Remembering the Lee Boyhood Home Museum

As I walked into the Home prior to beginning my afternoon shift, I was aware of something unusual: an elderly gentleman was walking about the ground floor unescorted. He greeted me genially and, looking out the window at the arbor, asked what that was growing on it. We agreed it was not a grape vine. I referred his question to the Museum Director, Lucie Holland, who identified the plant as Wisteria. After the man had left, Lucie said that the gentleman was walking around downstairs because his knees would not allow him to climb the staircase. She said I might have heard of him since he said he had been a baseball player. My knowledge of baseball not being encyclopedic I doubted I would recognize the name, but checked the visitor book nevertheless. And there it was, the entry: "Warren Spahn, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma." The Museum had added the Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher to its list of distinguished guests.

Memory of this meeting became more poignant with word of Spahn's death at the age of 82. Despite the loss of three years to the Army in World War II, where he was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and received a battlefield commission, Spahn went on to have a stellar baseball career. The plaque in Cooperstown describes it as follows:

This native of Buffalo, NY set a noble example of service to his country and self effacement. Virtues particularly treasured in this home. Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post described him as: "The fiercest of competitors, the most modest of men ..."