Playing with the Enemy

by Gary Moore

  Another incident about this time has also remained forever with me. One day my dad came home from work and looked more excited than I had ever seen him. “Gary, the Pittsburgh Pirates are in town to play the Cubs,” he told me. “How would you like to go see the game?”

  A big league game at Wrigley Field? Was he kidding? I couldn’t believe it. He had never taken me to a game. In fact, he rarely mentioned the word “baseball” and would not even play catch with me.

  “Dad, are you serious? Really?”

  “Yeah” he answered with a big smile.

  “Yes!” I answered with an explosion of youthful enthusiasm.

  We reached Wrigley Field early. We guided our way down to where the players were taking batting practice. We stood there for several minutes, my eyes glued on the first Major League ball players I had ever seen in my life. My dad looked around, stiffened, narrowed his eyes, and called out a single name: “Roy!”

  Elroy “Roy” Face, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates and one of the country’s best, turned to see who was calling his name. When he saw my dad, the pitcher’s jaw dropped. “Gene!” he shouted before trotting over to where we were standing.

  Roy was one of the finest relievers in the game. I remember he greeted my dad warmly, and they talked for some time. Unfortunately, I have no recollection of exactly what they talked about. I just remember standing there in awe as my dad chatted away with one of my idols.

  A few minutes later they said their goodbyes and we walked back up into the stands and found our seats. I could not believe what I had just witnessed.

  “Dad,” I began, “how do you know a pitcher like Roy Face?”

  My dad just shrugged. “Roy is an old friend. I knew him a long time ago.”

  “How did you meet him?” I asked, hoping to continue the conversation.

  “It’s not important, Gary. Let’s watch the game.” He refused to say anything more about it.

  Today, Roy Face is a candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He played his final game in August of 1969. Like Ray, Roy is also best remembered for throwing a pitch called the forkball.

  The love of baseball was something that never left dad. He suppressed, even hid, his past, revealing it now and again only to my mom. I really don’t know why. If he could have shared it with others, I think his life would have been much richer. Perhaps he could have reconciled the events that led him to the deep grief he suffered through the loss of his baseball career. He chose instead to hold his pain deep inside and only show his children the face of a loving father who worked hard and supported his family. Inside he was fighting an entirely different war, battling demons that denied him the life he felt destined to live.

  My dad was hospitalized four times in my life because of bleeding ulcers. Once, while the rest of our family was away for the weekend, we returned to find him in bed, barely conscious. He had lost a tremendous amount of blood which, according to his doctor, should have killed him. The stomach ulcer had eaten through the wall of his stomach and into his aorta, a major artery. Doctor Burnett, who became a lifelong family friend, said to me at my father’s funeral, “I always thought it would be his ulcers that took him, not a heart attack.”

  Knowing full well that health problems are hereditary, I asked the doctor if I should be more careful about what I ate. He looked at me, smiled, and shook his head. “It is not what your father ate, Gary,” he replied, “but what was eating him that caused the ulcers.”

  After Dad’s death, I found his Purple Heart in one of his dresser drawers. “I understand now about dad’s wound,” I said to my mom. She smiled and looked at me, her eyes filling with tears. She didn’t respond aloud, but her eyes held within them the story of their life together.

  The truth is that my father was wounded, and he carried the results of that injury with him for the rest of his life. His wound was not of the flesh, but of the spirit. Although his physical injury largely healed, the experience left an indelible scar on his heart no one around him could ever fully remove.

  Gene and Judy Moore at their 25th wedding anniversary in 1978. Gene is holding his grandson, Toby, while Judy is cradling grandson Brandon Scott.

  Friday, May 13, 1983, started like any other day. Gene climbed out of bed about 7:00 a.m., took a shower, and enjoyed a cup of coffee with Judy while watching Good Morning America. He arrived at work about 9:00 a.m., placed a few phone calls, joked with and motivated some of his employees, and then drove to Chicago Heights for a luncheon meeting with me. During lunch, dad made an uncharacteristic statement. “Well, today is Friday the thirteenth,” he told me. “This is the first of three Friday the thirteenths this year. If I make it through this day, I think I’ll be okay.” His observation struck me as odd because Gene was not a superstitious guy. Maybe he was just joking around, but it did not sound like it. To this day, I don’t know why he said it.

  After lunch, Gene drove to another appointment in the western suburbs of Chicago and had dinner with Chuck Smith, a business associate. Dad left for home about 6:30 p.m. and arrived two hours later after fighting his way through rush hour traffic. He was pale and exhausted when Judy met him at the door. Dad had already removed his sport coat and loosened his tie. When Judy saw him, he was holding his left arm. His watch, which he wore on his left wrist, was later found on the floor of his car.

  Judy hugged him and helped him into the house, where he collapsed on the floor. He died there, with Judy by his side. Gene Moore left Judy’s life while lying on the floor—the same place he had entered it.

  He was just 57 years old.

  Judy was the only person who knew the intimate details about Gene’s remarkable life story until my dad opened up and bared his soul to me just twenty-four short hours before he died. It was Judy who had shared his secret, his burden, his inner turmoil. She provided the strength Gene needed to carry on.

  My mom never remarried. She lived in Indianapolis, Indiana, until her death on January 3, 2004. She told everyone until the end of her life that the only man she ever really loved was Gene, and that was enough for her.

  Looking back now, decades later, I realize just how little I really knew about my parents when I was growing up. A few memorable incidents from the shadowy past of my youth only make sense now. The passage of time has a way of clarifying what was once confusing.

  When I was about twelve years old, I was shopping with mom and dad at Montgomery Wards. Dad wandered off and I followed him into the sporting goods department. He stopped in front of a rack of baseball bats on an aisle end cap. I had no idea what was going on in his head, but I could tell his mind was somewhere else. He slowly reached for a bat and slid it carefully out of the rack. He took it in his hands lovingly, as if he was holding something he adored. I stood next to him and heard him say slowly and softly, “You know, there are no two of these in the world that are exactly alike.” I didn’t say anything because it was obvious he was not talking to me. “Every one is different,” he continued, “slightly different in weight.” As he held the bat in his left hand, he began running the index finger of his right hand carefully and deliberately along the grain. “The balance and feel, the grain patterns from different cuts of the same tree or a different tree altogether, make each bat unique. The bat has to match the personality of the batter or they are unequally yoked. But when you find the perfect match, it is as if magic happens. Every bat has its own personality and temperament.” He sighed. “No, there are no two bats alike anywhere.”

  I was just a young kid, and so had no idea what he was talking about. What I do remember is how much it bothered me because it did not sound anything like the dad I knew. I had never heard him talk that way before about anything—especially baseball.

  As we both stood there, staring at the same object but seeing two entirely different things, my mom walked up behind us, put her hand on Gene’s shoulder, and slowly turned him to face her. The bat he was holding slowly dropped to my dad’s side, where it hung loosely gripped in his left
hand. He took a deep breath, sighed deeply, reached out his right arm, and pulled her close. They embraced for what seemed to me an eternity. Looking back, I understand now he was transferring the emotion that holding the bat churned inside him into his wife—the only person in the world who could truly understand what he was thinking and feeling at that moment.

  Another incident about this time has also remained forever with me. One day my dad came home from work and looked more excited than I had ever seen him. “Gary, the Pittsburgh Pirates are in town to play the Cubs,” he told me. “How would you like to go see the game?”

  A big league game at Wrigley Field? Was he kidding? I couldn’t believe it. He had never taken me to a game. In fact, he rarely mentioned the word “baseball” and would not even play catch with me.

  “Dad, are you serious? Really?”

  “Yeah” he answered with a big smile.

  “Yes!” I answered with an explosion of youthful enthusiasm.

  We reached Wrigley Field early. We guided our way down to where the players were taking batting practice. We stood there for several minutes, my eyes glued on the first Major League ball players I had ever seen in my life. My dad looked around, stiffened, narrowed his eyes, and called out a single name: “Roy!”

  Elroy “Roy” Face, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates and one of the country’s best, turned to see who was calling his name. When he saw my dad, the pitcher’s jaw dropped. “Gene!” he shouted before trotting over to where we were standing.

  Roy was one of the finest relievers in the game. I remember he greeted my dad warmly, and they talked for some time. Unfortunately, I have no recollection of exactly what they talked about. I just remember standing there in awe as my dad chatted away with one of my idols.

  A few minutes later they said their goodbyes and we walked back up into the stands and found our seats. I could not believe what I had just witnessed.

  “Dad,” I began, “how do you know a pitcher like Roy Face?”

  My dad just shrugged. “Roy is an old friend. I knew him a long time ago.”

  “How did you meet him?” I asked, hoping to continue the conversation.

  “It’s not important, Gary. Let’s watch the game.” He refused to say anything more about it.

  Today, Roy Face is a candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He played his final game in August of 1969. Like Ray, Roy is also best remembered for throwing a pitch called the forkball.

  The love of baseball was something that never left dad. He suppressed, even hid, his past, revealing it now and again only to my mom. I really don’t know why. If he could have shared it with others, I think his life would have been much richer. Perhaps he could have reconciled the events that led him to the deep grief he suffered through the loss of his baseball career. He chose instead to hold his pain deep inside and only show his children the face of a loving father who worked hard and supported his family. Inside he was fighting an entirely different war, battling demons that denied him the life he felt destined to live.

  My dad was hospitalized four times in my life because of bleeding ulcers. Once, while the rest of our family was away for the weekend, we returned to find him in bed, barely conscious. He had lost a tremendous amount of blood which, according to his doctor, should have killed him. The stomach ulcer had eaten through the wall of his stomach and into his aorta, a major artery. Doctor Burnett, who became a lifelong family friend, said to me at my father’s funeral, “I always thought it would be his ulcers that took him, not a heart attack.”

  Knowing full well that health problems are hereditary, I asked the doctor if I should be more careful about what I ate. He looked at me, smiled, and shook his head. “It is not what your father ate, Gary,” he replied, “but what was eating him that caused the ulcers.”

  After Dad’s death, I found his Purple Heart in one of his dresser drawers. “I understand now about dad’s wound,” I said to my mom. She smiled and looked at me, her eyes filling with tears. She didn’t respond aloud, but her eyes held within them the story of their life together.

  The truth is that my father was wounded, and he carried the results of that injury with him for the rest of his life. His wound was not of the flesh, but of the spirit. Although his physical injury largely healed, the experience left an indelible scar on his heart no one around him could ever fully remove.

  Postscript

  Except to his family and a few close friends, Gene Moore was lost to history—or so it seemed.

  He never played Major League baseball. There are a few letters here and there, my father's conversations with me, and of course my mother and the many other people around the country I have since interviewed who remember him and his life in and out of baseball. All in all, however, there is precious little published detail about Gene’s life in general, and in particular, his time in Louisiana. The German sailors of U-505 were held there under special terms that bypassed the rules of the Geneva Convention. This denied them not only Red Cross access, but contact with the outside world. There is no record of playing baseball with the enemy.

  Or is there?

  While conducting research for this book, I discussed life at Camp Ruston with Keith Gill, curator of U-505at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. When I brought up baseball he shook his head. “There is no mention of baseball. Some of the sailors remembered working in farm fields outside the camp. A few claimed to have worked in the timber industry. The odd thing about that,” he continued, “is it’s not timber country. I don’t think there is a sawmill close to Camp Ruston.”

  “Then why would they say that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he continued. “Some of the U-505 sailors claim they left the camp to work at a place they called The Lumberyard.”

  About the Author: Gary W. Moore is the president and managing partner of Covenant Air & Water, LLC (www.aquativa.com), a motivational speaker, and an accomplished musician. Gary lives in the Chicago suburb of Bourbonnais, Illinois, ironically a stone’s throw from where U-505, whose crew members his father guarded, is on display at the Museum of Science and Industry. Gary and his wife Arlene have been married more than 30 years. They have three children: Toby, Tara Beth, and Travis. You can keep up with all the latest news by visiting Gary’s website at www.playingwiththeenemy.com.