There's a movie waiting to be made about Major League Baseball player, Bert Shepard, who died the other day at 87.

He'd been a fighter-bomber pilot shot down while on a mission to destroy Nazi oil refineries in Romania during World War II. He was taken prisoner and his right leg had to be amputated. Actually the doctor who pulled him from the wreckage of his P-38 lightning saved him from local farmers who'd surrounded him, armed with pitchforks. Then, a P.O.W. with an artificial leg, he was returned to the States in a prisoner of war exchange while the war continued to rage in Europe.

And after the war, he returned to his first love…baseball.

And on Aug. 4, 1945, while still a Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps (which later became the U.S. Air Force) he pitched against my team, the Boston Red Sox. He'd been a pitcher and first baseman in the low minors for the White Sox, but never dreamed that he'd make it to the majors, albeit for one game, and on the mound however, he did pitch five innings. Shepard, later went on to work for IBM and in 1993, the weekly show "This Week in Baseball," produced by MLB, found the German doctor who'd save Shepard’s life during W.W.II and they were reunited. During the reunion, the doctor saw Shepard’s historic game on tape and as I recall it was an extremely touching reunion.

Actor, Jimmy Stewart played Monty Stratton in the 1944 film "The Stratton Story. Which, was about the pitcher whose leg was amputated after he'd accidentally shot himself, but who then returned to pitch minor league ball. But, Shepard was the only man with one leg to pitch in the majors.

O.K. budding screenwriters, there's the story. Now get to work!