On Warren Spahn

From BTF: 

"In the spring of 1942, a 20-year-old left-handed pitcher who wound up having no decisions in his four appearances with the Boston Braves that season was pitching in an exhibition game against the Brooklyn Dodgers. At one point Boston Manager Casey Stengel instructed the young pitcher to brush back the batter, Pee Wee Reese. He refused.

Stengel immediately dispatched the pitcher to the minors, to Hartford of the Eastern League.

''Gutless,'' Stengel said of him.

The next year, 1943, the pitcher enlisted and found himself in Europe with the Army's combat engineers in World War II. He participated in the savage Battle of the Bulge and the seizure of the bridge at Remagen, and when it was over, First Lt. Warren Edward Spahn was awarded a Purple Heart for a shrapnel wound and a Bronze Star for bravery and a battlefield commission.

''I said 'no guts' to a kid who wound up being a war hero and one of the best pitchers anybody ever saw,'' Stengel said. ''You can't say I don't miss 'em when I miss 'em.''