As a young man Jerry Coleman was at the center of the baseball world. A versatile infielder – primarily at second base – on the great Yankees teams of the 1950s, Coleman was a steady cog in a relentless machine that won six World Series during his tenure and eight American League pennants. He was never a star. Overshadowed by legends like Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra, among many others, Coleman simply went about his business. He made just one All-Star team in his second year as a pro (1950) and was also the World Series MVP that year.
Coleman was one of four panelists at Nationals Park on Friday night for a 90-minute panel discussion hosted in conjunction with the American Veterans Center and the Washington Nationals. An audience of about 500 met in the PNC Diamond Club to listen to Coleman, Berra, Lou Brissie, and John Miles tell their stories. Made for a fascinating discussion. Examiner columnist Phil Wood hosted the panel.
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Coleman is the only Major League Baseball player from that era to see combat in both World War II and Korea. He was a Marine naval bomber pilot and earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses and seven Air Medals while flying 57 combat missions in the Pacific Theatre. Few men have a better perspective on the difference between actual war and the games our culture enjoys so much. Coleman almost died during World War II when an engine quit on him during a takeoff. In an instant he found himself pinned to the ground, knees behind his ears – in a plane with 3,000 pounds of bombs on board – and didn’t come to until his fellow Marines pulled him from the wreckage.
“Flying an airplane is a clean war. I’ll tell you why. I had my roommate blow up in front of me. And I had other men who were killed on the runway or disappeared on missions,” Coleman said. “But basically you never saw what the ground crew saw, where some guy’s head had blown off. You look around and he’s gone. That to me is very, very difficult. Air war…[back] then, if something happened you never really saw the blood, the gore, the real desperation and death.”
Coleman was barely out of his teens in World War II. Incredibly, he was called back to active duty in 1952 to fly 63 more close combat missions in Korea. He played just 19 big-league games combined for the Yankees in 1952 and 1953. And while Coleman was young enough after his first military tour to still fight his way through the Yankees loaded farm system it was a struggle for him after Korea. Following the 1957 season he was out of baseball. Any regrets about that second stint?
“I was dumb enough to think I’d just give up these two years and be right back where I was, Coleman said. “I never came back to what I was, which doesn’t bother me in the least. I’ll be very honest with you. I was always proud to be a Marine naval aviator. And frankly it never entered my mind to think that I wasn’t going to be as good as I was before. I found out later that I wasn’t as good as before. But those are the kinds of things – you play baseball against [serving] your country? It’s not a contest. You’re country comes first period.”
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