Everybody's All-American.

People can do ordinary, great things

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Jerry Coleman once leaned in during a conversation in San Diego for a column I was hoping to write about him. The register in his voice went lower and he became very still.

“Whatever you do,” he said, “don’t make me out to be a hero.” That was basically all Jerry ever said about that.

If you remember Coleman, it’s probably mostly for the quality and quantity of the longtime Padres broadcaster’s malaprops. He’d get going on the air and the descriptions would get jumbled.

Like this:

—”Winfield goes back to the wall, he hits his head on the wall. And it rolls off! It’s rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres.”

(Fortunately for Dave Winfield, it was the batted ball that rolled back to second.)

Or this:

—”And Kansas City is at Chicago tonight, or is it Chicago at Kansas City? Well, no matter, as Kansas City leads in the eighth, 4 to 4.”

Or this:

—”He slides into second base with a stand-up double!”

And so on. Jerry’s penchant for that sort of stuff was regular enough that people created a word, Colemanism, to describe it. Between that and his charming, funny and authentic presence on the air, he was remarkably easy to love.

But he also was a hero. He really was. And the fact that he didn’t want that talked about only accentuates the truth.

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Coleman was drafted by the mighty New York Yankees in 1942, when he was just 17. He was that guy. But one year later, in the midst of World War II, he put his baseball career on hold and enlisted at Navy Pre-Flight School, later transferring to the Marines.

Coleman served as a dive bomber pilot in the Pacific, flying with a Marine Scout Bombing Squadron known as the Torrid Turtles. He was stationed in the Solomons and the Philippines. Coleman completed 57 combat missions, receiving two Distinguished Flying Crosses and seven Air Medals; he was discharged in July 1945.

Then he became a star infielder for the Yankees, teaming with Phil Rizzuto up the middle. Coleman spent years in the minors before his call-up in 1949, when he led all second basemen in fielding percentage and was named Rookie of the Year by the AP. The following year, he was World Series MVP.

But when the Marines called during the Korean War and asked if Coleman would consider being recalled to fly, he didn’t hesitate. He later explained that an experienced pilot could get back up to speed in about two months, while a rookie might need two years to reach the same level of competence. There wasn’t that kind of time. So he served in Korea, flying in 63 close air support missions in 1953.

Jerry knew that doing so probably meant an abbreviated MLB career, and he was not wrong. Coleman was done with the Yankees by 1957, at age 32, after some injuries diminished his performance. But he said he never thought twice about his decision to re-enter the military; in fact, he remained in the Marine Corps Reserves until his retirement as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1964.

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One of the reasons Coleman didn’t want to be described as a hero, he said, was that so many of his heroes gave their lives during the wars, especially World War II. That’s how Jerry felt about it. He was proud of his service but uncomfortable with that word, and that held true all the way through to his death 10 years ago.

He considered himself an ordinary young man — a kid, really — thrust into an extraordinary moment. I think we can go with that, because ordinary people do extraordinary things sometimes.

But I can also go with hero. Coleman overcame a chaotic childhood and an alcoholic, abusive father. He used baseball to get out. He served his country repeatedly, and after his playing career ended he became the broadcaster that everybody wanted to know. As unintentionally funny as he could be on the air, away from the broadcast booth he was as fine and self-effacing a gentleman — a gentleman — as you would ever meet.

I don’t know what made me think of him today; it’s not Veterans Day. Maybe baseball on the Fourth stirred it up. Coleman always loved those days at the ballyard, and he was always happy there. No doubt it was because he had perspective.

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