The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 13: On My Honor

Episode Date: April 19, 2016

They say the truth will set you free, but in this case, it was a little white lie.

This is the way I heard it. Wilson was what you might call a natural athlete. Wiery and quick. He excelled at baseball and believed his best shot at getting out of Abilene would come with a bat and glove. So when the minor league baseball teams of Central Kansas announced open tryouts, Wilson was there. With coaches and scouts, watching from the stands,

Wilson jogged out to center field and began shagging fly balls. He covered a lot of ground and impressed everyone with good speed and a reliable arm. At the plate, he was even more impressive. After crushing a few dozen line drives deep into left field and a few more over the outfield fence, Wilson was offered a contract on the spot. In his first year, he batted 355 and made zero errors. With stats like that, Wilson was on his way to the majors, maybe even to the Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, his friend David was on his way to the dairy. Like Wilson, David was a gifted athlete and looking for a way out of Abilene. But David also wanted a college education, and he knew his only hope of getting into a decent school was on an

athletic scholarship. To remain eligible, David couldn't play baseball for money. So, while Wilson was getting paid to pursue his dream on the diamond, David was surrounded by cows, hoping to hear back from a good school that needed a talented athlete. When the call finally came, it came from West Point. David got to New York as fast as he could, where, to his surprise, he was not offered a spot on the baseball team, but rather the Army's football team. David's heart was set on baseball,

but if football got him out of Abilene and into a decent school, football it was. On the admission forum, however, there was a statement that gave him pause. It read, I do hereby swear on my honor that I have never been paid to play any organized sport. David thought about Wilson and considered the consequences of doing what you love. Wilson would never be able to play college ball simply because he'd been paid a few bucks to play elsewhere. It seemed a strange and unfair policy, especially for colleges hoping to attract the best and brightest. David glanced up at the West Point Cadet Code displayed on a large banner that hung from the wall.

It read, A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do. Then David signed his name to the admission form and began one of the most storied careers in military history. Upon graduation in 1915, David was commissioned as a second lieutenant and put in charge of training tank commanders. He became friendly with a guy named George Patton. By the end of World War I, David was a major. He was accepted at Fort Leavenworth's Command and General Staff College and graduated first in his class.

He became friendly with a guy named Douglas MacArthur. By the end of the Second World War, David was organizing the Allied invasion of North Africa, overseeing the Third Army, and reporting to a guy named Harry Truman. Not bad. But what about Wilson? Did Wilson ever make it to the Hall of Fame?

Well, the details of his career are not so easy to verify, partly because there's no evidence that Wilson actually existed. According to the record books, a young man from Abilene, who called himself Wilson, played center field for a minor league team in Kansas called the Soldiers for exactly nine games. That explains why his stats were so impressive. After that, the man called Wilson vanished from existence, just as the cadet called David began playing football for West Point.

Coincidence? No. The evidence is overwhelming. West Point's most accomplished graduate played professional baseball under an assumed name, and then lied about it to the most prestigious military school in history. And all I can say is, thank God he got away with it. Think about it. If West Point had learned that David played professional baseball, they would have denied admission to the future general that organized E-Day. Had they discovered he lied on his application, they would have expelled the man who went on to win the Second World War. And had his political adversaries learned that David violated West Point's cadet code, who knows, our 34th president might have been someone other than Dwight David Eisenhower.

One thing's for sure. In the bottom of the ninth, when the chips were down, America didn't need a center fielder who could hit. We needed a general who could lead. Well, we got one, a poor kid from Kansas who really wanted to play baseball, but settled for saving the world. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. If you work in University Maintenance, Granger considers you an MVP,

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