A.J. Pierzynski met Pope Leo XIV and gifted him the final out ball from Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, the game he attended.
(via aj_pierzynski_ft • IG)
82 years ago this morning, before a single American boot touched the sand at Omaha Beach, the plan was already falling apart.
The night before, Allied bombers had dropped 13,000 bombs on the German fortifications above the beach. Every single one missed. Most by miles, detonating in French farmland kilometers inland. The beach defenses were completely untouched.
Then came the tanks. 64 amphibious Sherman tanks were supposed to lead the men ashore and give them cover. Commanders launched 29 of them miles out at sea in rough conditions. 27 sank within minutes. The English Channel swallowed them whole, crews trapped inside. The infantry below would hit the beach with almost no armor support.
General Eisenhower had spent the night before writing two letters. One announcing the invasion. One accepting full blame if it failed: "Our landings have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone." He kept it folded in his pocket. He did not know yet if he would need it.
At 6:30 AM, the ramps dropped.
Company A, 116th Infantry. 230 men. Dog Green sector. They had been warned their survival chances were "very slim." They could hear it before they could even see it: machine gun rounds punching clean through the steel ramp in front of them as the boats approached shore. The Germans had pre-zeroed every gun barrel on the waterline. Bullets and shrapnel hit the ocean so thick that the water itself appeared to be boiling.
Within 10 minutes, Company A had ceased to exist as a functional military unit. Within 15 minutes, 120 men were dead or wounded. By end of day, 212 of the original 230 were casualties. Survival rate: under 8%.
Captain Lawrence Madill had his left arm nearly torn off in the opening minutes. He stayed upright. He kept screaming at his men to move forward. He was shot dead sprinting across open sand to grab ammunition for the soldiers around him. His last words were for them.
Army medic Ray Lambert dragged wounded men out of the surf under constant fire. When he stopped to help a fallen soldier, a loose landing craft ramp swung and slammed into him, crushing him and breaking his back. He kept treating men anyway.
Combat medic Charles Shay was 19 years old. When he described what the water looked like after the ramps first dropped, he said only this: "The seas were red with blood."
Bedford, Virginia. Population 3,200. The town had sent 34 of its sons in the first wave. 19 never came home, including two brothers from the same family. The highest per capita D-Day loss of any community in the United States. A town that small does not recover from a morning like that.
Sergeant Hamlett, walking wounded back across the sand hours later, described what surrounded him in every direction: "Thousands of parts of bodies lined the beach. There were floating heads, arms, legs."
By nightfall, the Allies held Omaha. Just barely. At a cost of 2,400 American casualties in a single day, most of them in the first hour, many of them in the first ten minutes.
Eisenhower crumpled his failure letter and threw it in the trash. His secretary quietly retrieved it. That crumpled piece of paper still exists today, sitting in an archive.
These men were 19, 22, 26 years old. Most had never left their home state before shipping out across the Atlantic.
Today is June 6th.
Remember them.
Rev share is reshaping college athletics. Hawkeyes like Dan Pomeroy (81BSPH) are stepping up to help build championship-caliber programs. 🙌 https://t.co/2FTnojlx0Z
SOURCE: Former @HawkeyeFootball PK Drew Stevens has been signed by the Washington Commanders as an undrafted free agent.
Stevens, a four-time All-Big Ten kicker, was initially invited to the #Commanders rookie minicamp this week, but he has now received an NFL contract.
THE MOST NFL DRAFT PICKS OF ANY ACTIVE COACH 👏
Kirk Ferentz leads all active coaches in NFL draft picks. After this year’s draft, he added 7 more, bringing his total to 101.
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