Lou Brissie: Mission Impossible

All smiles whilst with the Indians: Lou Bressie

This is a story of two stubbornly determined men. One was Leland “Lou” Brissie, a 20-year-old corporal in the Army, lying in a hospital in 1944 with a shrapnel-shattered left leg and a tenacious dream of becoming a big-league pitcher.

The other was Connie Mack, the 82-year-old founder, owner and so-far only manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, who refused to give up on the wounded soldier. - Norman L. Macht

The story begins in the tiny textile mill town of Ware Shoals, South Carolina, where Lou Brissie had grown to a 6-foot-4 ½, 215-pound left-hand pitcher/first baseman for the mill team where his father worked.

There were no radio broadcasts of major league games that reached Ware Shoals in the 1930s, but Lou’s father had become an admirer of Connie Mack. Mack had no farm system to speak of, but he had a network of former A’s players who were now college coaches and unofficial scouts for him. 

Chick Galloway

One of those former A’s was an infielder, Chick Galloway, who was now the coach at nearby Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. Galloway followed the mill teams and was eager to sign Lou and another pitcher, Tom Clyde, for the A’s. But he was not alone.

Scouts were as thick as stands of pine trees in the South. The Brooklyn Dodgers offered Brissie a $25,000 bonus – a lot of money in Ware Shoals in the 1930s - to sign a minor league contract, Lou’s parents wanted him to go to college.

Connie Mack was known for offering to pay young players’ expenses to go to college and gain experience rather than beginning in the minor leagues.

“My dad admired and respected Connie Mack for his reputation and his character,” Lou said. “He thought the world of him. But he told me it was my decision who to sign with. Then he said, ‘Connie Mack has been around a long time and is highly thought of. Let’s see what he says.’”

After the boys graduated from high school in May 1941, Chick Galloway drove Brissie and Clyde to Philadelphia. They worked out with catcher Earle Brucker for Mack and his coaches.

When Brissie said he was more of a first baseman than a pitcher, Brucker said, “Concentrate on pitching, Lefty. You have what it takes.”

They went up to the office, where Mr. Mack told them, “You can choose to play for [former A’s] Jack Coombs at Duke, Jack Barry at Holy Cross, or Chick Galloway at Presbyterian. I will pay your tuition and expenses for three years, then you’ll report to the Athletics.”

Mack gave them agreements with those terms to take home for their parents to sign.

Presbyterian College

On their way home, they stopped to take a look at Duke. “It was too big for a small-town kid like me,” Brissie said.  “And Holy Cross was too far away.

Presyterian was only about thirty miles from home, so I told Chick that’s where I would go.” (Tom Clyde went there too, and pitched for the A’s in 1943 before going into the service.)

They arrived back at Presbyterian around midnight. Lou’s father met them in a hotel lobby where he signed the agreement. 

In the Army

In the middle of his second year at Presbyterian, Lou Brissie, like many of his classmates, felt it was time to join the fight. He enlisted in the Army in December 1942, and went overseas the following spring. Baseball would have to wait.

Brissie was sent to Europe, but instead of joining the forces in England training for the invasion of France, he was assigned to the Fifth Army that landed in Italy to drive the Germans out. 

Lou Bressie playing for the Philadelphia Athletics

While the June 6, 1944, invasion of France drew all the publicity and news coverage, the Fifth Army was still slugging it out against German forces in the Apennine Mountains in northern Italy with no progress.

Their objective had originally been to liberate Rome and drive the German divisions out of Italy, but the Germans held all the high ridges in the rugged mountains. It had become a stalemate whose main objective was now to keep the German forces from joining the defense of Germany after D-Day. 

Connie Mack first heard from Lou Brissie in a letter sent from Italy on November 7, 1944, just before Brissie’s 351st regiment began a forty-four day stalemate against the dug-in German forces in snow, freezing rain and foot-deep mud.

Wounded in Action

Five days before Mack replied to the letter on December 12, Brissie’s battalion had been destroyed by a daylong barrage of artillery shelling. One shell had exploded near him, breaking both his feet and shattering his left leg in 30 places.

His right shoulder, both hands and thighs were riddled with shrapnel. He wound up in a field hospital, begging the doctors not to amputate what was left of his shredded left leg.

He was transported to a hospital in Naples, where a Cleveland Indians fan, Dr. Wilbur J. Brubaker, performed the first of 23 operations to wire together what little bone was left and sew together the torn muscles and tendons.

Lou Brissie would never thereafter know a day without pain.

The Road to Recovery

Throughout 1945, as Brissie underwent operations in Europe, then back home in Georgia and Alabama, he and Mr. Mack kept up a steady correspondence that created a lifelong bond between them.

Even though Brissie had never signed a contract, and the outlook for his ever pitching again seemed remote, Mack assured him that his college education would be taken care of and there would be a place on the A’s roster whenever he was ready to pitch, however long it took.

Whatever doubts he may have had, Mack never stopped encouraging him. They corresponded frequently, Brissie keeping Mack advised of his progress, his working out, his operations, and Mack urging him to return to school and graduate before joining the A’s, which he never doubted would happen.

“Connie Mack never gave up on me,” Lou said. “He gave me an opportunity when nobody else would have.”

In April Mack expressed the hope that Lou would be able to “join the club in another year or two at the most” and invited him to come to Shibe Park when the club was home of a long stay. Brissie made the trip to Philadelphia in midseason, navigating on crutches.

Mack arranged a room for him two blocks from Shibe Park with a family where other players stayed. One day Lou put down the crutches and tried to throw to Earle Brucker. 

Mack cringed, expecting him to fall on every pitch. “Poor boy,” he thought. “He’ll never be able to pitch.”

But he kept up the encouragement. On September 5 he wrote, “Was pleased to hear from you and to know that you are doing a little limbering up. No doubt you will be able to throw that ball by the batters in due time.”

Two months later Lou was in an Alabama VA hospital for another operation.

In the spring of 1946 Brissie requested some equipment and a warmup jacket, which Mack sent, and began working out with the nearby Spartanburg minor league club. Mack suggested that he come up to Philadelphia in July, adding, “Sincerely hope you will be able to join our club at least in another year.”

Between operations, Brissie went to Philadelphia in July and tried to throw. None of the players who watched him gave him any chance of ever pitching again. The effort led to an infection, and he wound up in Valley Forge military hospital for three weeks. 

Despite these setbacks, Mack promised to send him a contract and did, in December, for $400 a month. On February 6 he wrote, “Have been thinking of you and would like to know how your leg feels after the winter. Would like you to answer just as soon as you receive this short letter.”

Brissie’s determination didn’t need any booster shots, but it was strengthened when his father, who had urged him to sign with Connie Mack, died in September. He was 44. Lou replied that he was ready to report for duty. “I’ve got to make good,” he vowed. He also now had a wife and baby daughter.

The 1947 Season

He showed up at West Palm Beach for spring training with a cut-down shin guard padded with sponge rubber on his leg and declared himself ready for action.

Mack told him, “I can send you to Buffalo, where you’d have a good teacher and manager in Paul Richards, but I can’t tell you how often you might pitch. Or I can send you to the Savannah club, which we own, in the Sally League, where I can guarantee you’ll pitch regularly. You choose.”

Savannah was an easy choice. “I can’t run in the outfield,” Lou said. “I need to pitch often to stay in condition.” It was also close to home.

Lou Brissie’s remarkable 1947 season at Savannah was the inspirational story of the year. He fulfilled his seemingly impossible dream in spectacular style: 23-5, 1.91 ERA, and a league-leading 289 strikeouts in 254 innings, including a record-tying 17 in a May 29 game against Macon.

Major League Debut

Called up by the A’s in September, he made his major league debut starting the last game of the season in New York on Sunday, September 28. He was completely overshadowed by an old-timers’’ game that featured several of Mack’s former stars.

The rookie was overwhelmed, surrounded by stars he had read about in his youth: Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Lefty Grove, Home Run Baker and a dozen more. Dizzy Dean came into the dugout and sat beside him. “How ya doing?” said Diz. The awed rookie could mutter only a word or two in response.

Lou was warming up along the third base line when the emcee introduced Babe Ruth to the crowd. The ailing Babe, just out of the hospital, came out of a box seat, hunched over, wrapped in an overcoat, and brushed slowly by the nervous rookie. 

Brissie went seven innings, gave up a double to Joe DiMaggio, a triple to Tommy Henrich and a home run to Johnny Lindell. He walked 5, threw 2 wild pitches, and lost, 5-3. He demonstrated that his bum leg was no handicap in the field, handling one putout and one assist.

The 1948 Season

On the first day of spring training in 1948 he was out on the field when a coach told him, “Mr. Mack wants to see you.”

Brissie went into the clubhouse and saw Mack talking to the trainer, Doc Tadley. Mack asked Tadley to stand outside and keep everybody out. Then he said to Brissie, “Sit down here. You had a great year in Savannah and I don’t want you to worry about making this ball club.

However you pitch, you’ll be with me all year. Take your time. Follow your own program getting into shape. We’re expecting great things from you.”

Years later Brissie reflected, “He gave me a chance when no other manager would have. When he said that, he took all the pressure off me.”

The Athletics astounded the baseball world by sweeping the opening three-game series in Boston behind three war-damaged pitchers. The A’s hadn’t opened 3-0 in 18 years. After Phil Marchildon went 11 innings to win the Patriot’s Day morning opener, 5-4, Lou Brissie started the afternoon game.

The  A’’s led, 4-1, when Ted Williams, came up to bat in the sixth and lined a drive up the middle that banged into Brissie’s bad leg and felled him like an oak tree. He lay on the mound in agony as the ball caromed away.

Williams ran to first base, then turned and raced to the mound. Brissie looked up at him and said, “Why didn’t you pull the ball?” (The next time Brissie faced Williams, on May 31, Ted hit a home run off him. Brissie hollered at him, “I didn’t mean pull it that far.”)

After several minutes, Brissie stood up, took a few practice throws, and declared he was ready to continue. He finished the game, gave up no more hits, and struck out Williams his next time up. His line for the day: 2 runs, 4 hits, 1 walk, 7 strikeouts. 

When the game ended, fans swarmed onto the field while Lou’s teammates surrounded him with handshakes. Coach Dave Keefe said to Lou, “Mr. Mack wants to see you in the dugout.” Brissie found him standing on the top step, his hand extended. “You pitched a great game, a great game,” he said.

“He seemed a little choked up,” Brissie recalled.

The A’s lost a few, then went on a 10-game winning streak and looked like pennant winners. Brissie started and relieved, as did Bob Savage, who was still housing shrapnel in his shoulder. But the pace eventually caught up with them, and Mr. Mack, at 88, was not as sharp as in past years. They finished fourth, their best record in 15 years.

Brissie finished the year 14-10, working almost 200 innings. In 1949 he won 16 and pitched three innings in the All-Star Game. Mr. Mack retired after a disastrous last-place finish in 1950, in which Brissie started and relieved and worked 246 innings.

The following year, with Connie Mack no longer active, he was traded to Cleveland, which probably would not have happened if Mr. Mack was still in charge. His workload declined sharply. It wasn’t the same.

Brissie finished his improbable eight-year pitching career with a 44-48 record. His leg did not hinder his fielding; he made only four errors. He was commissioner of the American Legion Junior baseball program and held corporate and state positions. His deteriorating leg required frequent treatment in VA hospitals for the rest of his life. 

Lou Brissie died on November 25, 2013.