First Lieutenant Harry Mink O’Neill, USMC (May 8, 1917-March 6, 1945)
More known for his football prowess at Gettysburg College, Harry O’Neill a contract instead with the Philadelphia Athletics after graduation in 1939.
Brought up right away to the big leagues as a third catcher, O’Neill got into one game as a late-inning replacement the entire season. On July 23, O’Neill replaced starting catcher Frankie Hayes in the eighth inning of a 16-3 blowout loss at Navin Field to the Detroit Tigers. He never reached the plate with a bat in hand and never caught a strike three.
For 1940, O’Neill caught 16 games for the Harrisburg Senators of the Interstate League, a Pittsburgh Pirates affiliate before calling it a career. A football center, O’Neill, as told by Baseball’s Greatest Sacrifices, coached high school football and played semi-pro basketball before joining the Marines in 1942.
Sent to Quantico, Virginia for Officer’s Training School, O’Neill graduated as a second lieutenant. From there, he was assigned to the 4th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. O’Neill was deployed into combat in January 1944 as part of the 25th Weapons Company. Wounded in action June 16 at Saipan taking a shell in the arm, O’Neill rested on a hospital ship before rejoining his division in late July.
The fighting in the Pacific was brutal. Close hand-to-hand combat as the Allied Forces met heavy fighting from the Japanese at each island. As the forces moved closer and closer to the Japanese home islands, the fighting became more and more ferocious. Part of a squadron landing on Iwo Jima in February 1945, O’Neill’s company would be bogged down in the fiercest fighting yet. On March 6, after a stalemate of a month, O’Neill was killed by a sniper.
Buried now at Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, O’Neill was the second and last Major League player to die in World War II.
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