A story of perseverance
Bert Shepard with Washington manager Ossie Bluege in 1945
Bert Shepard, a onetime pitching prospect who loses the lower half his right leg as a fighter pilot shot down over Germany during World War II, tries out 79 years ago today with the Washington Senators.
The 24-year-old Shepard – now using a prosthesis for the missing portion of his leg – receives an invitation to win a roster spot with the Senators, an invitation that Undersecretary of War Robert Patterson arranges with Senators owner Clark Griffith.
“I think Mr. Griffith did it out of sympathy more than anything,” Shepard later says.
Shepard, who reinvents himself as a pitcher using a makeshift prosthesis during eight months as a POW in Germany, continues his comeback throwing batting practice in 1945 to the Senators.
Bert Shepard in the war
He pitches well enough for Washington manager Ossie Bluege, who on July 10, 1945 starts Shepard in an exhibition game against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The proceeds that day all go into a war relief fund.
The publicity that day all goes to Shepard, who in a pregame ceremony at home plate receives the prestigious Airman’s Medal from General Omar Bradley.
Shepard then goes out and pitches three-plus innings against the Dodgers.
Afterward, Shepard continues throwing BP for the Senators, while also making countless goodwill visits to hospitalized veterans.
“I got an awful lot of publicity right away,” Shepard says. “That sort of helped me to stay with the ballclub until I could prove myself.”
Shepard’s next chance to do that comes 25 days later.
After dazzling the Dodgers, Shepard makes his major league debut on Aug. 4, 1945.
Pitching in relief, Shepard strikes out the first batter he faces – Boston’s George Metkovich – to end the Red Sox’s game-changing, 12-run fourth inning against the Senators in the second game of a doubleheader at Griffith Stadium.
With a Saturday afternoon crowd of 13,035 looking on, Bluege sends Shepard up to bat in the bottom of the fourth inning – Shepard walks – and then sends the right-hander back out to pitch the fifth inning.
And then the sixth. The seventh. The eighth. And, finally, the ninth.
Pete Gray, left, with Bert Shepard
When the game ends – Boston, of course, wins 15-4 – Shepard faces 20 batters over 5 1/3 innings, allowing just one run on three hits and a walk.
As a batter, Shepard comes to the plate three more times after his fourth-inning walk. He strikes out before twice grounding out.
Shepard, though, never again pitches in the majors, losing a roster spot to players returning from World War II. The same fate awaits so many other fringe, war-era players like Pete Gray, the one-armed outfielder of the St. Louis Browns, and Cincinnati Reds deaf outfielder Dick Sipek.
Shepard eventually becomes a coach for the Senators in 1946 before trying to revive his career in the minors with the St. Louis Browns.
Alas, that never truly happens as Shepard becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the painful rigors of competing with a prosthesis.
He eventually retires in 1955.
An avid golfer, Shepard reinvents himself once again and twice wins the United States Amputee Golf Championship in 1968 and ’71.