August 8, 1952: Bob Neighbors Is Killed In Action

August 8, 1952: Major Robert Neighbors, U.S. Air Force, is shot down over North Korea. He is believed to be the only major league athlete to have been killed in action in the Korean War. He was 34 years old.

Robert Otis Neighbors was born on November 9, 1917 in Talihina, Oklahoma. After playing baseball for a season at Oklahoma Baptist University, he signed with the St. Louis Browns, who had a farm team in the area. He moved up through their system as a power-hitting shortstop, a rarity in those days.

On September 16, 1939, Bob Neighbors made his major league debut. He entered the game as a late-inning defensive replacement, and the Browns lost to the Washington Senators, 4-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. (By a twist of fate, his uniform number has been lost to history: Neither Baseball-Reference.com nor Baseball-Almanac.com nor Wikipedia have it recorded, and no surviving photographs reveal it.)

Neighbors played 7 of the Browns' last 17 games, 5 at shortstop and 2 as a pinch-runner. He fielded 12 chances, with 6 assists, 5 putouts, participating in 1 double play, and making only 1 error. He got 2 hits in 11 at-bats, one of them a home run off Denny Galehouse in a 6-2 Browns loss to the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. The Browns finished 43-111, the rock-bottom worst finish for the worst franchise in American League history.

(Galehouse would later help the Browns win their only Pennant in 1944, then go back to the Red Sox, and start and lose their 1948 Playoff for the Pennant with the Cleveland Indians. The Browns became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954, and found some success, but their 111 losses as the '39 Browns remained the worst in the franchise's history, until, in 2018, they lost 115. )

Neighbors never played another major league game. He played for the Toledo Mud Hens in the American Association in 1940. In 1941, he married Winifred Wilcox, and played for the San Antonio Missions in the Texas League. That Summer, while the Missions were on the road, "Winnie" was hit by a car and killed.

"It had a bad effect on Bob," his younger brother Morris said later. "Bob was on the road, and Winnie back home in San Antonio when it happened. He felt that if he had been there, if he had a job where he wasn't traveling, it wouldn't have happened." His hitting also seemed to die, as he fell to a .216 batting average. When Pearl Harbor was bombed at the end of the year, he felt he had enough reason to quit baseball, and joined what was then called the U.S. Army Air Corps.

While serving at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama, he met Katherine "Kitty" Burke, and she became his 2nd wife. He didn't quit baseball entirely, playing for base teams. But when World War II ended, he decided to keep the military as his career, including as player-manager for the Maxwell Field team. In 1947, the Army Air Corps was separated from the Army to become its own branch of the armed forces, the U.S. Air Force. In 1950, Bob became the father of Robert Cameron Neighbors. All seemed well.

Then North Korea invaded South Korea, and President Harry S Truman rallied the United Nations to South Korea's aid. Major Neighbors flew a Douglas Invader with the 13th Bomb Squadron of the 3rd Bomb Group.

On August 8, 1952, he and his crew, also including 1st Lieutenant William Holcom and Staff Sergeant Grady Weeks, flew a night mission over North Korea. They reported being hit by enemy fire, and said they were bailing out. There was no further contact, and they failed to return. They were reported as "Missing In Action" (MIA). After the Truce of Panmunjom ended the war, and all prisoners of war were repatriated, Neighbors, Holcom and Weeks were not among them. It became accepted that they had died in action.

The Browns moved to Baltimore after the 1953 season. The Orioles make no mention of Neighbors in their historical displays at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Although the St. Louis Cardinals have honored Browns legend George Sisler with a statue outside the new Busch Stadium, and have some Browns memorabilia in their in-park Hall of Fame Museum, they make no mention of Neighbors, either.

By a macabre coincidence, like Neighbors, the only Major League Baseball Player who died in the Korean War, the 2 Major League Baseball players to die in combat in World War II also played very briefly, just in the 1939 season, for teams that no longer exist under the names they used at the time.

Elmer Gedeon, a multi-sport star athlete at the University of Michigan, played 5 games in the outfield for the Washington Senators, and was shot down over France in 1944. Harry O'Neill made 1 appearance as a catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics, and died on Iwo Jima in early 1945.

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August 8, 1952 was a Friday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Giants lost to the Boston Braves, 2-0 at Braves Field in Boston. Max Surkont pitched a 4-hit shutout, and Bob Thorpe went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Willie Mays was serving in the Korean War, and unavailable to the Giants.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-3 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Andy Pafko went 2-for-5 with 5 RBIs, including a 3-run home run in the top of the 10th inning, to make a winning pitcher out of Preacher Roe. Jackie Robinson went 1-for-4. Richie Ashburn went 3-for-4 for the Phillies.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 1-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Murry Dickson went the distance and beyond for the Pirates, winning his own game with a single in the bottom of the 10th inning, allowing just 6 hits in his extra-inning shutout.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-5 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Stan Musial went 1-for-4.

* The Chicago White Sox swept a doubleheader from the Detroit Tigers, 4-3 and 2-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the St. Louis Browns, 10-9 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Bob Feller had the worst performance of his Hall of Fame career, getting knocked out of the box in the 1st inning, allowing 6 runs without getting an out. But the Indians came back from an 8-0 2nd inning deficit, as Bill Glynn won it with a home run leading off the top of the 12th inning, to make a winner in relief out of Early Wynn. That's the kind of franchise the Browns were.

* The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox were rained out at Yankee Stadium. The game was made up on August 11, and the Yankees won, 7-0. Allie Reynolds pitched a 2-hit shutout. Mickey Mantle hit 2 home runs. Ted Williams was serving in the Korean War, and unavailable to the Red Sox.

* And the Philadelphia Athletics and the Washington Senators were rained out at Griffith Stadium in Washington. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 2, and the Senators swept, 3-2 and 5-0. Jackie Jensen won the opener with a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the 10th. Mike Fornieles pitched a 1-hit shutout in the nightcap.