This page sponsored by Rob 'Lefty' Nelson.
Lefty Brewer
| Date and Place of Birth: | December 9, 1918 Sequatchie, TN |
| Date and Place of Death: | June 6, 1944 Normandy, France |
| Baseball Experience: | Minor League |
| Position: | Pitcher |
| Rank: | Private |
| Military Unit: | HQ 1st Company, 508th PIR, 82nd Airborne Division US Army |
| Area Served: | European Theater of Operations |
Francis Field, home of the Florida State League's St Augustine Saints, was a magical place during the summer of 1938. With the smell of roasted peanuts filling the air, a tall, slender 19-year-old unleashed a season of blistering fastballs on his way to a 25-win rookie season. Six years later the fun-loving southpaw with everything to live for was dead.
Forrest V. “Lefty” Brewer was born in Sequatchie, Tennessee, about 30
miles northwest of Chattanooga. The Brewers were a nomadic
family—relocation was to become a familiar thing—and in 1924, parents
Frank and Mattie Brewer loaded up the family Dodge with five-year-old
Forrest and his siblings—Vera, Frank, Jr., Kate and William—along with
their scant few possessions and moved 600 miles south to Orange City,
Florida.
As it was for many families during the Depression, times were hard for
the Brewers. They were an impoverished family, moving from town to town,
and slum to slum, where street fights were commonplace and electricity
was not. Frank Brewer, a man troubled by alcohol, ran a succession of
failed grocery stores. When the business failed, the family moved on and
his wife, Mattie, eventually became the breadwinner, operating a
boarding house for railroad workers from the Seaboard Railway in the
Lackawanna neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida.
The Brewer children, nonetheless, were impervious to their hardships.
Their days were spent hunting rabbits and squirrels, and fishing for
copperhead bream, bass and catfish. However, Forrest had a propensity
for getting in trouble that remained with him all his life. “He was not
a trouble maker,” recalled his younger brother, William. “It just seemed
to follow him.” On one occasion, Forrest stole a watermelon from a
neighbor’s yard. He was soon caught and the neighbor made such a fuss
that, for a time, William thought his brother was going to jail. Another
time, a neighbor was painting an old washing machine and warned the
Brewer boys not to touch it. Forrest could not resist and left
fingerprints all over the wet paint resulting in the neighbor chasing
Forrest, with paint brush in hand, all the way down the street.
Sports were a big thing for the Brewer boys. Nearby Lackawanna Park
provided a swimming pool, basketball court, horseshoe pits and football
field encompassed by a running track. Forrest—or Lefty as he was known
to everyone—was the gifted athlete of the family. He was coordinated,
fast and agile, and the best player in neighborhood sandlot ballgames
played with two sack bases and home plates made out of tin. Brewer
became a stellar pitcher with the Robert E. Lee High School team, and at
the ballfield near the city incinerator, he fine-tuned his pitching
skills with the Smith’s Service Station team in the City League. He also
played softball and pitched for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad team
where he worked after dropping out of high school.
In the spring of 1938, 19-year-old Brewer—along with infielder Faulene
Kirkland, who also played for Smith’s Service Station—attended a
baseball training school conducted by veteran minor leaguer John “Poke”
Whalen, and general manager of the Florida Coast League’s St. Augustine
Saints, Fred Hering. They needed just one look at Brewer’s deceptive yet
smooth delivery, his overpowering fastball and hard-breaking curve
before offering him a contract with the Class D Saints. Under the
watchful eye of veteran catcher Allen Mobley and player-manager and
former major leaguer Lyle Judy, Brewer turned in a truly memorable
rookie performance.
Francis Field, home of the Saints, was a magical place during the summer
of 1938. With the smell of roasted peanuts filling the air, and the
rhythmic sounds of soda bottles banging against wooden bleachers during
late inning rallies, Brewer unleashed a season of blistering fastballs
on his way to an incredible 25 wins. In 41 appearances, he easily led
the league in wins and strikeouts with 234, while his 1.88 earned run
average, best among left-handers, was third best in the league. Brewer
completed 28 of the games he started, hurled four shutouts, and was
selected to the all-star team on the way to becoming a local hero.
William Brewer, who was 14 at the time, was in awe of his older
brother’s success as a professional baseball player. “Kate and I started
a scrapbook,” he recalled, “and we would gloat over his deeds on the
mound. We were so proud of what he did. I would go to school with one of
his write-ups in my pocket, dangling out for everyone to see. I was to
become known more and more as ‘Lefty Brewer’s brother’ and I reveled in
it.”
Brewer’s performance made quite an impact on the baseball world. “When
future historians prepare their texts on Florida State League history,”
proclaimed league secretary, Peter Schaal, at the conclusion of the 1938
season, “you can bank on it that the antics of one Forrest ‘Lefty’
Brewer ... will occupy a major portion of the space assigned to the
hurling heroes. Brewer is easily the greatest young prospect ever to go
out of the Florida State League.”
At Orlando, on June 6, 1938, Brewer hurled the masterpiece of his brief
career. His eldest sister, Vera, was living in DeLand at the time and
usually attended Brewer’s games at Orlando. But on this day, Vera was
guest of honor at a birthday party. Brewer called his sister that
afternoon, wished her a happy birthday and reminded her to tune in the
radio broadcast of the game. “I’ll pitch a real special one tonight,” he
said, “since it’s your birthday.” Vera had the radio tuned in to the
broadcast from Orlando, but what with the birthday celebration going on,
it was the seventh inning before she realized that Orlando had not made
a single hit off her brother.
“From that point on, you could have heard a feather floating in our
living room,” she recalled. “We listened—hardly daring to breath lest we
jinx him—as one after another Orlando men went down hitless.”
That night, Brewer was carried from the field on the shoulders of his
teammates after beating the Orlando Senators, 3–0. He walked one and
struck out 14 in achieving the Florida State League’s only no-hitter
that year. Despite Brewer’s 25 wins and another 16 contributed by Carl
Weigle, the St. Augustine Saints finished the season in fifth place with
a 70–70 record and no hope of a playoff position. Nevertheless, news of
the young left-hander’s heroics spread fast and Clark Griffith, owner of
the American League’s Washington Senators, purchased Brewer’s contract
and invited him to the capital city for the final weeks of the 1938
season. Although Washington was a perennial second division team, Brewer
got to see major league baseball for the first time and the great Dutch
Leonard in action.
When Brewer returned home to Jacksonville in October, he had saved
enough money not to have to work and spent much of his time hunting and
fishing, and occasionally pitching games for local semi-pro teams. In
1939, he was with the Washington Senators for spring training in
Orlando, Florida, but was released to the Charlotte Hornets of the Class
B Piedmont League in March. After pitching just three games and
suffering two defeats, manager Cal Griffith felt the 20-year-old was not
ready for Class B ball and released him to the Shelby Nationals of the
Class D Tar Heel League. His sophomore year was to be plagued with arm
problems, probably because of overuse the previous season. Five wins in
19 appearances with Shelby and an inflated ERA of 5.25 triggered a
return to the Florida State League in July. Toiling for the Orlando
Senators—against whom he threw his no-hitter the previous year—Brewer
recorded seven wins with 11 losses and a 3.85 ERA.
In 1940, Brewer was back with the Charlotte Hornets, and as Hitler’s
blitzkrieg swept through Europe at an alarming rate, he turned in a
steady performance, quickly becoming a fan favorite at Hayman Park. On a
team that lacked offense and finished fifth, he won 11 games against
nine losses. On May 11, he defeated the Durham Bulls, 2–1. On July 9, he
defeated the Norfolk Tars, 4–2, on five hits, and on July 20, he beat
the Rocky Mount Red Sox, 3–2, holding them to four hits. In August, the
Hornets made a run for fourth place and a position in the playoffs.
Brewer responded by pitching his best game of the year on August 25,
defeating Norfolk, 1–0, and allowing just two hits. While Charlotte
failed to make the playoffs, Brewer’s pitching again caught the eye of
Clark Griffith who invited him back to Washington for the end of the
season.
Following President Roosevelt’s signing of the Selective Training and
Service Act in September 1940, the Charlotte Observer announced that 10
Hornet players were eligible for the first wave of conscription,
including Brewer. On March 4, 1941 — one week before reporting to the
Senators’ spring training camp — he entered military service with the
Army at Camp Blanding, Florida. At the age of 22, and on the verge of a
major league career (he was carried on the Washington Senators’ National
Defense Service List), he swapped flannels for service fatigues and
reported for basic training. Brewer remained at Camp Blanding with the
31st “Dixie” Infantry Division until volunteering to serve with the
paratroopers in January 1942. He was enticed, perhaps, by their elitism,
but certainly by the extra $50 a month hazardous-duty bonus.
Brewer attended Parachute Jump School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and
after twoweeks of preliminary training, the first jumps were made from
35-foot towers by dropping down on a pulley into a pit of sawdust. Once
that technique was mastered, they moved on to the 250-foot towers, where
they were attached to a static line and would drop by parachute. The
next step was to jump from an airplane and after five jumps Brewer
earned the coveted silver wings of a paratrooper. Brewer remained at
Fort Benning throughout the summer months and regularly pitched for the
baseball team that was defeated only twice all season, both times by
Camp Wheeler. On one occasion it was former Senators shortstop Cecil
Travis who broke up the game for Camp Wheeler, hitting a double off
Brewer with the bases loaded. “He told me after the game,” Brewer later
explained, “that I shoulda known better than try and sneak an outside
curve past him like that. But I told him that he was the first
left-handed hitter that I couldn’t get on that pitch.”
While stationed at Fort Benning, Brewer liked to return home to his
family as often as possible and one occasion proved to be a special
moment. “One of the strangest events occurred to me when I got off the
bus in Jacksonville,” recalled younger brother William, who was serving
with the Navy and returning home on furlough. “The first thing I needed
to do was go to the men’s room [at the Jacksonville bus station]. When I
entered, there stood my paratrooper brother, Lefty.”
The two brothers had no idea their furloughs coincided, and arrived
together at their parent’s home, where they were met with looks of shock
and elation. It was a wonderful, if short-lived, reunion.
While military life suited Brewer (he rapidly rose to the rank of staff
sergeant), he also enjoyed the comforts of home and would sometimes stay
over on leave. “Once he got all the way to the train station,” recalled
William, “thumbed his nose at the departing train and went back home.” A
local girl named Mary Dixon was another reason for Brewer wanting to
stay home. They had been dating for some time, and during the summer of
1942, they got married at the small town of Macclenny, west of
Jacksonville.
Brewer became a platoon sergeant with Company B of the newly formed
508th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) at Camp Blanding in October
1942. “I first met Staff Sergeant Brewer in October of 1942,” explained
Bill Dean. “[He] was part of the experienced cadre waiting for us
recruits to dribble in from recruiting stations all over the United
States. [He] had already been through the Fort Benning jump school and
was wearing the airborne wings and highly polished jump boots, and was
an imposing figure for we pink cheeked kids to gaze upon. As if all
those attributes were not enough, he had also played professional
baseball. Lefty was my platoon sergeant all through the three weeks of
basic training, and I cannot say enough about what a great guy he was.
He even brought some culture into my life during off-duty hours in our
barracks. Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Gunga Din’ was a favorite poem of his, and
he would recite it with such gusto while cleaning his rifle or shining
his boots, that most of us rookies would stop everything and take it all
in with rapt attention.”
In April 1943, the 508th PIR relocated to Camp Mackall—at the time, it
was merely a name assigned to a few buildings and upturned soil between
Pinehurst and Rockingham in North Carolina. Camp Mackall, however, was
to become a marvel of wartime construction. Within four months, 62,000
acres of wilderness had 65 miles of paved roads, a 1,200-bed hospital,
five movie theaters, a complete all-weather airfield and 1,750
buildings. Training was vigorous for the paratroopers at Camp Mackall.
They made day and night jumps as the 508th PIR was developed into a
smooth functioning team. On one occasion, as Brewer was about to board a
plane for a practice jump, he thought he recognized the pilot. Upon
closer inspection, he discovered it was the Senators former third
baseman Buddy Lewis.
It was in Jacksonville around this time that William saw his brother
Lefty for the last time. “Lefty was at the Dixon’s house with his wife,
Mary,” he explained. William had orders to report to the Naval Air
Station at Jacksonville at 2:00 A.M., and went over to say farewell to
his brother. “They were sleeping in the corner bedroom. Their window was
open and I woke them up to say good-bye. His last words to me were,
‘I’ll see you, William.’”
During the summer of 1943, Brewer had an opportunity to limber up his
pitching arm with the 508th Red Devils. The ball team was strong and the
line-up was dotted with minor leaguers including Frank Labuda, John
McNicholas and Frank Shank. Brewer shared pitching duties with Okey
Mills, a colliery league pitcher from West Virginia, and the Red Devils
played all through the long, hot summer during off-duty hours. “We are
really having a good season,” Brewer wrote in a letter to his mother.
“We have won 14 and only lost three. And I have won 10 and haven’t lost
any. When the war is over I am really going to town, my arm is in better
shape than it has ever been before. Yesterday I pitched a one hit game
and know [sic] runs.”
However, the letter to his mother also revealed that, just like in his
childhood, trouble seemed to be not too far behind. “I will be able to
pay you some of the money back I borrowed,” he wrote, “ but not all this
payday, because they are taking $50.00 out of my pay for getting in a
fight with a soldier from the glider troops and I broke his jaw and they
are taking it to help pay the bill. It wasn’t my fault but they are
doing it anyway.”
The fight meant that Brewer lost his rating as a staff sergeant. He was
busted to the lowly rank of a private and transferred to Company A so he
could get his rating back sooner.
The 508th Red Devils had a 26–4 won-loss record in 1943, and clinched
the Camp Mackall championship by defeating the 135th Quartermaster
Company in the league playoffs. Shortly afterwards, a regimental order
disbanded the team because it was felt that further play would result in
the loss of valuable military training for the men. Had the season
continued, it is likely that the Red Devils would have attained national
prominence as games had been scheduled against the North Carolina
Pre-Flight Cloudbusters and the mighty Norfolk Naval Training Station,
where Phil Rizzuto and Dom DiMaggio were playing their service baseball.
In November 1943, Brewer was preparing to be posted overseas and made
one last visit to his wife and family in Jacksonville. Judith Frierson
Hunter, Brewer’s niece, was eight years old at the time and remembers
her uncle’s last visit home. “The whole family was together,” she
recalled. “I was in awe of everything military and Lefty gave mehis
paratrooper’s wings to ‘keep for him.’ How proud I was of my handsome
uncle who was going to be a big-league baseball star after the war.”
At 24 years old and a veteran of 18 jumps, Brewer admitted to the
Charlotte Observer in 1943 that he was still in a sweat before every
jump. “Some fellows say that they get used to jumping,” Brewer said,
“but don’t you believe it. Every time you get up to the door of that
plane and look out into space you get the same old feeling. And if you
ain’t looking, you just sit there and you know that there’s a big hunk
of air out there. I love my wife, but I told her there was one thing
that I loved even more—and that was seeing that parachute opening up
over my head.”
On December 8, 1943, Brewer, who had attained the rank of corporal and
was now with 1st Battalion, Headquarters Company, wrote his last letter
home from Camp Mackall in which he expressed his doubt of what lay ahead
for him. “Sure hope to get home for Christmas,” he wrote, “but one’s
never certain these days.”
His doubts were realized when, on December 20, 1943, the 508th PIR moved
to Camp Shanks, New York, in preparation for overseas deployment. The
men were given passes for two nights in New York over Christmas and were
then loaded onto the USAT James Parker on December 27. They arrived in
Belfast, Northern Ireland, on January 8, 1944, and camped in the small
town of Port Stewart. The regiment was attached to the 82nd “All
American” Airborne Division and participated in night training maneuvers
while waiting for the inevitable invasion of mainland Europe. “It rains
here all the time and I sure would like to see the Florida sunshine
again,” Brewer wrote home in January 1944. But in an optimistic light,
he noted, “I don’t know when the big push is going to start but it can’t
last long after it does.”
A letter home dated March 7, 1944, emphasized the boredom that was
setting in among troops in Northern Ireland. “The weather is terrible
here, rain, snow and sleet all the time, I sure am fed up in Ireland.”
The same letter also explained how Brewer was still struggling to keep
out of trouble. Having been previously busted from staff sergeant to
buck private, he had made his way back to corporal before getting in
trouble again. “I guess you see where I’m a private now,” he wrote. “I
was on pass and a few hours late getting back, well it’s happened
before.”
In March 1944, the 508th PIR left Northern Ireland for Scotland, then
traveled by rail to Nottingham, England. They participated in a couple
of night jumps and trained hard, but enjoyed the nightlife that the city
of Nottingham had to offer. Nottingham had a population of 250,000 at
the time and downtown was just ten minutes walk from where the 508th PIR
was camped at Wollaton Park. The gregarious young paratroopers,
immaculate in their resplendent uniforms and jump boots, made a
favorable impression with the local community and, on many evenings,
when the landlord of the local pub called “time,” Brewer, fueled by a
few beers, would get up on a chair to brilliantly and emotionally recite
the saga of “Gunga Din.”
Brewer was far happier in England. “I like it much better here than I
did in Ireland,” he wrote home on March 30, 1944. “I wish I was able to
tell you about the place ... but you realize that would never do.”
Baseball was also on his mind at the time. “I sure would be glad to go
to Spring Training. I will make it next year.”
On Sunday, May 28, 1944, the 508th Red Devils baseball team unexpectedly
reformed for their final game before going into combat. Speculation
still hangs over the reason this game was staged. The “official” story
at the time was that the Nottingham Anglo-American Committee requested
the Americans to stage a sporting event because the people of Nottingham
had for years been void of entertainment. However, because the game was
arranged by Brigadier General James M. “Jumpin’ Jim” Gavin, commander of
the 82nd Airborne Division, many believe the game was designed to fool
the Germans. If American paratroopers were playing baseball in England,
how could an invasion be imminent?
May 28, 1944, was a beautiful day and an enthusiastic crowd of 7,000
fans gathered beneath clear blue skies at Meadow Lane soccer ground to
see the 508th Red Devils play the 505th PIR Panthers. A photograph of
the Red Devils shows how unprepared they were for the game. Wearing jump
boots, combat fatigues and vests, the ballplayers have an almost
bewildered look on their faces as they pose for the camera, each man
wearing a number pinned to his vest for easy identification when the
photos were sent back to their hometown newspapers.
Okey Mills started the game on the mound for the Red Devils and was
relieved by Brewer in the fourth inning. With his deceptive pick-off
move, Brewer picked off the first two men that got on base. The Red
Devils outclassed the Panthers, 18–0, and the Nottingham Guardian the
next day described how the teams “played with extraordinary vigor,” and
noted there was “spectacular hitting, some magnificent catches and many
exciting incidents.”
Nevertheless, there had been a noticeable absence of paratroopers in the
stands at the game. Having been such a familiar sight in Nottingham for
the last couple of months, only officers and players were on hand. As
the crowd cheered each crack of the bat, the rest of the regiment made a
40-mile journey to Folkingham Airfield where it was sealed in amidst
tight security. Preparations for the invasion had begun. Folkingham,
like many other airfields around England at the time, was a hive of
activity. The runways were packed with Douglas C-47 transport planes
adorned with black and white invasion stripes, and groups of
paratroopers meticulously studied maps of the drop zones in Normandy.
They packed equipment, cleaned rifles, played cards and shot dice in the
hangar buildings, attended movies, wrote letters to loved ones, and
learned of their objective: to keep the Germans from reinforcing troops
that were defending the beaches.
In his last letter home to his parents, Brewer expressed his joy to be
back with Company B, writing, “I am back in my old company, a private,
but it’s worth it to be back with the boys I started with.” In closing,
Brewer reassured his family: “Don’t any of you worry about me, just keep
your fingers crossed for me as you did at the ball games and I will be
all right.”
On June 4, they were ready to take off but the weather forced a delay.
The following night, eight days after pitching for the Red Devils,
Brewer and the men of the 508th — with their faces blackened and hearts
racing — boarded C-47s for the flight across the English Channel. D-Day
had begun and the paratroopers would spearhead the invasion.
C-47s were stark inside. A row of hard metal bucket seats lined both
sides of the plane and the roar of the engines drowned out any attempt
at conversation as they trudged through the dark skies towards the
Normandy coast. Once over the mainland of France the sky became
illuminated with searchlights and deadly tracer bullets pierced the
wings and fuselage of the unarmed and unarmored planes. Anti-aircraft
fire exploded all around as they neared their drop zones at an altitude
of 400 feet. When the red light over the door of the plane flashed on,
everybody stood up and clamped themselves onto the cable that ran down
ceiling of the plane. Amidst yells of “Go! Go! Go!” Brewer and 24,000
Allied paratroopers just like him descended through the darkness into
chaos and confusion.
Inexperienced pilots had failed to locate the drop zones and the
majority of the 508th PIR found themselves too far east and astride the
flooded Merderet River with the enemy all around. First Sergeant Adolph
“Bud” Warneke was in the same plane as Brewer. “We jumped together about
2:20 A.M.,” he explained. “It was dark and we were all scattered out for
a while. About five o’clock that morning Lefty came in to where we were
assembling. He brought ten men in with him. Things were pretty messed up
and plenty of confusion.”
The assembly point was close to the La Fière manor, a half-dozen heavy
stone farm buildings enclosed in a five-foot wall, which stood on the
east bank of the Merderet River, about two miles east of the original
drop zone at Picauville and two miles west of Sainte-Mère-Eglise, the
first French town to be liberated by American forces. German troops were
entrenched at the manor and the paratroopers made an attack at about
noon. Brewer was a squad leader, and in the words of Bill Dean, who had
served with Brewer for more than two years, “One helluva fire fight
erupted.”
Despite heavy resistance the attack was successful and the paratroopers
then followed the causeway to the bridge that spanned the river to join
the rest of the 508th. At about 2:30 P.M., they were counterattacked by
an overwhelming German force of tanks and heavily armed infantry that
blocked the paratroopers return across the bridge. “We got hit pretty
hard,” recalled Warneke. “There were too many so we had to move back.
There was a lot of confusion while we were getting hit. They threw a lot
of artillery and mortar.”
Trapped in a hail of gunfire and explosions, Brewer ran for his life
towards the river. Bill Dean was running as hard as anyone. “As I ran
for the river,” recalled Dean, “I was aware someone was running hard
just behind me, and in my panic I took a quick look and saw Lefty, at
port arms, running like he was going to stretch a triple into a home
run.”
A split second later, there was a burst of machine-gun fire and Brewer
pitched forward, face down into the river. Exactly six years after
pitching a no-hitter with the St. Augustine Saints, Lefty Brewer’s life
ended.
Brewer was reported missing in action following D-Day, and for four
agonizing months, his family held on to a glimmer of hope that he could
still be alive. Even when news from the War Department in October
confirmed his death, his mother refused to accept that her son was gone.
“It is only natural that you should hope some mistake has been made,”
wrote Colonel Roy E. Lindquist, commanding officer of the 508th PIR, to
Mrs. Brewer in November 1944. “And it is barely possible that such is
the case, but if I were you I would not depend on it too much. ‘Lefty’
was one of the best known and liked men in this regiment,” Lindquist
continued. “He pitched for our baseball team and was largely responsible
for the success of that group. He carried the same fine principles of
sportsmanship with him in his work as a soldier.”
In a letter to Brewer’s sister, Vera, in 1945, Bud Warneke said, “He
made army life cheerful instead of what it is. When he went I lost the
best friend I ever had.”
Private Forrest Brewer was buried at the American Cemetery in
Sainte-Mère-Eglise, along with four other members of the 508th baseball
team slain in the battle for Normandy: Private First-Class Rene Croteau,
Sergeant John Judefind, Corporal William Maloney and Private Elmer
Mertz.
That month, Brewer’s younger sister Kate sent news of his death to
Senators owner Clark Griffith. “I want you and your entire family to
know that I mourn along with you at the loss of this fine boy,” wrote
Griffith in his reply. “Forrest was such a fine upstanding young man and
Calvin [Griffith, vice president of the Senators] and myself and all
connected with the Washington club dearly loved him.”
In 1947, at the request of the family, Brewer’s body was returned home
to Jacksonville, Florida. Following services at Key McCabe Funeral
Homes, the flag-draped coffin was carried past the ballfield where he
learned to pitch and was laid to rest at the Riverside Memorial Park
Cemetery. Among the pallbearers were minor league ballplayers Ray
Headon, Jones Thurmond and Saints teammate Faulene Kirkland.
Fifty years later, Bill Dean, the paratrooper who was with Brewer the
day he died, admitted that not a day went by when he did not remember
his comrade. “I will never forget Lefty,” said Dean, “...nor how fickle
fate is ... he taught me how to soldier and I made it back ... he
didn’t.”
In November 1988, Brewer was inducted in the Jacksonville Sports Hall of
Fame for his "outstanding athletic achievements."
To most sports fans, Lefty Brewer's name remains as unfamiliar as his
career remains incomplete - another bush leaguer who failed to make it
the "The Show." But his ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty should
not be forgotten, and thanks to baseball's unique statistical
documentation, the brief career of this American hero will always remain
an integral part of the national pastime.
|
Year |
Team |
League |
Class |
G |
IP |
ER |
BB |
SO |
W |
L |
ERA |
|
1938 |
St. Augustine |
Florida State |
D |
41 |
297 |
62 |
123 |
234 |
25 |
11 |
1.88 |
|
1939 |
Charlotte |
Piedmont |
B |
3 |
7 |
- |
8 |
3 |
0 |
2 |
- |
|
1939 |
Shelby |
Tar Heel |
D |
10 |
72 |
42 |
30 |
61 |
5 |
4 |
5.25 |
|
1939 |
Orlando |
Florida State |
D |
22 |
152 |
65 |
103 |
107 |
7 |
11 |
3.85 |
|
1940 |
Charlotte |
Piedmont |
B |
28 |
176 |
72 |
104 |
95 |
11 |
9 |
3.68 |
Lefty Brewer with St. Augustine in 1938
Lefty Brewer with the Washington Senators
(This beautiful colorized image of Lefty Brewer was created by Chris
Whitehouse. You can see more of his work at
http://procamsportsphotos.photoshelter.com/gallery/MANCAVE-VINATGE-PRINTS-FOR-SALE/G0000c3lAJjhq_qE/C0000zEsx9oATTdU)
Lefty Brewer gets curveball advice from a young Hornets' fan in 1939
Lefty Brewer (right) at Fort Benning
508th Parachute Infantry Regiment Red Devils -
Camp Mackall champs 1943
(Lefty Brewer is back row, fourth from left)
508th Parachute Infantry Regiment Red Devils in
England, 1944
(Lefty Brewer is front row, first left)
Lefty Brewer's Funeral in 1947
Lefty Brewer's grave at Riverside Memorial Park Cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida
La Fiere, France, where "one helluva fire fight erupted," on June 6, 1944
Lefty Brewer was killed somewhere along this stretch of the Merderet river on June 6, 1944
Thanks to Lefty's brother (and my dear friend), Bill Brewer, for all his help and support with this project.
Date Added: January 27, 2012 Updated July 30, 2017
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