Book pitches the WWII legacy of Hank Greenberg

Baseball fans might most vividly remember Hank Greenberg for his chase of Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record in 1938 and his other impressive exploits on the field. Jewish baseball fans remember him for sitting out a crucial game on Yom Kippur decades before Sandy Koufax would do the same. But author John Klima wants readers of any background to know the unsung story of Greenberg’s World War II service.

As indicated by its title, Klima’s recently published book—“The Game Must Go On: Hank Greenberg, Pete Gray, and the Great Days of Baseball on the Home Front in WWII” (Thomas Dunne Books) —is about much more than Greenberg. Yet the Hall-of-Fame first baseman and outfielder, who won two Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards and two World Series champion-ships with the Detroit Tigers, is the centerpiece. 

After an initial army stint of half a year, Greenberg was honorably discharged on Dec. 5, 1941, two days before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Greenberg voluntarily re-enlisted in the Army Air Corps immediately after the attack and did not return to Major League Baseball (MLB) until the summer of 1945. Baseball’s highest-paid player before the war, Greenberg was the first Major Leaguer to enlist, becoming the face of an era that—with conscription depleting baseball of much of its top-tier talent—forever changed the MLB and the entire American professional sports landscape, Kima’s book argues.