Campana, Mike

 

Mike Campana – (1985)

 

MIKE CAMPANA

As a youngster in the mid 1930’s Mike Campana rapidly advanced through the excellent city sandlot baseball program. By the time he was 16 years of age Mike had joined the Class ”A” Verhovay aggregation. Known for his defensive prowess around the infield Mike was ”sticking” the ball at a 300 average. During the off-season he quarterbacked the Lorain Ex-Hys in an Ohio semi-pro football league. The future looked rosy. But then, like so many promising Lorain athletes, Mike had to delay his progress to take time out for the war.

As a Tech Sergeant with the 327th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, Mike was one of the ”Battered Bastards of Bastogne”. While General McAuliffe was saying ”Nuts” to the Germans Mike led a platoon of men to knock out eleven German tanks. This led to a battlefield commission and two bronze stars. Fortunately he missed a Purple Heart when a machine gun salvo decimated his ammunition belt but left Mike unscathed.

While in Austria, Mike was player-manager of the service baseball team. Jack Smith of the New York Giants played with the team and insisted that Mike tryout with the Giants in 1946. Alongside Johnny Mize, Sal Maglie and Mel Ott, Mike had an excellent training camp in Miami, Fla. and the Giants offered him a contract to start with their Reading, Pa. Class A affiliate as an infielder. Already 26 years old, Mike turned them down and returned to Lorain for bigger money at U.S. Steel.

Back home Mike was quickly recruited by the local baseball and softball nines. He played softball with the Allmen Transfers of Cleveland in the Tri-State Pro League that included Dow-Chemical and the Zollner Pistons. The Cleveland ”A” Baseball League found him with the Pulaskis, one of Lorain’s finest teams. Later, Mike was in the infield for the 1952 Fatty’s State Champion fast pitch softball team.

Mike was nominated by a present Hall of Famer who wrote ”Mike played for and against and was as good as others already in the Hall of Fame.” That about sums it up!