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04-07-2006, 10:49 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/06/nazi.bat.reut/index.html
Historic baseball bat goes on tour
WWII captives of Nazis made bat, ball from scratch
Thursday, April 6, 2006; Posted: 3:50 p.m. EDT (19:50 GMT)
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- It hung in a Virginia garage for years, but now a baseball bat from Nazi Germany is touring the United States with a Baseball Hall of Fame exhibit.
The bat, used by American journalists and diplomats held captive in Germany in 1941-42, was given to the Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, by Angus MacLean Thuermer, an American reporter working in the Berlin bureau of the Associated Press when Germany invaded Poland.
Now the bat is on view until early September at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, the last stop of the Hall of Fame's 10-city traveling "Baseball as America" exhibit that opened in 2002.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II, Thuermer was rounded up by the Gestapo with other U.S. journalists and diplomats still in Germany.
On December 14, 1941, more than a hundred Americans gathered at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, by then guarded inside and out by members of the Gestapo.
They were taken to Bad Nauheim, 320 miles southwest of Berlin, and interned at the Jeschke Grand Hotel.
Thuermer said the prisoners were allowed to walk to a field and back for exercise.
A fallen branch becomes a bat
"As we were coming back one day, I saw a branch that had fallen off a tree. So I dragged this thing back to the main room of the hotel. And Glen Stadler of the United Press had a Finnish 'pukka' knife, the kind you might have in a carpenter shop," he said.
"He skinned off the bark and worked at it and worked at it and worked at it. We rounded it off and put a little knob at the end of it."
First-aid adhesive tape was used to wrap the bat handle. A champagne bottle cork formed the core of a baseball.
"We wrapped tape around the cork, then a sock, then more tape, another sock and more tape," Thuermer said. "Then we took the ball out to the field. The military attaché said, 'With this ball, even Babe Ruth couldn't hit more than a double."'
Using diplomatic bags for first, second and third base and an old orange crate for home plate, the U.S. internees formed two teams: newsmen versus the diplomats.
"Playing baseball was good for our morale," Thuermer said.
The Bad Nauheim baseball season was short-lived. The internees were exchanged for German journalists and diplomats detained in the United States in May 1942. Thuermer carried the bat home with the rest of his belongings.
Copyright ©2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CNN.com-April 7, 2006
Historic baseball bat goes on tour
WWII captives of Nazis made bat, ball from scratch
Thursday, April 6, 2006; Posted: 3:50 p.m. EDT (19:50 GMT)
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- It hung in a Virginia garage for years, but now a baseball bat from Nazi Germany is touring the United States with a Baseball Hall of Fame exhibit.
The bat, used by American journalists and diplomats held captive in Germany in 1941-42, was given to the Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, by Angus MacLean Thuermer, an American reporter working in the Berlin bureau of the Associated Press when Germany invaded Poland.
Now the bat is on view until early September at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, the last stop of the Hall of Fame's 10-city traveling "Baseball as America" exhibit that opened in 2002.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II, Thuermer was rounded up by the Gestapo with other U.S. journalists and diplomats still in Germany.
On December 14, 1941, more than a hundred Americans gathered at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, by then guarded inside and out by members of the Gestapo.
They were taken to Bad Nauheim, 320 miles southwest of Berlin, and interned at the Jeschke Grand Hotel.
Thuermer said the prisoners were allowed to walk to a field and back for exercise.
A fallen branch becomes a bat
"As we were coming back one day, I saw a branch that had fallen off a tree. So I dragged this thing back to the main room of the hotel. And Glen Stadler of the United Press had a Finnish 'pukka' knife, the kind you might have in a carpenter shop," he said.
"He skinned off the bark and worked at it and worked at it and worked at it. We rounded it off and put a little knob at the end of it."
First-aid adhesive tape was used to wrap the bat handle. A champagne bottle cork formed the core of a baseball.
"We wrapped tape around the cork, then a sock, then more tape, another sock and more tape," Thuermer said. "Then we took the ball out to the field. The military attaché said, 'With this ball, even Babe Ruth couldn't hit more than a double."'
Using diplomatic bags for first, second and third base and an old orange crate for home plate, the U.S. internees formed two teams: newsmen versus the diplomats.
"Playing baseball was good for our morale," Thuermer said.
The Bad Nauheim baseball season was short-lived. The internees were exchanged for German journalists and diplomats detained in the United States in May 1942. Thuermer carried the bat home with the rest of his belongings.
Copyright ©2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CNN.com-April 7, 2006