Bert Shepard; amputee pitched in major leagues

Bert Shepard, who had an artificial leg, pitched 5 1/3 innings for Washington against the Boston Red Sox in August 1945. (Associated Press/file 1945)

LOS ANGELES - Bert Shepard, a pilot who lost part of his right leg in a World War II mission over Germany but returned home to pitch one game in Major League Baseball, has died. He was 87.

Mr. Shepard died in his sleep June 16 at a nursing home in Highland in San Bernardino County, his daughter Karen said.

A minor league baseball player who was born in Dana, Ind., on June 28, 1920, Mr. Shepard joined the Army Air Forces in 1942 and was stationed in England. On May 21, 1944, having flown 33 missions in P-38 fighter planes, he took off for another, hoping to be back in time to pitch for his air base team that afternoon.

But on his way back from a strafing run about 70 miles northwest of Berlin, Mr. Shepard heard radio chatter warning of enemy fire. Flying low, just above a clump of trees, he felt the first shot hit his right foot - "like a sledgehammer," he said later - and the plane soon crashed into a field.

Mr. Shepard woke up in a German hospital, where doctors had amputated his right leg several inches below the knee and treated a serious head wound.

"I pull the sheet back and there's the leg," he said in 1995. "I looked up at them and said, 'Thank you for saving my life.' "

He spent several months at a prisoner-of-war camp, where a fellow detainee made him a crude artificial leg from scrap metal.

In early 1945, back in the United States after a POW exchange, Mr. Shepard met Undersecretary of War Robert Patterson at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Asked what he wanted to do next, Shepard said that if he could not fly combat missions, he wanted to play baseball again.

"Being a left-handed pitcher and a left-handed hitter," Mr. Shepard said years later, "the right leg was the ideal one to lose."

Patterson persuaded Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators, to arrange a tryout for Mr. Shepard.

Mr. Shepard had pitched in the minors with the Chicago White Sox organization. Now, wearing a prosthetic device, he impressed the Senators enough that they signed him to the team. In between touring hospitals and visiting wounded veterans, he pitched batting practice and exhibitions and coached with the Senators.

On Aug. 4, 1945, with Washington trailing the visiting Boston Red Sox, 14-2, in the fourth inning of the second game of a doubleheader, Shepard was summoned to the mound. With the bases loaded, he struck out George "Catfish" Metkovich to end the inning, then finished the game. The Nationals lost 15-2.

Two days later, the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The war would soon be over, regular major leaguers would return from service to reclaim their roster spots, and Mr. Shepard would lose his place with the Senators, who were locked in a pennant race with the Detroit Tigers.

His line for one day of pitching in the major leagues was 5 1/3 innings, one run, three hits, one walk, and two strikeouts, for an earned-run average of 1.69.

The Senators released Mr. Shepard, although he went on to play with a team of traveling all-stars in 1946. He returned to Walter Reed for more surgery on his leg and the recovery period lasted 2 1/2 years. He played and managed in the minor leagues and semipro baseball, but his career was essentially over by his late 20s.

Mr. Shepard is believed to be the only amputee to pitch in the major leagues. Pete Gray, a one-armed outfielder who lost his limb in a childhood accident, played for the St. Louis Browns, also in 1945.

Mr. Shepard turned to selling typewriters for IBM, then became a safety engineer. He and his wife, Betty, married in 1953 and moved to Southern California. They lived in Hesperia for many years and divorced a few years ago.

He pressed for opportunities for the disabled, saying, "A handicapped person's biggest problem is a prospective employer who's made up his mind that you can't do something."

Mr. Shepard also played golf. He made a point of saying he always walked the course instead of riding a cart, and he won the National Amputee Golf Championship tournament in 1968 and 1971.

Throughout his life, Mr. Shepard maintained his optimistic view. "The guys who get bitter after some tough luck were like that in the first place. They're just making excuses," he said.

Besides his daughter, Mr. Shepard leaves another daughter; two sons; nine grandchildren; and three brothers.