Honoring Our American Heroes: U.S. Navy Commissions USS Cooperstown

"It is critical that we honor the legacy of these Hall of Famers, not just
for what they did on the field, but for what they sacrificed and what they
accomplished off the field.  Their legacy lives on with the USS Cooperstown
and with the sailors here today and in the years to come."
 -Joe Torre
Baseball Hall of Famer

Photograph courtesy/NewsMax.com.
via The Associated Press

 

This past Saturday the United States Navy commissioned the
USS Cooperstown in honor of 70 Major League Baseball Hall of Fame
players who served in the military during wartime. The littoral combat
ship is named after the village of Cooperstown in New York State
where the Baseball Hall of Fame opened in 1939.

 Joe Torre delivered remarks at the commission ceremony of the USS Cooperstown
while fellow Hall of Famer Johnny Bench presented a long, glass nautical telescope.
Joe Torre is a former player and longtime manager for the New York Yankees
who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.  Johnny Bench, who 
played catcher for the Cincinnati Reds, was selected in 1989.

According to the Hall of Fame, Bench's father and Torre's older brother
served in the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, respectively,  during World War II.

Seventy players were honored for their military service, including
 the "Georgia Peach" Detroit Tigers' centerfielder Ty Cobb, (Army, WW1); 
 New York Yankee "Joltin' Joe" DiMaggio; the man who broke the color barrier
  in major league baseball, Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson (Army, WW11);
 the Boston Red Sox's Ted Williams, (Marines, WWII and Korea); and 
Willie "Say Hey Kid" Mays, who played for the San Francisco Giants
and the New York Mets (Army, Korea).

The USS Cooperstown's motto is, appropriately, "America's Away Team".

The home base of the ship will be in Mayport, Florida.