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Billy Reed: Wishing everyone a Memorial Day of fun, laughter, celebration — and reflection and prayer


I wish everyone a Memorial Day weekend full of fun, laughter, and celebration. But I also hope each of us takes a few private moments of reflection and prayer on all the men and women who have given their lives defending our great nation’s freedoms.

This holiday comes less than six months after a bunch of American insurrectionists assaulted our nation’s Capital building with mayhem in their hearts. It will forever be remembered as one of the lowest points in our history.

Americans attacking Americans. Our fellow citizens intent on hanging the Vice-President and murdering the Speaker of the House. Who were these homegrown traitors and how did they ever turn into such ruthless animals?

Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award three times. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades and is perhaps one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby. His book “Last of a BReed” is available on Amazon.

I’m glad Bob Feller, the great Cleveland Indians’ strikeout pitcher, wasn’t around to see it.

An Iowa farmboy, Feller interrupted his Hall of Fame career to enlist in the Army during World War II. Much as he loved baseball, he loved his country even more.

I once interviewed Feller about patriotism. At that time, my hair was pretty long and he may have made some assumptions about me. I don’t know. But he did deliver an emotional denuncenation about the “hippies” and “draft dodgers” who opted out of the Vietnam War.

For the record, and I think Feller would have approved of this, I served in the Army Reserves from 1966 through ’71. By no means was I even close to being a hero, which is why I usually stay in my seat when service veterans are asked to stand and be applauded at ball games.

In Feller’s day, baseball was, indeed, the nation’s pastime. There wasn’t even a close second.

The NFL and NBA didn’t come to prominence until the late 1950s. So taking leave from a big-league career to defend the nation was a very big deal.

Feller was hardly the only major-leaguer to trade his baseball uniform for a military one. Great players such as Hank Greenburg, Stan Musial, Yogi Berra and many more made the switch, creating a talent drain that led to the argument that baseball should be canceled for the duration.

But Commissioner Ford Frick, recognizing how much the game contributed to the nation’s morale, insisted that the big-league seasons be played, even though the teams were staffed largely by has-beens, minor-league players, and callow kids such as Joe Nuxhall of Hamilton, Ohio, who was 16 years old when he pitched a game for the Cincinnati Reds.

That’s still the record for youngest player ever to appear in a big-league game. But Nuxhall turned out to be much more than the answer to a trivia question. He was the left-handed mainstay of the Reds’ pitching staff in the 1950s.

In a cruel twist of fate, Nuxxie was traded to Kansas City before the 1961 season, when the Reds won their first National League since 1940, but the team brought him back for the final four or five years of his career.

After retiring, of course, he became a folk hero as a member of the Reds’ radio team, especially when he worked alongside Marty Brennaman, the “Voice of the Reds” from 1973 until his retirement in 2019.

Of all the ball players who left the game to serve in the Armed Forces during World War II, the most celebrated was Boston Red Sox immortal Ted Williams, who flew fighter planes for the U.S. Marines.

Amazingly, Williams left the game again to fly fighter jets during the Korean War. It was a double-play of valor that endeared Williams to fans everywhere, even those who didn’t care for his team.

In the late 1950s and early ‘60s, college football’s coveted Heisman Trophy was won by service academy stars Pete Dawkins of Army (1958), Joe Bellino of Navy (1960), and Roger Staubach of Navy (1963). Each had to serve six years of active duty before beginning a civilian career. Bellino and Staubach played in the pros when their service commitment was done. But while Bellino was only an average player in the AFL, Staubach became the star quarterback for Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys dynasty.

Dawkins chose a more interesting path. After graduating from West Point in 1959, he accepted a Rhodes Scholarship in England. After that he began his service commitment, winning two Bronze Medals for Valor in Vietnam and rising to the rank of Brigadier General by the time of his retirement in 1983. He also dabbled in politics, even being mentioned as a possible Republican Presidential candidate in 1988. But when that didn’t pan out, he entered the business world, spending the rest of his career as a high-ranking official with various firms on Wall Street.

Sadly, the legacy of these athletes and role models was lost on the thugs who invaded the Capitol building on January 6 of this year. So, for that matter, was the example set by the war heroes from their own families. Some of the insurrectionists were even ex-serviceman, for heaven’s sake. They apparently forgot the oaths they took when they joined the military.

Yet we still honor that flag that flies over the land of the free and the home of the brave.

That’s because the vast majority of us are grateful to be Americans. Our nation has been far from perfect, but at least the best of us still strive to build a more perfect union.

So as we fire up our grills, gulp down our favorite beverages, or watch or participate in our favorite games, let us not forget the reason we have a Memorial Day. Let us consider the tableau of American troops raising our flag on Iwo Jima and be grateful for all who gave their last full measure of devotion so their generation, and future ones, could enjoy our freedoms.


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