Looking for ammo to take into Sports Trivia Night?  Ask your pals which Hall of Famer played in the most World Series. Yogi Berra played in 14 of them, winning ten.  It must make for an impressive handful of rings when he decides to wear them all at the same time.

It's the follow-up trivia question that brings down the house: "And how many rings could Yogi have won if he hadn't been on an amphibious boat at Normandy on D-Day?"  (Answer: the same number, because he was only an 18-year-old in the minor leagues when he joined the Navy.) 

Seaman First Class Berra was a gunnery mate in the Normandy assault on June 6, 1944.  He was aboard the Landing Craft Assault (LCA) Hedgehog, a 36-foot wooden boat, firing rockets from 300 yards offshore.

"And we did pretty good," Seaman First Class Berra recalls. "We stayed on the water for ten days.  We finally got back on the USS Bayfield, P833.  No sooner had I got in the bed, we get a general quarters order.  And I said, ‘Tough luck. I'm not getting out of this bed. I'm staying right in this bed.'  Nothing happened to us. I enjoyed it. I wasn't scared. It looked like Fourth of July - I've never seen so many planes in my life." 

First Lt. Warren Spahn won 363 ballgames in the major leagues, more than any other left-handed pitcher.  Spahn volunteered for the Army in 1942, and his boots were on the ground at the Battle of the Bulge.

"We were surrounded in the Hertgen Forest and had to fight our way out. Our feet were frozen when we went to sleep and they were frozen when we woke up.  We didn't have a change of clothes for weeks."

In March 1945, Spahn was with the 276th Engineer Combat Battalion, keeping the Ludendorff Bridge open. This was the last bridge remaining across the Rhine, and it was under relentless attack by the Nazis desperate to stop the flow into Germany. The 276th received the Distinguished Unit Emblem and for keeping the bridge operating under constant enemy fire, Staff Sgt. Spahn received a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and a battlefield commission as a Second Lieutenant.

Second Lt. Jackie Robinson, a Soldier from 1942-44, was the first nonwhite player in the major leagues. In early 1947 the Dodgers visited Cincinnati, and during the Dodgers' pre-game infield practice the fans insulted and taunted Robinson ferociously. 

Chief Petty Officer Pee Wee Reese, who had served in the Third Fleet at Hawaii and Guam, walked across the field and began a conversation with Robinson, putting his arms around Robinson's shoulders as he did. 

Reese then looked into the Cincinnati dugout and the stands beyond, at the Reds players and their fans. The crowd soon deflated and then quieted. Many observers said the moment was eerie, as a hush fell over the entire stadium. Years afterward, Robinson remarked, "After Pee Wee came over like that, I never felt alone on a baseball field again."