Athletes Who Lost Their Lives in Military Service

Athletes who lost their lives in military service include NFL safety Pat Tillman, killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004, and baseball’s Eddie Grant, the only former major leaguer killed in World War I. Across the Atlantic, footballers such as Walter Tull and Donald Bell and cricketers including Colin Blythe and Hedley Verity died in the two World Wars. This list remembers them.

Why these athletes are remembered

Every name here left a professional sporting career to serve, and most left at or near their peak. What makes their stories endure is the choice: men who could have stayed on the field instead enlisted, and did not come home. The details below are drawn from war-graves records, official military reviews and established biographies. Where accounts differ, this article says so, because a respectful tribute begins with getting the facts right.

Pat Tillman, the NFL safety who enlisted after 9/11

Pat Tillman was a hard-hitting safety for the Arizona Cardinals who, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, walked away from a professional football contract to join the U.S. Army Rangers with his brother Kevin. He deployed to Iraq and then to Afghanistan. On 22 April 2004, Tillman was killed during a firefight in the mountainous Khost Province near the Pakistan border.

The Army first reported that he had died under enemy fire, but roughly a month later told his family the death was caused by friendly fire amid confusion after a vehicle breakdown. A 2007 review censured a retired three-star general over the handling of the case. Tillman was posthumously awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart, and the Pat Tillman Foundation continues to fund scholarships in his name.

Eddie Grant and baseball’s World War I loss

Eddie Grant was a Harvard-educated third baseman who played a decade in the majors, most notably for John McGraw’s New York Giants, before retiring in 1915. When the United States entered World War I, he enlisted and served as a captain with the 307th Infantry Regiment of the 77th Division. During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, with his senior officers killed or wounded, Grant took command during the effort to reach the trapped “Lost Battalion.”

An exploding shell killed him on 5 October 1918, and he was buried at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France. He is recognised as the only former major league player killed in action in the war. In 1921 a memorial plaque to Grant was unveiled in the center field of the Polo Grounds.

Christy Mathewson and the disputed gas story

Christy Mathewson, one of baseball’s greatest pitchers and an original Hall of Fame inductee, joined the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service in 1918 alongside figures such as Ty Cobb and Branch Rickey. Unlike Grant, Mathewson survived the war, but he was exposed to gas while demonstrating gas shells to trainees. He died of tuberculosis on 7 October 1925 at age 45.

For decades the two facts were tied together as a single tragedy: that wartime gassing weakened his lungs and led to his death. Historians now treat that link with caution, since the most dramatic account came from a later, unreliable source. He is remembered here for his service, though the exact role of gas in his death remains uncertain as of 2026.

British footballers who fell in the World Wars

English football lost many players to the World Wars, and several are honored to this day:

• Walter Tull — One of the first Black outfield players in England’s top flight, with Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town, and one of the British Army’s first Black combat officers. He was killed in northern France on 25 March 1918; his body was never recovered and his name is on the Arras Memorial.
• Donald Simpson Bell — A defender who had signed for Bradford (Park Avenue) and is recognised as the only English professional footballer awarded the Victoria Cross. He earned it for storming a machine-gun position on the Somme, then was killed on 10 July 1916 near Contalmaison. His VC is held by the National Football Museum.
• Sandy Turnbull — A Scottish forward who won honors with both Manchester City and Manchester United. He was killed during the Battle of Arras on 3 May 1917, aged 32, and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial.

Cricketers lost in the World Wars

Cricket, too, sent its players to war and lost some of its finest. Kent’s Colin Blythe, widely rated among the greatest bowlers of his generation and one of a small group to take 2,000 first-class wickets, was killed at the Second Battle of Passchendaele on 8 November 1917. His county teammate Kenneth Hutchings, a dashing batsman who had played Test cricket for England, was killed on the Somme in 1916.

In the Second World War, Hedley Verity, the Yorkshire and England left-arm spinner, was the most prominent cricketing casualty. He was wounded leading his men during the Eighth Army’s advance in Sicily and died as a prisoner of war in Italy on 31 July 1943, aged 38. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains records of these and many lesser-known cricketers who died in service.

At-a-glance: fallen athletes

Athlete	Sport	Conflict	Died
Pat Tillman	American football (NFL)	War in Afghanistan	22 April 2004
Eddie Grant	Baseball (MLB)	World War I	5 October 1918
Christy Mathewson	Baseball (MLB)	World War I (service; disputed cause)	7 October 1925
Walter Tull	Football (soccer)	World War I	25 March 1918
Donald Bell VC	Football (soccer)	World War I	10 July 1916
Sandy Turnbull	Football (soccer)	World War I	3 May 1917
Colin Blythe	Cricket	World War I	8 November 1917
Kenneth Hutchings	Cricket	World War I	3 September 1916
Hedley Verity	Cricket	World War II	31 July 1943

How they are honored today

More than a century after the World Wars, the memory of these athletes is kept alive in tangible ways. Donald Bell’s Victoria Cross sits in the National Football Museum in Manchester; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission tends the graves and memorials of Blythe, Tull, Turnbull and thousands of others. In baseball, Eddie Grant’s story is retold each Memorial Day, and the Pat Tillman Foundation carries his name forward through scholarships for service members and their families.

The list is far from complete, and research continues to add names once forgotten. What unites them is simple: they were athletes first, then soldiers, and gave up the game for something they judged to matter more. Remembering them accurately, without embellishment, is the most fitting tribute this page can offer.