Backroads and Ballplayers #95

Special Edition -The Ultimate Lost Story

The Ultimate Lost Story - The Story of a Story

In today's Backroads and Ballplayers Weekly, I invite you to review my adventures with the Gene Bearden Story, one last time? On several occasions, I have retold the amazing tale of the lefty from the Arkansas Delta who became the most talked about baseball player in America. At the time of each of those writings, I thought I had finished the Bearden Story, but I was wrong. In an effort to revise my association with the Gene Bearden Story, I am asking for one more chance to “get it right.” It may take you ten minutes. It took me nine years. Please share.

A 1952 Gene Bearden baseball card has a prominent place on my desk.

Gene Bearden: “It doesn’t end there!”

The apocryphal mystery of Gene Bearden is the most amazing, uplifting, and disappointing lost story of my “career” as an Arkansas baseball history writer. Telling a Gene Bearden story calls for all of those conflicting descriptors.

Susan, my wife and editor, is convinced the “Story of the Gene Bearden Story,” is just as compelling as the tale of a World Series hero whose baseball accomplishments are shadowed by a fictional backstory.

In the Beginning…

The 1948 American League pennant race ended on October 4, with the league’s first one-game tiebreaker. The consensus among sportswriters was that 20-game-winner Bob Lemon would get the pitching assignment for Cleveland, but he did not. Rookie Henry Eugene Bearden of Lexa, Arkansas, would get the playoff game start. Bearden had won his last six decisions including a shutout win over the Tigers two days earlier that protected the Indians’ perilous one-game lead in the standings.

Cleveland ace Bob Feller had been rocked on October 3, creating the tie in the American League standings that necessitated the playoff game in Boston. Manager Lou Boudreau decided to go with the hot hand rather than a rested Bob Lemon. Boston manager, Joe McCarthy, faced with a similar dilemma, chose not to start Arkansan Ellis Kinder who had won all his September decisions.

By the time McCarthy went to Kinder in relief, Cleveland was up 4—1 and Bearden had all the runs he needed. Gene Bearden was making headlines and building an Arkansas legend.

Four days after the pennant-winning victory in Boston, a rested Bearden pitched a complete-game two-hitter over the Braves with the World Series tied at one win each. Gene Bearden was the man of the hour in Cleveland and the pride of Arkansas.

Of course, in the better-than-fiction story Bearden was writing, he relieved Bob Lemon with the bases loaded in the eighth inning of Game Six to protect a 4—1 lead. Bearden allowed two of the baserunners charged to Lemon to score, but he finished the inning with the Indians clinging to a 4—3 lead. A double play and a scary flyball to left field in the ninth inning gave the Indians the World Series title. The city is still awaiting their next World Series title. (76 years and counting)

Later in the month, the Associated Press named Gene Bearden the American League Rookie of the Year. Tall, handsome, and charismatic, Gene Bearden was a perfect candidate for a baseball hero. He would find his name at the top of sports pages for a busy off-season, and even play a small role in a few movies including The Stratton Story with Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson.

This would be a good place to end the Gene Bearden story, but in a complex tale of success and deception, the Bearden story doesn’t end there.

Although he would never duplicate his heroics of 1948, Gene Bearden made Arkansas proud. He returned to Helena, became a beloved American Legion baseball coach, and worked in radio in his home county.

Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame Historian, Jim Rasco, recalls introducing Bearden in early 1988 when the retired pitcher was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. The historian had plenty of material to highlight the biography of a World Series hero. Bearden’s life story was impressive, both in and out of baseball. The two became friends. Rasco has a file filled with lengthy hand-written letters from the Arkansas Hall of Famer.

Induction into his home state’s Hall of Fame would be a good place to end the Gene Bearden story, but his story doesn’t end there.

Gene Bearden died in 2004 in Alexander City, Alabama, at the age of 83. The following excerpt is taken from his biography in the SABR Bio Project:

“There is a backstory with the Bearden saga. On the early morning of July 6, 1943, the cruiser USS Helena was in the Kula Gulf in the South Pacific near the Solomon Islands, where it was part of an American task force battling the Japanese. The Helena was one of the lucky few ships in Pearl Harbor that had survived when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. The fighting was fierce in the Kula Gulf. Suddenly the Helena was struck by three torpedoes. American destroyers darted in and out trying to save as many lives as possible. From time to time they had to divert their rescue missions to one of battling the Japanese. Out of a crew of 900 on the Helena, 168 died as it sank. Machinist’s Mate Gene Bearden was one of the survivors. His head had been badly smashed open, and one of his knees was a mass of wounded flesh. Drifting in a life raft, he was picked up by one of the destroyers. For the next two years, he was in the hospital, where a silver plate was inserted into his skull to fill up the part that had been gashed out, and a metal hinge was inserted into his damaged knee. Baseball at this point seemed out of the question for Bearden. His war injuries would plague him the balance of his life. He needed to take painkilling drugs and at times had difficulties seeing.” —From Gene Bearden SABR Bio Project

Despite the list of apparently debilitating injuries, Bearden became a World Series hero in 1948. This eulogizing tribute published by the Society for American Baseball Research would make a good ending to the Gene Bearden story, but the saga does not end there.

In July of 2016, I was beginning a project to save the stories from Arkansas baseball in the 20th century. I hoped there might be a few dozen tales from the Golden Years of Arkansas Baseball. I am somewhere past 200, none more challenging than Gene Bearden.

I had discovered the Greenbrier Baseball School and the forgotten years when Dr. Earl Williams and his family made Northern Faulkner County the center of amateur baseball in Arkansas. A little luck led me to a guy in a neighboring town who was an authority on the school.

My new friend and I met at Starbucks in late July 2016 and swapped stories for about two hours. He knew some details about the Greenbrier school, but he knew “everything” about the young lefty who was in the school’s first class and became the hero of the 1948 World Series.

Lois Bearden (right) with Mrs. Bob Feller and Mrs. Bob Lemon

He had made a trip to Alabama and interviewed Gene’s wife Lois. They became instant friends, and Lois added more details to the war story and Bearden’s struggle to return from the serious injuries. My friend had a “real job” that took a lot of his time, but he spent many hours and days creating a biography and a screenplay about Gene and Lois Bearden. He gave me a copy of each and I read the manuscript of Lois and Lefty that night.

His unpublished story was professionally written and very detailed. The screenplay later won an award for a work by an amateur playwright. Unlike many of the Gene Bearden sources, his account of the “Lois and Lefty” story was developed from a primary source. I could never recreate the Bearden biography as well as my new friend, but I was inspired to make the courageous tale of the World Series hero a key piece in my collection of stories for my upcoming book.

By the time my first book was ready two years later, I had taken newspaper accounts, SABR resources, and the “Lois and Lefty” stories and written a chapter on Gene Bearden. That chapter, beginning on page 39 of Backroads and Ballplayers contains this summary of Bearden’s war story.

USS Helena, WWII

America was at war, and Bearden, like so many young men, felt compelled to join the armed services. In mid-season 1942, he enlisted in the Navy. July of 1943 found him on the USS Helena in the Solomon Islands instead of on the mound in a major league ballpark. He was working in the engine room when the torpedo hit. Gene scrambled overboard and onto a raft where he drifted for two days before being rescued and taken to a Navy hospital where he got the bad news. His knee was shattered, and he also had a debilitating head injury. Walking might be possible, but baseball was not.

Bearden was almost ready for the big leagues before the war injuries, but 1943 found him in a series of military hospitals. Late that year, Bearden’s luck changed. He was assigned to a hospital in Florida where orthopedic surgeon Dr. A. F. Weiland recognized his name from his minor league days. Gene Bearden was in the right place at the right time. Using experimental and risky outside-the-box techniques, the surgeon repaired Gene’s knee and placed a metal plate in his head. Ralph Berger, SABR Bio Project

Gene’s luck was changing in more ways than a knee repair. His high school sweetheart, Lois Shea, could not get Lefty off her mind, and in late 1943 she decided to find him. Through mutual friends, she learned the tragic news of Gene’s injuries and made phone calls to military hospitals until she found the right one in Florida. She would not lose Lefty again. Now a somewhat famous showgirl, Lois put her career on hold to support Gene’s comeback. Instead of the bright lights of Hollywood, Lois was headed to Binghamton, New York to become a baseball player’s wife.

The comeback was phenomenal given Gene’s head injury and surgically repaired knee. He was released in February of 1945 after almost two years of hospitalization. Miraculously, Gene worked his way into shape quickly and spent a remarkably successful 1945 season in the Yankees’ minor league system. Gene got another lucky break when he met a key member of the support system that changed his life. In 1946, he signed with the Oakland Oaks managed by 55-year-old Casey Stengel. —Jim Yeager Backroads and Ballplayers, 2017

With the war story as a key piece of the Gene Bearden story, I proudly included my story of a war hero and the star of the 1948 World Series in Backroads and Ballplayers. (p.39)

My effusive chapter on the Arkansan from the Delta who attended the Greenbrier Baseball School, served courageously in World War II, and played a key role in Cleveland’s last World Series title was a good way to end the Gene Bearden Story, but the Bearden story did not end that way.

In January 2020, I wrote a condensed piece about Gene Bearden for Only in Arkansas. Only in Arkansas is an online magazine dedicated to life in the Natural State. It is staffed by talented writers whose work on travel, recreation, dining, and special events is outstanding. I am honored to be part of such an Arkansas treasure. I try to be sure my baseball history stories are correct.

I was proud of my Gene Bearden story. Shortly after the story went live, I received a polite reply from a reader whose message was a complete surprise. “Gene Bearden’s war story is false!”

The email was from Shawn Hennessy, a West Coast guy whose newsletter is titled Chevrons and Diamonds. At first, I was skeptical. After all my Arkansas guy and I had done our due diligence. We had primary sources, family interviews, and SABR-approved material. I wanted to stand by my story.

That skepticism lasted about five minutes. Shawn was obviously correct. Instead of coming to the story from the baseball history perspective, Hennessy researched military records that unequivocally proved the “war story” part of the chapter in Backroads and Ballplayers and the story in Only in Arkansas was fabricated fiction that began sometime in the mid-1940s and lasted until 20 years after Gene Bearden’s death.

I scrambled to change my Bearden story in Only In Arkansas. My magic editor took care of that in about an hour. Digital stories never die, but they can be revised! A few thousand copies of my book, Backroads and Ballplayers, still feature a chapter written by a well-meaning amateur historian.

SABR quickly went to work on their digital stuff and before long the esteemed institution removed the erroneous bio project piece on Gene Bearden and replaced it with a corrected version by Shawn Hennessy.

The opening paragraphs of Hennessy’s work in the bio project summarize the new Gene Bearden story:

The Red Sox’ hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe, noted Bearden as the game’s hero on its front page. Not only was the pitcher’s mound performance cause for celebration, but newspapers across the country emphasized the World War II Navy veteran as a wartime hero who survived the sinking of the cruiser USS Helena – though the tale was wholly untrue. Bearden’s story is of a congenial guy, a fearless competitor and negotiator, and a man who did not hesitate to stretch the truth.

The link to Hennessy’s new bio in the SABR bio project and his newsletter posts are linked at the end of this lost story. Please read the real Gene Bearden story found at the two links to Shawn Hennessy’s extraordinary commitment to getting it right.

Last month some mutual friends of my Starbucks buddy and I arranged for us to meet for lunch eight years after our “Lois and Lefty” session. Although we are disappointed that we repeated a fictitious story, we agreed that getting the story right far outweighed our disappointment in our incomplete research.

“I should add that there was never any judgment towards any of the writers who pushed out Mr. Bearden's contrived narrative. Why would anyone have cause to doubt him? You handled it like a professional. The bonus is that I gained a new colleague in the process.” —Shawn Hennessy

Final thoughts: We know the amazing things Gene Bearden accomplished in baseball. We know he was a beloved coach to hundreds of young men who grew up in Helena, Arkansas. We know he is a member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, and that he was known in his hometown as a kind and humble man.

We also know that he never disputed the fictitious war story and the details of his recovery. What we may never know is why…

Shawn Hennessy - The end of the Story about the Story? Perhaps…

Gene Bearden SABR Bioproject

Chevrons and Diamonds 10-2-2021

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