Rex Barney
Ballplayers Wounded in Combat
| Date and Place of Birth: | Naovember 26, 1923 Buffalo, NY |
| Date and Place of Death: | May 7, 2009 Vero Beach, FL |
| Baseball Experience: | Major League |
| Position: | Manager |
| Rank: | Private |
| Military Unit: | Anti-Aircraft Command US Army |
| Area Served: | European Theater of Operations |
Daniel L. Ozark (born Orzechowski before his father
changed the family name to Ozark) was born in Buffalo, New York on
November 26, 1923. He grew up in Cheekpowaga, a suburb of Buffalo, and
attended East High School where he excelled in baseball, basketball and
football.
Aged 17, in the summer of 1941, Ozark played second
base for the Lake Erie Red Birds - a team of talented players aged
between 16 and 19 - who were managed under the watchful eye of St. Louis
Cardinals scout John Jachym. Ozark impressed the Cardinals and in
December 1941 it was reported that he would join their Albany, Georgia
farm club in the spring of 1942. However, Ozark never made it to Albany
and actually signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization. He was with
the Olean Oilers of the Class D PONY League in 1942, and in 103 games,
the 18-year-old second baseman batted .247 with six home runs. For the
next three years Ozark served with the Army with the Anti-Aircraft
Command. He was shipped to France where he landed at Omaha Beach. “We
were scared like everyone else,” Ozark told Nick Diunte in 2009, “But we
were young kids and a lot of that stuff didn't bother us. Once you've
seen death and people dying slowly, things like that stay in your
memory. I can still visualize guys drowning after getting out of LCTs
(Landing Craft Tanks), because the water was deeper than they
anticipated. Some of the guys that went down with the 60 lb. tanks
drowned and we never saw them again.
"I received a Purple Heart [in St. Laurent, France]
for shrapnel wounds [to the knee] off of an artillery shell," he
explained. "The other battle we were in was the Battle of the Bulge. I
spent time in Antwerp while the bulge was coming towards us because of
the shipping they had in the docks where all of our equipment came in."
Ozark fought right through the war in Europe to
victory in May 1945. When he came home in December 1945 he hadn’t
touched a baseball in three years and had little time to get into shape
for spring training the following year. He played a little basketball
but didn’t have a chance to throw a baseball in the harsh Buffalo, New
York, winter conditions. Despite this, Ozark had an excellent 1946
season with the Abilene Blue Sox of the Class C West Texas-New Mexico
League. Playing 136 games he batted .325 and homered 31 times. He jumped
to Double-A ball with the Texas League’s Fort Worth Cats in 1947 and
played for the St. Paul Saints of the Triple-A American Association from
1948 to 1953. By this time a first baseman, Ozark remained just a step
away from the big leagues and had been a part of the Dodgers farm system
for a dozen seasons when they asked him to manage their Wichita Falls
team in the Class B Big State League.
Ozark, who had hit close to 250 home runs in the
minors, never got to the major leagues as a player, but in 1965, he made
it as a coach for Walter Alston’s Los Angeles Dodgers. Ozark served
eight years on Alston's staff, coaching at first and third bases and in
the dugout, until he was hired to manage the last-place Philadelphia
Phillies in October 1972. He led the Phillies to National League East
titles in 1977 and 1978, before returning to the Dodgers to coach for
Tommy Lasorda in 1980. He joined the San Francisco Giants as a coach in
1983 and served as the Giants' interim manager in 1984 when Frank
Robinson was fired in August.
Ozark was selected to the National Polish-American
Sports Hall of Fame in 2010, and the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame
in 2017. He passed away at his home in Vero Beach, Florida, aged 85, on
May 7, 2009. He is buried at the Hillcrest Memorial Gardens in Fort
Pierce, Florida.
Date Added June 1, 2020
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