World War II Chronicle: October 25, 1943
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Today’s sports page quotes Brooklyn Dodgers quarterback Ace Parker as saying he won’t return to football after his Navy service is over. The NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1940 was a two-sport athlete, putting in two seasons for the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1930s before switching to football full-time. Another future DodgerPro Football Hall of Famer also played baseball: Red Badgro played for the St. Louis Browns in 1929 and 30. These call-ups weren’t “cups of coffee”1Nickname for a brief stint in the majors — just long enough to have a cup of coffee — Parker played 207 games and Badgro 143.
Spoiler alert: Parker does play again after the war, putting in eight games with the Boston Yanks2The Dodgers changed their name to the Tigers, then merged with the Boston Yanks in 1945 in 1945. Next season he is with the All-American Football Conference’s New York Yankees. Parker throws for 763 yards as the Yankees won their division and lost to Paul Brown’s Cleveland Browns in the AAFC’s inaugural championship game.
Parker isn’t done with baseball either. Starting in 1946 he plays three seasons for the Class B Portsmouth Cubs before moving to the Class B Durham Bulls, where he served as player-manager. Between the Cubs and Bulls, he batted .291, which isn’t bad for a former football player. Stan Musial and Ted Williams probably wouldn’t have been putting up the numbers they did if their body was punished like Ace Parker’s…
Steve Van Buren is now the country’s top scorer, having scored three touchdowns in LSU’s second victory over Georgia this year. Purdue fullback Tony Butkovich took over second place, scoring three times against Iowa in the Boilermaker’s homecoming game this weekend. Butkovich will be named All-American this season and is a first-round NFL draft pick despite missing the last game when he enlists in the Marine Corps. Cpl. Butkovich is killed in action on Okinawa, serving with the 3rd Battalion, 29th Marines.
Bob Steuber, a former All-American at Missouri before playing for the Chicago Bears this season, was in first place. Although he already graduated, Steuber is back in college as a Naval aviation cadet at Depauw University. His scoring record so far: four touchdowns and an extra point against Illinois State; four touchdowns and three extra points against Indiana State; four touchdowns and one extra point against Wabash. He was still a Bear when Depauw played Oberlin to a 0-0 tie, but since Steuber joined the team they have outscored their opponents 122-6.
Depauw’s V-5 team is coached by Fritz Heisler, who played for Paul Brown when he coached Massillon Washington High School. Heisler was an All-Ohio lineman despite weighing just 155 pounds. After college he became Brown’s assistant at Massillon, then became the Buckeye’s freshman coach when Brown moved to Ohio State in 1941. After the war Heisler and Brown team up again at Cleveland.
Next year Steuber runs track and plays baseball at Iowa Pre-Flight before training at Naval Air Station at Ottumwa, Iowa. I had never heard of this base, which is not far from where I grew up, but several big names rotated through Ottumwa. One of Richard Nixon’s first assignments as junior Naval officer was serving as the base commander’s aide from Nov. 1942 to May 1943. Nixon requested sea duty and the newly promoted lieutenant is now a logistics officer South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command. Future Project MERCURY astronaut Scott Carpenter is a Navy V-12 aviation cadet and will do his primary flight training at NAS Ottumwa. Jesse Brown, the first black Naval aviator also learns to fly here, although he won’t earn his wings until after the war.
After the war Steuber plays for the Browns team that beats Ace Parker and the Yankees in the AAFC Championship.
Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 25 October 1943. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1943-10-25/ed-1/