Ralph Kiner was a pilot before a Pirate

On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, I was a 19-year-old playing in a semipro game in Pasadena, Calif., not far from where I grew up. It was a game just like any other, until we heard the shocking news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Upon hearing about the attack, we all immediately said the same thing: You can’t do that to this country! The next day, instead of playing baseball, I went and enlisted in the United States Navy. It happened that fast.

I wasn’t required to report right away, so I spent the first half of 1942 playing for Toronto in the International League. But then in June, I was called to report for duty. I was to begin training in the Naval aviation program immediately. Almost all of my fellow ballplayers who enlisted had signed up for the Army, but something about the challenges of becoming a pilot really intrigued me.

The program was extensive and difficult. We were required to challenge both our minds and our bodies, as the curriculum required just as much studying as physical training. We had to study for months before we were allowed anywhere near an airplane. And when we finally did get to fly, we mainly just learned how to get the plane up and down without crashing. It was a heck of a primary objective.

From there, we had to do more studying before we could really learn to fly. I was sent to St. Mary’s, a college in California that was a national football power under the great coach Slip Madigan. But during World War II, the college was taken over by the Navy as a place to train pilots. We did a lot of mechanical and flight study there, and I met a few other ballplayers who were also stationed at St. Mary’s. Baseball legend and future Hall of Famer Charlie Gehringer was one of my instructors, and Dodgers great Cookie Lavagetto used to be in charge of passing out equipment. We didn’t play much baseball, though. In fact, in the two-and-a-half years I served, I played in only 12 games.