau, the Indians' shortstop and manager, went 1-for-6.

* And the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals appear not to have been scheduled, although they played the day before (the Cubs won) and the day after (the Cards won).