South O boys save WWII plaque

Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.

Emil Adler's is the first name on the roster.

When he was killed in a World War II battle in Luxembourg, seven of his brothers were overseas fighting for their country. Their widowed mother was home in Omaha with her two other sons.

Nile Kinnick's name is in the middle of the list.

Before he died in a World War II plane crash, the former Omaha Benson football and baseball star had won the Heisman Trophy at the University of Iowa. He had beaten out Joe DiMaggio as national athlete of the year.

Elmer Wachtler's name is near the list's end.

Before he was killed in World War II combat in Belgium, the St. Louis Cardinals prospect had put a potential baseball career on hold. He left behind a wife and a 2-year-old son.

Omaha wrote their names and 37 others in lead and bronze on a plaque. All were Omaha kids who had played amateur baseball before swapping their cleats for combat boots. In the late 1930s and early '40s, they played Catholic Youth Organization, high school and American Legion baseball in Omaha, and sandlot ball in towns across Nebraska and western Iowa.

It was a boom time for Omaha baseball, when big Legion tournament games for 15- and 16-year-olds drew more than 10,000 people to Fontenelle Park, and local Legion teams competed for national championships.

The 40 men named on the plaque all died in the service of their country in World War II.

The plaque offered a tiny window into the toll that winning World War II took on the sons and daughters of Omaha and the nation, and on their families. As a reminder, city fathers bolted the names to a concrete wall at Omaha's Municipal Stadium soon after it was built in 1948.

The roster of the lost hung in the concourse for nearly a half-century. Generations of baseball fans filed past it as the stadium became known as Rosenblatt, home to minor league Cardinals, Dodgers and then Royals, and World War II began to fade into our rearview mirrors.

The plaque was taken down in the 1990s, during a Rosenblatt renovation. A stadium worker restored the tablet so it would gleam when reinstalled. But it never went back up.

For 19 years, the names were gone — almost forgotten.

Then last fall, with Rosenblatt shuttered and awaiting demolition, longtime baseball coach John Stella had a visitor at Brown Park, a historic baseball field in South Omaha. He won't say who. The person asked: Did Stella remember the World War II memorial plaque? Would he know of a good home for it?

Yes. And oh, yes.

"We're the American Legion," answered Stella, an Army veteran who has coached Legion ball for 30 years. "We're a veterans' organization. We've got a perfect place for that. We're going to put it right down at Brown Park."

And so they are. Right now. With a little help from friends.

Stella and a fellow SOB (South Omaha boy), Steve Cavlovic, brought in South Omaha American Legion Post 331. They formed the Brown Park Baseball Committee with friend Dave Van Metre, who had helped them engineer extensive renovations at Brown Park, 15th and U Streets.

Concrete contractor Joe Smejkal went to work designing and building a display outside the third base line. The plaque will be mounted on a six-foot-tall concrete wall, framed by hedges, with a small plaza that includes benches made from sections of Rosenblatt dugout seats.

Legion Post 331 will conduct a dedication ceremony there about 2 p.m. Aug. 14, between state championship games of an amateur baseball group, the Nebraska Baseball Association.

Patriotic songs will be sung. The names will be read aloud. Afterward, the Red Raven Orchestra will play polka music at a 3 p.m. reception at Post 331's social hall, 21st and N Streets.

"We're honoring these veterans at Brown Park, where they all played before they gave the ultimate sacrifice," Cavlovic said.

Organizers expect more than 200 people for the dedication. They — especially Smejkal — have been searching for and inviting families of the men on the list. Relatives not yet contacted can call Stella at 402-321-4836 or Cavlovic at 402-733-3886.

The Brown Park Baseball Committee has raised about $10,000 of the project's $11,000 cost. That includes $5,000 in state sales tax "turn-back" money from a portion of revenue state law set aside for tourism in northeast and southeast Omaha.

In a way, the former Rosenblatt plaque may be noticed more now. It's unclear when the plaque was put up at Municipal Stadium — maybe shortly after the Oct. 17, 1948, opener.

A World-Herald story days later said the Omaha Amateur Baseball Association would dedicate the plaque Oct. 24 in honor of Omaha sandlot ballplayers who died in World War II. There would be a ceremony before an exhibition game featuring such major league stars as Enos Slaughter and Luke Appling.

A story the next day said the ceremony was still on. But, the article said, "It was announced, with great embarrassment, that the sandlot baseball plaque will not be dedicated at the game" because it was not ready.

Such old-timers as Jesse Cuevas and Bill Gorman said they didn't know when the plaque was installed.

About all Gorman knew was that it was there when he became the Omaha Royals' general manager in 1971 and that it was taken down during renovations in the 1990s.

Cuevas, whose father served on a Navy submarine in World War II, has strong memories of the plaque from the time he started his 42-year career at Rosenblatt in 1969. Cuevas shagged balls and worked on stadium manager Frank Mancuso's cleaning crew.

"Frankie would give us a push broom and you'd be sweeping around the concourse," said Cuevas, who eventually became stadium superintendent. "When you'd get to that section, you'd look up and see these names. I don't want to get too emotional, but you'd think of a link to Gettysburg, those 'who gave the last full measure of devotion.' You'd wonder, you're here and all of these lives got cut short, all of these families lost a father or a son; all of these lineages were wiped out, so that I could be sweeping the concourse at Rosenblatt for a buck-fifty an hour."

During the 1992 renovation, Cuevas said his brother, Terry, a stadium worker, refurbished the plaque over a winter. He took off the paint and grime, restoring the shine to each name so people could read them when the plaque was displayed again.

But it never was.

Stadium and city officials talked about making a grander display during subsequent renovations.

"It was always going to be the next one, the next one, the next one," Cuevas said. "Well, the next one's a wrecking ball."

He said the Brown Park ballfield, in a city park, is a great place for the plaque. Brown Park is one of the few surviving ballparks from World War II days.

In those days, the stadiums were full, especially on Sundays. Kids played ball on neighborhood teams. They played on church teams. Teens played Legion and high school ball. Many kept playing.

One of the men listed, Bernard Healey, played for the McDevitt's Legion team that made it to the national semifinals in 1937. Elmer Wachtler's brother, Billy, played for the McDevitt's team that won an American Legion national title in 1939. The Wachtler brothers — El, Billy, George and Ed — all played on a Storz Beer sandlot team.

El, a pitcher, made it to the Double-A minor league level with the St. Louis Cardinals before going to war.

A nephew, George Wachtler of Omaha, remembers seeing the plaque at Rosenblatt, reading the names — and wondering what happened to it. When he heard from Cavlovic, Wachtler hurried down to see it.

"What's so great about it is they're finally honoring these guys who gave their lives, maybe taking away a promising career," Wachtler said.

He plans to attend the Aug. 14 dedication. Jim Wachtler, El Wachtler's only son, plans to travel from his home in San Diego. Until George emailed a few weeks ago, Jim never knew the plaque existed.

Hearing about the project brought him to tears.

"I was two years old when my father died," Jim said by phone last week. "I never really knew him. I'm 70 now, so I don't know why ... ."

After a long pause, he continued, "It's very nice of them to do this."

Vaughn Hazen, who lives now in Fremont, was playing on a Cardinals AAA minor league team in 1945 when word came that his brother, Robert, had died in the war.

"I was in Columbus, Ohio, when they called to say he was killed," said Hazen, now 86. "He died as a Marine in Okinawa. According to one of the officers, he was taking the Japanese out of the caves. He led a crew into a cave. They threw a hand grenade. He tried to grab it and throw it back, but he was killed."

Vaughn Hazen said he had tried to get into the Marines and Army himself, but they wouldn't take him because he had broken his neck playing football for Omaha North in 1941.

Bob Hazen played American Legion ball, and later played on a Storz Beer team coached by his father.

He was 23 when he died.

Vaughn Hazen played in the first game at Municipal Stadium in 1948. The next year, he played for the AAA Omaha Cardinals, their first year based at Rosenblatt. He had never heard of the plaque until a reporter called him last week.

"That was our home field," Hazen said. "But I didn't know that existed."

Cavlovic and Stella didn't know what they were getting into when they started.

They had hoped to find relatives of 10 or 12 of the men on the plaque. They're now well on their way to 20, thanks in large part to Smejkal.

They're reviving memories and stories and uncovering new ones, said Cavlovic, who grew up playing on the same ballfields and who, like Stella, played a little in the minors himself.

"We're really excited about this," Stella said.

He remembers the plaque at Rosenblatt. He stopped and looked at it on occasion but admits he didn't really pay much attention to the names.

Two men on the plaque — Sam Centretto and Anthony "Buddy" Mancuso — were from Stella's Italian immigrant neighborhood around 20th and Pierce Streets. Stella remembers people saying Sam and Buddy had been killed.

"I was little, like 6 to 10 years old, so I don't think I really comprehended it," Stella said.

Looking back, he realizes that similar reports were making the rounds all over. "Everybody in every neighborhood had somebody someplace," Stella said.

He is mindful, too, that U.S. troops have fought other wars since and are at war now.

Maybe that's why Stella insists that the national anthem be played before every game at Brown Park.

"I tell our team this every year — the reason why we're playing ball is because of the veterans who founded American Legion baseball," Stella said. "We wouldn't be here playing ball if it weren't for the veterans who gave their lives for our freedom."

Brown Park is well-used once again. It's South High's home baseball field. It hosts Legion and other tournaments. It's likely, Cavlovic and Stella said, that relatives of the men on the plaque will play there. They hope people will read the names and think.

In a way, raising the lead-and-bronze plaque at Brown Park is like a manager submitting a lineup card, one meant to last well beyond the last out.

"You can't forget these guys," Stella said.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1057, christopher.burbach@owh.com

« Metro/Region

Share