(wap) (ATTN: National editors)

//Bert Shepard Dies; Amputation Didn't Stop MLB Pitcher//

By Matt Schudel

(c) 2008, The Washington Post

Bert Shepard, 87, a World War II aviator who became an inspirational figure to the country when he recovered from the partial amputation of one leg and pitched for the original Washington Nationals in 1945, died June 16 at a nursing home in Highland, Calif. A brother in Indiana said Shepard had been in relatively good health and that the cause of death was not immediately apparent.

Shepard had been a minor league baseball player before he was drafted into the Army in 1942. He signed up for flight training with the Army Air Forces and was shipped to England to pilot P-38 Lightning fighters.

During his 34th mission over Germany on May 21, 1944, Shepard's plane was hit by antiaircraft fire. He later said he felt a sledgehammer-like blow to his right ankle. He lost consciousness when a bullet struck his chin. His airplane crashed at an estimated speed of 380 mph.

He was taken to a German hospital, where his right leg was amputated below the knee. Part of a bone over his right eye was removed as a result of injuries from striking the airplane's controls.

After several months in prisoner of war camps, Shepard returned to the United States in February 1945 and was fitted for an artificial leg at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. When Secretary of War Robert Patterson asked what he wanted to do in life, Shepard said he wanted to play professional baseball. Patterson called Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Nationals, who arranged for a tryout at the team's training facility. (The ball club, popularly known as the Senators, was officially called the Nationals at the time.)

"This is the thing I dreamed about in that prison camp for months -- the day I could get back on a diamond," Shepard told The Washington Post.

As he tried to make the Nats as a left-handed pitcher and first baseman, he became an instant celebrity.

"Seldom has any athlete received so much publicity in so short a time," Post sports columnist Walter Haight wrote.

The military recognized Shepard's value as a morale builder and had him make well-publicized visits to veterans' and children's hospitals. He pitched batting for the Nationals and appeared in several exhibition games before being named to the team's active roster in July 1945.

Because so many ballplayers were in the military that year, he was one of several unlikely players in the big leagues. When the Nats played the St. Louis Browns, Shepard posed for photographs with the Browns' one-armed outfielder, Pete Gray.

On Aug. 4, 1945, Shepard finally got his chance to prove himself on the field. In the second game of a double-header with the Boston Red Sox, the Nationals were trailing 14-2 in the third inning. Manager Ossie Bluege called Shepard in from the bullpen.

He struck out the first batter he faced, George Metkovich, and pitched the rest of the game for the Nats. In 5 1/3 innings, he allowed one run on three hits. He had two strikeouts, as the Nats lost, 15-4.

It was Shepard's one moment of major league glory. The next season, the war was over, and able-bodied players were returning to action. Shepard failed to make the Nats' roster and was sent to the minor leagues.

He occasionally competed against big leaguers in exhibition games -- he struck out Stan Musial and Yogi Berra and once got a hit off Bob Feller -- and always hoped to get back to the majors.

"I don't want sympathy," he told The Post in 1947. "All I want is a chance to play."

Robert Earl Shepard was born June 28, 1920, in Dana, Ind., and grew up mostly in Clinton, Ind. He worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps during high school and hitchhiked to California when he was 17.

He worked in a tire plant while playing semiprofessional baseball, returned to Indiana for his high school diploma and then played for several years in the low minor leagues. He volunteered for pilot training during World War II, even though he'd "never been near an airplane," he said.

After his short stint with the Nationals, Shepard returned to Walter Reed in 1946 for additional surgery. Complications forced him to be on crutches for more than two years, but he returned to baseball in 1949 as a player-manager with a team in Waterbury, Conn. He continued to play in the minor leagues until 1955.

He sold typewriters for IBM for a while, then became a safety engineer for Hughes Aircraft and for insurance companies in California. He worked in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for several years and became an advocate for the rights of disabled workers. He retired in 1982.

Shepard, who settled in Hesperia, Calif., became an excellent golfer and won the national amputee golf championship in 1968 and 1971. He also designed an artificial ankle that allowed greater range of motion.

On May 21, 1993, exactly 49 years after he was shot down over Germany, Shepard went to Vienna, where he was reunited with the Austrian doctor, Ladislaus Loidl, who had amputated his leg. Loidl revealed that German farmers who came upon Shepard's crashed airplane were preparing to kill him. Loidl held them off at gunpoint until an ambulance could take Shepard to a hospital.

When he regained consciousness after two weeks, Shepard looked up at the German hospital workers and said, "Thank you for saving my life."

His marriage to Betty Shepard ended in divorce.

Survivors include four children, Karen Shepard of Los Angeles, Penny Shepard of Tulsa and Justin Shepard and Preston Shepard, both of Hesperia, Calif.; three brothers; and nine grandchildren.