A true hero

by Clark Addison on Nov 9, 2007 6:26 PM CST Comment 5 comments

Today's ballplayers are the most skilled ever to play the game. So many of them, however, are spoiled kids who never grew up.

Lou Brissie pitched 7 years in the majors, after world war II combat injuries resulted in 23 operations on his left leg. He would have lost it but for a military doctor who he convinced to save it for a baseball career that hadn't really started at the time.

At age 83, he is connecting with today's wounded veterans. There's a great story on him at the ESPN website. Reading it will make you forget stock market woes and the chaotic world we live in, at least for a while.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3101709

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation or Al Yellon, managing editor (unless it's a FanPost posted by Al). FanPost opinions are valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable baseball fans.

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If you enjoyed

this article, check out a book called Playing With the Enemy by Gary Moore.

It tells the story of Moore's father Gene, a phenom in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization who had a choice to make after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Moore left his baseball career, and all that promise, to fight for his country. The book tells that story.

An amazing book for baseball fans, WWII buffs, and any one with an emotional bone in thier body. I wrote about it a month or so ago in the diary about great books, and I still strongly recommend it. The 40s were an entirely different era, and America was a hugely different culture that the one we live in now, stories like Lou's and Gene's open our eyes to what real heroes are.

by HectorVillanueva on Nov 9, 2007 7:00 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I remember as a kid

reading in Furman Bisher's "Strange But True Baseball Stories" about Brissie, specifically the time Williams hit the line drive off Brissie's leg when Brissie was pitching for the Philadelphia A's.

Good to see he's still going strong.

by wildcat6 on Nov 9, 2007 8:19 PM CST reply actions 0 recs