More On PFC James Devine, Courtesy of a Special Guest Blogger

The story of my visit to the grave of PFC James F. DeVine at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France last month struck a chord with many readers, including my niece Kaye Peltier.  Karen (as I know her) did an amazing amount of research on Private DeVine, and I asked if she would be willing to share her findings in a narrative form.  So, take it away, Karen......

Faithful readers of The Grandstander will remember the poignant post from June 6, 2018, in which Bob described Mr. & Mrs. Grandstander’s recent visit to Normandy, France. I was especially taken by the section describing Bob placing a rose on the grave of a young soldier from Pennsylvania. He asked:

Who is James DeVine? Where in Pennsylvania did he live? Did he have a family? Does he have children and grandchildren that have visited this site? Questions about which I shall always wonder.

How could we let these questions stand? Through the miracles of the Internet and crowdsourcing, The Grandstander readership had to wait a mere two hours after the blog was posted to Facebook to see a photo of Private First Class James Francis DeVine Jr.

James Francis DeVine Jr. was born in DuBois, PA, on May 15, 1921. The son of James and Minnie (Nale) DeVine, James Jr. was the eldest of seven children. The family moved from Clearfield County to the Parnassus neighborhood of New Kensington by the time James Jr. was five years old. The family home at 621 Fourth Avenue appears to have been demolished (along with its neighbors) to make way for Citizens General Hospital (now Citizens Ambulatory Care Center).

James was a member of the New Kensington High School Class of 1940. In reviewing the 1937 and 1938 yearbooks, it appears that James was not active in sports or other extracurricular activities, but worked more than 20 hours a week at a market during high school (as noted in the 1940 census). James’ draft card indicates that he was working for Streamline Market at 900 Fifth Avenue in 1942. Looking through the New Kensington 1940 City Directory, it was surprising to find that Streamline was one of 115 retail grocers in New Kensington – a town of only 30,000 people!

James completed his selective service registration on February 16, 1942. It would be interesting to know if James was caught up in the national feelings of patriotism and desire to serve one’s country that developed after the attack on Pearl Harbor just two months earlier, or if he felt trepidation when he presented at the Westmoreland County Draft Board on Fourth Avenue (right on the street where he lived). We may not know his feelings, but we do know the facts: he was a blue-eyed, brown-haired young man, with the exceptional characteristic of being 6’4 ¼” tall at age 20.   

James was called to service in the US Army on August 8, 1942. He served in the 8^th Infantry Regiment, 4^th Infantry Division. Following the movement of the Division from 1942 – 1944, James may have trained at Fort Benning, GA; Camp Gordon, GA; Fort Dix, NJ; and Camp Gordon Johnston, FL before being shipped overseas in January 1944.

James’ youngest sister, Marilyn, was only 4 years old when he left home to serve.

The 4^th Infantry Division arrived in England beginning on January 26, 1944. Soldiers alternated between keeping the equipment ready and doing calisthenics to keep themselves ready. On April 27, 1944, the 4^th Infantry participated in a training expedition called Exercise Tiger, in preparation for what would become the D-Day invasion. The training exercise went horribly awry, and 749 soldiers and sailors were killed by the torpedoes of German submarines who were alerted to the training exercise by excessive radio activity.

Nevertheless, the 4^th Infantry was selected to lead the charge on Utah Beach on D-Day. James survived the fighting on June 6, but was killed in action in Basse-Normandie, France, on June 11, 1944. His obituary in his parents’ local paper stated:

“Killed somewhere in France,” were the words in a telegram delivered to Mr. and Mrs. James F. DeVine, Sr., 621 Fourth Avenue, yesterday, informing them of the death of their son, Private First Class James DeVine, Jr.

He was awarded the Silver Star medal for gallantry in action and the Purple Heart.

Mr. and Mrs. DeVine lost one son, and then saw their second eldest son, Jack, deployed to Europe the following month (July 23, 1944) with the US Army Air Corps. Jack had been called to serve about six months after James, in February 1943. Their third son, Robert, registered in November 1945 and served as well. James Sr. was himself an Army soldier and served in Europe during WWI, and I can imagine that his own experience must have informed his concern and worry while his sons were overseas.

I confess that I was not familiar with compensation to families who lost soldiers in our various US wars. Mr. and Mrs. DeVine filed paperwork in March 1950 to claim a “Beneficiaries Entitlement” benefit of $250 each for the loss of their son. Five hundred dollars (approximately $5,200 in 2018 dollars) doesn’t seem like adequate compensation for the loss of a son, but I suspect there is no amount that would cover the loss.

Returning to the original questions from The Grandstander post on Omaha Beach, we have a photograph and a little information, but very little insight into who PFC James F. DeVine was when he was killed in action five days after D-Day. It is hard to guess what his life might have been like had he returned from Europe. When Bob found the grave of PFC DeVine at the American Cemetery, he had no idea that he was honoring a young man who grew up less than 13 miles from his own childhood home in Squirrel Hill. We know that there are no children or grandchildren of PFC DeVine to visit the grave site in France, but I suspect that his parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews may have felt and continue to feel his absence among the family plots at Greenwood Memorial Park in Lower Burrell. Perhaps there is some small consolation in knowing that visitors to Normandy, along with the readers of The Grandstander who made a virtual visit, join Bob in thanking James DeVine and his family for their sacrifices.

*Note: in searching for James’ 1940 yearbook, I found a blog created by the daughter of one of James’ classmates who also crossed Utah Beach on D-Day. Jack Clark lived blocks away from the DeVine family on Fourth Avenue in New Kensington and was a member of the New Kensington High School Class of 1940. Jack’s daughter Susan collected her father’s stories from WWII and published them on her blog, No Major Goof-Up (http://majorgoofup.blogspot.com).

Kaye Mushrow Peltier

Our Special Guest Blogger

Many, many thanks to Karen for this exceptionally moving piece.  I am grateful, Karen, that you agreed to write this up for me.

I should also say that in recent weeks (and, again, thanks to Karen's research), I have been able to make contact with one of James DeVine's nieces via Facebook.  At this point, I am choosing not to share her name in this space until and unless she allows me to do so.  Funny thing, when she responded to my inquiry, she mentioned that my name "seemed familiar" to her.  Turns out that back in the late 1980's, she was employed by a then-subsidiary of Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania, so it is possible that our paths may have crossed at one time or another.  Amazing how small the world can be.

And again, all thanks go to James DeVine and his comrades for the sacrifices that they made on our behalf all those years ago.

Madden Cousins Meeting Up

Regular readers may recall my stories about all of my newly discovered cousins on the  Madden (my mother's) side of the family.  

The short story: In 2015, I received a call from Marla Madden in Florida.  She had been doing genealogical research on the family tree of one Thomas Madden, our great-grandfather.  Thomas had nine children, one of who was Bill Madden, my grandfather.  He had only one child, Ruth, my mother, and we, my siblings and I, knew little, if anything, about any of our grandfather's family.  As Marla told me that day, I was to learn that I have more cousins out there than I could possibly imagine.

Over the years, I have personally met some of them - Dorothy Brannon, Cheryl Intartaglio, Casey Brown (who lives in Pittsburgh and, in fact, we grew up probably within three miles or so of each other), and Marla Madden herself, the one who started it all!

This past Friday evening I made yet another Madden connection in the person of Janice Madden Spencer.  Jan is the sister of Marla and Cheryl, and she lives in the state of Maine.  She and her husband Ron....

are currently vacationing, and made it a point to come to Pittsburgh in order to connect with Casey and me, and indeed we did....

Casey, granddaughter of Marie

Bob, grandson of Bill

Janice, granddaughter of Leo

It was great to meet Jan, although through the magic of Facebook, both of us felt that we already did know each other.  She and I have had many a lively exchange during football seasons as we have debated the relative merits of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots!

 Ron and I properly suited up for battle!

I did give Jan and him a special Pittsburgh gift - a Terrible Towel.

I think they liked it!

It was a fun and pleasant evening as these second cousins met and got to know each other a little better.  A very memorable night.

(Side note: Marla, Cheryl, and Jan have yet another sister, Marcie Madden Corrie of North Carolina, so I've now met three of four.  If you are reading this, Marcie, we have to work on this!)

As always, thanks go out to Marla, whose genealogical curiosity started it all and made this all happen.  Until she did, none of us knew of the others' existence.

Sports Illustrated - The "Where Are They Now" Issue

Like much of print media, Sports Illustrated ain't what it used to be, but once in awhile the magazine can still grab your attention, and the current issue, its annual "Where Are They Now" issue, is one of them.

(As an aside, the fact that SI has to resort to such tropes as where-are-they-now features, tells you all you need to know about the state of the magazine, but what the heck.)

This particular issue features four stories that captured my attention, and that I would highly recommend to you.

The first was the cover story on Sammy Sosa, and would you have even recognized him if his name wasn't plastered on the cover along with that picture?

The second is on tennis great Martina Navratilova.

The third is on former football star turned sportscaster turned celebrity pal, Ahmad Rashad.

And the fourth is on Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench, and this is my favorite story in the issue.  Despite how he tortured the Pirates throughout his career, I have always liked Bench and consider him to the the best catcher that I have ever seen.  He is now 70 years old and is a single father of two young sons (a sixth grader and a third grader) living in Florida.  Despite his rocky marital history (married and divorced four times), he seems to be a remarkably happy and settled individual, happy and at ease with his past and the life he currently leads.

A couple of great quotes from him....

• On where he finds himself in life:  "The great thing about it is, I knew I had a life.  You feel bad, some of these guys, they walk away, and they didn't save a dime."
• On why he never became a manager, even though many thought he would be perfect for such a role: "I don't want to deal with incompetence. I played on a team that was the level of what it was. Really, its hard for me to accept people who don't make an effort, are not professional. The great thing in my life is, I don't have to deal with them."
• And a reflection on his career and his life today: "If what you did yesterday is big to you now, then you haven't done much lately."

There's more, and it's a great story, and a great issue.

The SABR Convention

The 48th Annual Convention of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) was held in Pittsburgh this past week, and I had the pleasure of attending this event on Friday and Saturday.  This is the second time I have attended one of these (the other time being in Cincinnati in the early 2000's).  

As a member of the SABR's Pittsburgh chapter, I also spent some of my time working at this one.  My job, if you could call it that, was to serve as a monitor at five different research presentations.  This consists of introducing the speaker, making sure they stick to the time limits, signaling when they had ten, five, and three minutes left, cutting off the Q&A, and getting the room cleared for the next presentation.

Of the five I monitored, the most fun ones were from Paul Ember of Philadelphia, who spoke of three baseball related pieces of art done by Andy Warhol, and Joseph L. Price, a college professor from California who spoke of his travels across the country singing the National Anthem at over 100 professional ball parks.  Very entertaining.

The best part of the convention, however, was not so much the presentations or exhibits, but just getting the chance to meet people and talk with them.  I talked with people from Illinois, California, Wisconsin, New York, Nova Scotia, and Texas and just had a great time shooting the breeze.  I also got to meet some people who previously had been merely names in articles and books - John Thorn, Lee Lowenfish, David Smith, and Mark Armour.  Also, got to meet and spend time with long-time Facebook buddy Al Blumkin from Brooklyn, a terrific guy.

I attended four different panels.  One was a Media panel that featured Lanny Frattare, Steve Blass, Joe Block, and Greg Brown.

Another was held at PNC Park and included talks from Clint Hurdle, Neal Huntington, and Dan Fox.

A Pirates Player Panel about the 1979 World Series champs was monitored by Block and featured John Candelaria and Grant Jackson, and drew an SRO crowd.

The fourth and last panel that I attended was "Branch Rickey: The Pirates Years" and was chaired by Mr. Lowenfish, who has written a acclaimed biography of Rickey.  This panel was to include former Pirate great Dick Groat.  The bad news was that Groat fell ill and was unable to attend.  The even more bad news was that he was replaced by another ex-Pirate of that era whom I am choosing not to name here.  I will just say that the choice made to be Groat's replacement was "unfortunate" and leave it at that.  On the other hand, this was new stuff to probably over ninety percent of the audience, so maybe the crowd loved it.

Like any organization devoted to a single subject matter, SABR and its members are often categorized as a bunch of geeky, stats-obsessed nerds, and that their convention has to be a baseball equivalent of a Star Trek Convention.  Some of those stereotypes are no doubt true, I mean, you should have seen some of the outfits I saw, but all of the attendees are there because of one common trait - they love baseball and its history, and if a few of them still can't get over the fact that the Dodgers left Brooklyn, or that the game has never been the same since Babe Ruth started hitting all those home runs, what's the harm in that? As I said, I had a great time just meeting up with many of my Pittsburgh SABR friends (Jim Haller, Jim Roberts, Alan Steinberg, Ray Queen, Todd Tomasic, and Stephanie Liscio to name a few) and having random conversations with people that I had never met before.  It was fun, and who doesn't like to have fun, right?

I will make a couple of other observations about the organization just using my own "eye test".....

• The organization's population is older.  There were not a lot of young (ie, under fifty years old) people there.  Now I realize that traveling to another city to attend a convention such as this may be easier for people who are retired, and not working, so perhaps that skews the age demographic of the convention.
• The organization is overwhelmingly male.  When we attended the convention in Cincy years ago, my wife commented that the best thing about it was that she never had to wait in a line at the Ladies' Room.  Same thing here in Pittsburgh, although I had a sense that there were more women in attendance at SABR48 than there were at the Cincinnati convention.
• The organization is overwhelmingly Caucasian.  There were approximately 600 people attending this convention, and I can honestly say that I did not see a single non-white face in the crowd.

Again, these are simply non-scientific observations on my part, and perhaps a more detailed breakdown of SABR's Membership data would tell a completely different story, but if my observations are correct or even in the ballpark, what does that tell you about the sustainability of an Organization over the long haul?  

On the other hand, SABR has been around for almost fifty years, so what do I know?

The US Open, Phil, and Brooks

Readers - I think there were two of you out there - have been beseeching The Grandstander for his thoughts on the recently completed US Open, specifically for his thoughts on Phil Mickelson's rules breaking fiasco in the third round.

First, The Phil Cause Celebre....

I won't recount the whole thing.  If you care at all, you know the details.  The Hall of Fame golfer, the second best and most important golfer of the still young 21st century, deliberately broke a rule, took a two stroke penalty, and caused a great deal of harrumphing among those who hold the rules of golf sacrosanct who saw Phil's transgression as equal to someone urinating on the altar at the Vatican.  My thoughts:

• No one in sports, no one, are more self-important than the rules nerds who run the game of golf.  So, when someone of Mickelson's stature sticks his finger in their collective ears, a part of me says "Good for Phil."
• In retrospect, however, Mickelson's actions WERE pretty egregious, and something a little stiffer than a two stroke penalty was no doubt deserved.
• The USGA Blue Blazers, who are the lead harrumphers when it comes to the rules of golf, defecated the bed on this one - AGAIN - by saying that the two stroke penalty was sufficient.  Had some shmoe Open qualifier who was ranked 241st in the world done what Mickelson did, he would undoubtedly have been DQ'ed immediately.  By showing that there IS a double standard when a golfer of Philly Mick's stature is involved, the Blue Blazers put the lie to the very standards that they hold so sacrosanct.
• Oh, and did you notice that three days after the conclusion of the tournament, Mickelson issued an apology for his actions.  Too late, but Phil is a guy who's dodged Insider Trading charges during the course of his life, so I guess this won't bother him all that much.

Second, the pros whine.....

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth as the pros whined and bitched about how unfair the set up at Shinnecock Hills was, particularly on Saturday.  As fate would have it, my "Facebook Memories" today showed this post from this date in 2015 following the Open at Chambers Bay in Oregon.  I reproduce it here:

Pro golfers are independent contractors and, as such, are different from most other pro athletes, especially those in team sports. They should be admired for that. However, they take a back seat to NO PRO ATHLETE, not Tom Brady, not LeBron James, not A-Rod, no one, when it comes to - to coin a phrase - primadonnaism. Don't make a noise, don't click a camera, please don't move while I take 120 seconds to line up this putt. The complaints about Chambers Bay that we are hearing are a prime example. Let's bring Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth out to Rose Ridge or Saxon and give them a dose of humility in the form of what 99% of the world's golfers have to play on all the time.

Only the date and the location changes.  The guys who never had to play on a public course in their lives continue to cry whenever that can't shoot four rounds in the sixties.

Having said that, however, I also say screw the USGA people who insist that the Open be a "difficult test of golf".  I, for one, do not particularly enjoy watching the best players in the world kick it round the course shooting seven or eight over par in any given round.

Finally, the winner.....

Let's hear it for Brooks Koepka, who has won the Open for the second consecutive year, a feat that had not been accomplished in twenty-nine years.  Between Mickelson and the set up of the golf course, Koepka's considerable accomplishment seemed to be a footnote to the entire weekend, and that's a shame.

When Bob Met KJ, or Littles Meeting Littles

If you are a regular listener of the Tony Kornheiser Show Podcast, you will appreciate this story about the connective tissue of the show.  If you do not listen and are unfamiliar with the show, this story may not mean much, or even anything, to you, but it's a pretty cool story anyway.

Last night, Marilyn and I were at PNC Park to watch the Pirates play the Brewers.  It was also Robert Morris University Night, and Colonials rooters received a very cool Pirates hat in RMU colors with the school logo on the side.  Well, the game never started and we sat through a torrential - and I do mean torrential - rain delay.  To entertain the fans during the rain, the Pirates were showing the telecast of the Nationals-Orioles game on the jumbotron, and I made a note of that on a Facebook page devoted to fans of the TK Podcast.

A few minutes later, an attractive young blonde woman  wearing a Minnesota Twins windbreaker and cap walked through the row ahead of where we were sitting (it was an empty row), stopped in front of me, looked me in the eye, and said "La Cheeserie".  As listeners to the show can attest, this immediately identified her as a listener to the Kornheiser Pod, one of the legion of TK's "Loyal Littles".  But this was not just any Little.  When I returned the greeting and reached out to shake her hand, she said "I'm Kirstin Ohnstad".   Again, if you listen too the show, you know Kirstin, or KJ, as a contributor to the show, one of the many talented regulars who provide the often deprecating and always entertaining jingles to every show.  She had seen my Facebook post, looked up a picture of me, and saw that she was sitting only one section over from where Marilyn and I were sitting.

KJ and Me

Kirstin and her wife were traveling from their home in Minnesota to Washington DC for the annual "TK Jinglefest" that will be held in Washington this weekend.  Along the way, they were catching ballgames in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.  It may seem silly to you as you read this, but I can't tell you how cool it was to connect with someone in this fashion.  Marilyn and I spent a delightful hour or so chatting with Kirstin and Mandy.  They could not have been nicer.   In retrospect, the rain delay ended up being way better than the ballgame - it was eventually postponed - probably would have ended up  being.

Kornheiser often talks about the "connective tissue" that has developed among his listeners all across the country and beyond.  This was evidence of it.   It is always a pleasure to make new friends, especially in a manner such as this.

LA CHEESERIE, indeed!!!

Kwickie Commentaries

The Grandstander recommends a movie and two books for you.....

"Ocean's 8" follows a familiar formula, a caper theme along the lines of a the recent "Ocean's 11" George Clooney flicks, only this time, it's an all female cast with Sandra Bullock playing Debbie Ocean, Danny's sister, who has recently been sprung from jail and calls on a crew of other great looking dames to pull of a monumental heist.

Derivative and unoriginal?  Maybe, but also very stylish, great to look at, entertaining and just a lot of fun to watch. Bullock's crew consists of Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Sarah Paulson, and Rhianna.  Also, Anne Hathaway does a great turn as the dupe in the entire caper. 

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Summer vacations and beach and pool time looms ahead.  Here's two great reads for you.....

"Twisted Prey" is the twenty-eight novel in John Sandford's series featuring Lucas Davenport.  Formerly a detective with the Minnesota state police, this is the third novel where Lucas is in his new role as US Marshall.  An old foe of Lucas' appears in the novel that features an attempted political assassination, scarier than hell para-military types, the aforementioned past foe, and all sorts of political treachery.  

You might think that after twenty-eight novels a series like this would lose its steam, but Sandford and Davenport show no signs of needing to be out to pasture.

Three and one-half stars form The Grandstander.

Peter Swanson writes stand-alone thrillers, usually with a New England setting. In "All The Beautiful Lies", a young man, Harry, who is about to graduate from college in Connecticut, is called home to the Maine coast because of the accidental death of his father.  Harry must overcome his feelings of loss, while dealing with his sexy step-mother, Alice (only thirteen years older than he!), and a mysterious and beautiful young woman who shows up at his Dad's funeral.  

The chapters of the book alternate between "Now" as Harry deals with the death of his father, including the revelation that his death might not have been accidental, and "Then" where we are told of Alice and her upbringing, including a rather skeevy relationship with HER step-father, and how she came to meet and marry Harry's father.

Thrilling and suspenseful and fast read.  I finished it in two days.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.