Tom Benjey's Weblog

The stack of books in my office in which I am acknowledged as being a source continues to grow. Most have to do with Lone Star Dietz or Carlisle Indian School football players but the most recent sports book has nothing to do with them or football. It is a baseball book of sorts.

The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team that Helped Win World War II by Anne R. Keene includes a couple of passages on the Craighead twins and references to Glorious Times. Keene’s father, Jim Raugh, grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where, at age nine, he suited up in a Cloudbusters’ uniform as the Navy’s pre-flight training base’s baseball team’s batboy and mascot.

But his daughter didn’t learn about this until after his death. Her book is as much a story of her personal journey to uncover her father’s history as it was to tell the story of a thrown-together team of future hall-of-famers and other professionals.

Ms. Keene discovered the Craigheads in her research about the team and the training the players underwent prior to becoming pilots. Intrigued by them, she stopped by for a visit at Craighead House while she was on a book tour this summer. She also gave me some hints on writing press releases.

This week I received an acknowledgement from another author, but not of a book. This one came on the Green Bay Packers website from their team historian Cliff Christi. Ron from Appleton, Wisconsin had asked him about any Oneidas who had played for the Packers. In his response, Christi mentioned me and my book, Wisconsin’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals, as an important reference. His article can be found here: https://www.packers.com/news/packers-fan-from-ukraine-asks-about-team-s-first-coach.