Jan. 2011 Pick-up thread...

[Scott Garner]

I just picked up a pretty neat ticket from the 2nd game of the 1944 Pacific Service World Series that was played on September 23, 1944.

In this game, "Double No-Hit" Cincinnati Reds hurler Johnny VanderMeer and the Navy team bested losing pitcher Al Lein (of SF Seals PCL) and the Army 8-2.

The 1944 Pacific League Championship Series (World Series) was the brainchild of Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, who in the spring of 1944, determined that there were over 280 former major league players in active military service. The Series that pitted the Army and Navy's best was an 11 game series played at different military bases in Hawaii between Sept. 22, 1944 and Oct. 15th, 1944.

Behind the mostly outstanding pitching of the Navy staff the Navy team won 9 of the 11 games.

Some of the major leaguers that played in this Pacific Service World Series included:
Johnny VanderMeer, Virgil Trucks (he also threw 2 no-hitters while playing with the Tigers in 1952), Phil Rizzuto, Bill Dickey, Schoolboy Rowe, Johnny Beazley, Joe Gordon, Joe Grace, Ken Sears, Tom Ferrick. Hugh Casey,
Johnny Mize, Barney McCloskey, Walter Judnich and Johnny Lucadello to name a few.

This is a pretty neat ticket. I've got to wonder how many of these survived after all of these years?