[LansdowneSt]

Joe Harris served with the 80th Division, 320th Infantry in World War I. Sent to France, his wartime bunkmate was Johnny Miljus, with whom he would be together again as members of the Pittsburgh Pirates team in the 1927 World Series. The first major attack the U.S. Army made was in the Argonne Woods, north of Verdun, against an enemy well placed in defensive positions in the difficult terrain thick with forest and underbrush. Although the Americans attacked with great spirit, their assault ground to a halt, and they took heavy casualties. Harris and Miljus were both gassed and Miljus was bayoneted. Later Harris suffered a cracked skull in a truck accident which limited his play in 1919 and almost ended his baseball career. This caused a permanent injury around the eye. It is not known if this affected his vision nor which eye it was but it did provoke an unusual batting stance.

Mustered out as a Sergeant when the War was over, he returned to the Indians in 1919. When the season was over, he played for an industrial team in Franklin, PA. The Indians offered him $5,000 for 1920. So did the Franklin team in the Franklin Oil City League. Harris had become enthralled with a local girl in Franklin and chose Franklin (or better said "chose" the lady in Franklin whom he later married). Judge Landis promptly banned him from baseball for life for having "played with and against ineligible players in independent games".

His application for reinstatement for 1922, however, was accepted by Landis, making him the first ballplayer to be reinstated after receiving a lifetime banishment. Landis mentioned, when he reinstated Harris, accommodation for circumstances we would call today post traumatic stress disorder.

On the facegen, the old one was from when was a manager/coach. I found a younger version of Joe on gettyimages from the '27 Pirates and redid it using that one.