The Cloudbuster Nine

The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II

De: Anne R. Keene, Claudia Williams - foreword

Narrado por: Anne R. Keene

In 1943, while the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were winning pennants and meeting in that year's World Series, one of the nation's strongest baseball teams practiced on a skinned-out college field in the heart of North Carolina. Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, and Johnny Sain were among a cadre of fighter-pilot cadets who wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

As a child, Anne Keene's father, Jim Raugh, suited up as the team bat boy and mascot. He got to know his baseball heroes personally, watching players hit the road on cramped tin-can buses, dazzling factory workers, kids, and service members at dozens of games, including a war-bond exhibition with Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium.

Jimmy followed his baseball dreams as a college All-American but was crushed later in life by a failed Major League bid with the Detroit Tigers. He would have carried this story to his grave had Anne not discovered his scrapbook from a Navy school that shaped America's greatest heroes including George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, John Glenn, and Paul "Bear" Bryant.

With the help of insights from World War II baseball veterans such as Yankees legends Dr. Bobby Brown and Eddie Robinson, the story of this remarkable team is brought to life for the first time in The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II.

©2018 Anne R. Keene (P)2018 Tantor

Great book about the little known history of baseball.

There are a few spots that are slow, but this is a great book about a part of baseball history I never knew.

Great story but kind of disjointed.

Anne got me excited about research and asking questions. She should have had someone else read the story. She undoubtedly learned a lot about baseball during this research but not enough to convince baseball nuts she was worthy. Mickey Lolick. Come on! Also she had lots of places where she wasnt familiar with her own prose…nothing wrong with doing a second take. Finally why bash your father soo harshly if you didnt give him a chance to defend his love for the game while he was alive? What a horrible eulogy! Overall I would read it again but but seek out a book about Teds full war experience first.

Good but needed narrator

This is a well written book, but I really wish I had read the hard copy. The author reads the book herself; while not bad, the book desperately needed a professional narrator.

Ted Williams the unheard story

Great to hear about a completely different of so many baseball players lives. Incredibly well researched

Disjointed

Too many characters, too many incidental facts-street addresses, dorm room #s. Just couldn’t tie it all together in to an engaging story.