Lew Freedman - A Summer to Remember: Bill Veeck, Lou Boudreau, Bob Feller, and the 1948 Cleveland Indians

To long-suffering Indians fans

Copyright 2014 by Lew Freedman

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Freedman, Lew.

A summer to remember : Bill Veeck, Lou Boudreau, Bob Feller, and the 1948 Cleveland Indians / Lew Freedman.

pages cm

Summary: A Summer to Remember is a fantastic look at one of the greatest teams ever to play the game, and at how everyone involved in this extraordinary season--from the players to management--made 1948 a memorable year for baseball and the city of Cleveland-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-61321-647-7 (hardback)

1. Cleveland Indians (Baseball team)--History. I. Title.

GV875.C7F74 2014

796.357640977132--dc23

2014002141

Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

T HE GREATEST BASEBALL summer in Cleveland history was brought to Indians fans by The Maverick, The Boy Wonder, The Pioneer, The Ageless Marvel, and The Good Kid.

The greatest baseball summer in Cleveland history culminated in the early autumn with one of two World Series championships in franchise history.

The greatest baseball summer in Cleveland history was a season-long festival of joy more than sixty-five years ago, yet it seems as fresh and real to fans of today as it was then. Not only was it the last time the Indians won the world championship, the 1948 team was special not only for its achievement, but for the baseball personalities that dominated the roster. It was the stuff of dreams coming truenot just for the delirious observers, but for the people who made it happen.

Since 1948 was also the last year the Cleveland Indians won the World Series, the achievement is all that much fresher because there is no more recent competing memory of equivalent pleasure. Only one other time, in 1920, have the Indians won it all. Given the passage of the better part of a century, there can be few living witnesses to recall the glory of that team. The accomplishment of the 1920 team was also marred by an incident of incredible sadness. During the course of the campaign, shortstop Ray Chapman was struck in the head by a pitched ball and died the next day. He is the only Major League player to be killed as a direct result of a play on the field.

Beyond that, the Indians who made 1948 so sweet, who crafted such a brilliant season, stand out far more as a group than the 1920 bunch. The 48 squad was a once-in-a-lifetime achiever; a confluence of circumstances never to be repeated. Some of the most colorful and popular individuals in baseball historyand certainly Cleveland Indians historywere collected on the shore of Lake Erie that summer and turned loose to create a story as dramatic and exciting as any novel.

* * *

Bill Veeck was the new owner of the Tribe; the soon-to-be labeled Maverick who had been waiting a lifetime for a chance to run a big-league ball club the way he saw fit. He had a shoebox full of ideas and when his agile mind was turned loose, he helped make the Indians the most popular team in the sports history. Playing in Clevelands gargantuan Municipal Stadium, Veeck gave the fans not only a winner, but better entertainment than could be found on Broadway or in the movies. They flocked to the stadium at a record pace.

The most beloved player in team history was no longer a Boy Wonder in 1948, but a seasoned pro. Bob Feller had proven himself to be one of the best pitchers of all time, and he was still throwing hard enough that if a batter blinked, hed missed his fastball.

Overshadowed by the explosive debut of Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Indians outfielder Larry Doby was the first African American to play in the American League, the circuits Pioneer and the second to take a Major League field during the twentieth century. Veeck believed in integrating the game and he put his wallet where his heart was in hiring Doby from the Newark Eagles.

When Veeck needed bullpen help as the season wore on and the Indians scratched to hold onto first place and fight off other contenders for the pennant, Veeck went shopping again, this time reaching out to The Ageless Marvel. That was Satchel Paige, who had been wowing batters in the Negro Leagues and against barnstorming white teams for more than twenty years already. One of the mysteries that trailed the crowd-pleasing, fireball-throwing hurler was just how old he really was: in his forties, thats for sure. It was too late for true Major League justice to be administered in the case of a past-his-prime Paige, but it was not too late, as many contended, for him to still have moments in the sun.

The manager of this extraordinary team was the extraordinary Lou Boudreau. In a position that went extinct roughly a quarter of a century ago, Boudreau was the squads player-manager. During the first half of the twentieth century, player-managers, combining the role of full-time field boss and active player, were quite common in the big leagues. The Good Kid was both the shortstop and the buck-stops-here leader of the Indians in the dugout and clubhouse. Rarely, if ever, has any single man ever combined the two demanding roles so successfully in the sports history.

Even more remarkably, despite the supreme talents of those players led by a visionary owner, one other fresh face whom almost no one in Cleveland had ever heard of before the first pitch of the 48 season in April was an even more important contributor than any of them. Rookie Gene Bearden was a supernova who would have a superb season.

And those were just the biggest names. It was a season when newcomers showing their face for the first time played cameo roles. There was drama throughout the long pennant chase as the always-dangerous and usually triumphant New York Yankees lingered on the Indians shoulders and the resurgent Boston Red Sox, riding the broad back of Ted Williams, would not fade away, either. The result was the first regular-season standings tie in American League history, necessitating a playoff game to determine the opponent for the National League champion Boston Braves.

Along the way Veeck orchestrated special fan nights, just in case a winner on the field was not enough by itself to fill the cavernous stadium. Veeck might as well have had the phrase A Good Time Was Had By All tattooed on his chest because he thought it was a sin for anyone to enter a ballpark and not leave it with a smile on his face.

There was only so much in Veecks control, however. He could not regulate the drama on the field, but if it produced a no-hitter (which it did), so be it. And if the season produced, frighteningly, almost a repeat death of an Indians player while he was at the plate, not so different from 1920, that was horrifying, but that was in Gods hands. Yes, there were times in 1948 when the Indians had to come together and rise above adversity.