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Gil Hodges

 

Date and Place of Birth: April 4, 1924 Princeton, Indiana

Died: April 2, 1972 West Palm Beach, Florida

Baseball Experience: Major League
Position: First Base
Rank: Sergeant
Military Unit: 16th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion US Marine Corps

Area Served: Pacific Theater of Operations

 

 

As a sophomore he signed with the Dodgers and played for Olean as a third baseman in 1943. Hodges made his major league debut on the very last day of the season – October 3 – in a 6-1 loss against the Reds.

 

Hodges entered service with the Marine Corps on October 14, 1943. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor and then Kauai in the Hawaiian Island where he played baseball with the 16th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion. From there he went to Tinian.

 

In April 1945, Sergeant Hodges landed with the assault echelon at Okinawa and was assigned to his battalion's operations and intelligence section. His Bronze Star citation states that he "was entrusted with the safeguarding and stenographic preparation of highly classified documents" through "extensive periods of enemy aerial alerts and extensive bombing attacks."

 

Hodges remained on the island until October 1945 and says that he started smoking "to have something to do sitting in those holes in Okinawa."

 

Hodges returned to the Brooklyn organization in 1946. He was converted to a catcher and played for Newport News in the Piedmont League that year, batting .278. In 1947 he played 28 games for Brooklyn and batted just .156.

 

The following year - 1948 – he underwent another transition, moving from catcher to first base, and played 134 games, batting .249. Hodges became the Dodgers’ regular first baseman in 1949 – a position he would hold until drafted by the New York Mets in the 1961 expansion draft. During that time he was an all-star selection eight times and played in seven World Series.

 

In 1963, he started the season as a player with the Mets, and then after being traded to the Washington Senators he became their manager for five seasons. Then, moving back to the Mets, he led them to their Miracle Mets season of 1969.

 

Gil Hodges was still manager of the Mets when he died of a heart attack during spring training on April 2, 1972 - two days short of his 48th birthday. He had just enjoyed a round of golf with coaches Joe Pignatano, Eddie Yost and Rube Walker.

 

Hodges was inducted into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979. Why he is not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame is anybody’s guess.

 

Thanks to Sue Langley for the photo of Gil Hodges (above, right), taken when he returned to Indiana in 1948 to play for the local team at Winslow.

 

Created July 23, 2007.

 

Copyright © 2007 Gary Bedingfield (Baseball in Wartime). All Rights Reserved.