The Cloudbuster Nine

In 1943,while the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were winning pennants and meeting in that year’s World Seriesone of the nation’s strongest baseball teams practiced on a skinned-out college field in the heart of North Carolina. Ted WilliamsJohnny Peskyand 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. In this spirited Field of Dreams-like father-daughter accountauthor Anne R. Keene opens with a story about her fatherJim Raughwho suited up as the team batboy and mascot. He got to know his baseball heroes personallywatching players hit the road on crampedtin-can busesdazzling factory workerskidsand service members at dozens of gamesincluding a war-bond exhibition against Babe Ruth’s team at Yankee Stadium. Jimmy followed his baseball dreams as a college All-Americanbut 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. BushGerald FordJohn GlennPaul \