This recently published book tells the story of the 1948 World Series Champion Cleveland Indians, and it tells it through the prism of four men instrumental in that triumph....team owner and baseball maverick Bill Veeck, pitcher and Cleveland idol Bob Feller, outfielder Larry Doby, and legendary pitcher Satchel Paige. Not coincidentally, all four of these men are members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Signed by owner Bill Veeck midway through the 1947 season, Doby became the first Black player in the American League, three months after Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color line for the Brooklyn Dodgers. While Robinson's story is well known, and deservedly so, Doby's story as a trailblazer is lesser known, but it is every bit as harrowing and heroic as was Robinson's. This book is well worth reading only to learn of the trials and travails that faced Larry Doby.
When I was given this book as an Easter gift (Thanks, George!) I was really interested to see how the book would portray Feller. If you are steeped in baseball history, you probably know his story. Coming straight out of the corn fields of a farm in Van Meter, Iowa, Feller debuted with the Indians in 1936 at the age of 17 with a fast ball the likes of which no one had ever seen. By the age of 22, Feller had notched three 20+ win seasons in six years. Then World War II came along, Feller enlisted in the Navy, served with distinction in combat in the Pacific Theater, and lost three prime years in his career. He retired from baseball in 1956 with 266 wins, and the question of "How many wins would ol' Rapid Robert have piled up if he hadn't lost three prime years of his career to military service?" became a major part of the Feller Narrative. It could also be noted that no one brought up that question over the years more than Feller himself, but I digress.
Life circumstances found me living in Cleveland for four years during the mid-1970's, and if you followed baseball, you sure heard a lot from and about Bob Feller. He was revered in Cleveland, and deservedly so, much like Roberto Clemente and Bill Mazeroski are in Pittsburgh. However, every story I would read about Feller during those years, every interview I would hear him give, he came across as an extremely bitter guy. "These guys today make too damn much money"...."Marvin Miller has ruined the game of baseball"...."If it wasn't for the War, I'd have won more games than Warren Spahn." This was the gospel according to Bob Feller. And if you dug down deeper, you would learn that Feller's attitude towards and acceptance of Black ballplayers as the game was being integrated was far from enlightened.
So would we get the standard hagiography from author Epplin about Feller in this one? Simple answer: Nope. The book gives a pretty unvarnished look at Feller.
As the War drew to a close, Feller asked for and received an early discharge from the Navy so he could come back to the Indians and begin getting back some of the money that he had lost. He pitched in nine games and went 5-3 in 1945, and then embarked on a barnstorming tour across America with all-star teams, white major league players playing teams of all-stars from the Negro Leagues, whose main drawing card was Satchel Paige. Much of the 1946 season, when he went 26-15, was spent planning his most elaborate barnstorming tour ever. His Feller All-Stars visited more cities, traveled by airplanes (unheard of prior to that) and made more money that any other barnstorming tour. Feller was reported to have earned over $80,000 from the tour alone that year, more money than any other player in the majors. So it seems that Feller, who came to decry the large salaries reaped by players in the free agency era of the game, was actually way ahead of the game when it came to realizing how to squeeze the most bucks out of the marketplace. That doesn't make him a sinner, but it does make him a bit of a hypocrite.
The Negro Leaguers on the tour received a smaller share of the proceeds than their white counterparts, not surprisingly, but most of the Black players didn't hold it against Feller, since they were making more money than they ever had as a result of these tours. Some players, though, did feel that the books were being cooked against them. Paige himself brought a lawsuit against Feller to reclaim funds he felt that he was owed. The suit was settled out of court, and it must have been interesting when Paige joined the Indians in 1948 and became Feller's teammate.
A story was also told about how Feller brought a souvenir back with him from the war: a high-powered military telescope that the Indians used to steal signs while stationed in the Municipal Stadium scoreboard. Feller never denied doing it, and in fact, bragged about it, and felt that it was perfectly okay to do so. No word as to whether the Indians banged on garage cans to relay the signals to their batters.
The 1948 pennant race became a bittersweet year for Feller. At the age of 29, and despite a 19-15 season, Feller had "lost it" a bit, and was no longer the dominating pitcher he once was. He lost a game on the last weekend of the season that would have clinched the pennant of the Indians, lost the opening game of the World Series, despite pitching brilliantly, and with a chance to close out the Series in Game Five, he got rocked by the Braves and knocked out of the game in the seventh inning. Cleveland won the Series the next day in Game Six, and in the locker room afterwards, Feller was subdued and withdrawn, more disappointed in his own shortcomings in the Series than he was happy for the team's Championship. So much for being a good teammate.
In focusing on Feller in this essay, I am leaving out the narratives in the book about Veeck, Paige, and especially Doby. The backgrounds and the stories told of each of these men and their contributions to the '48 Indians are equally as compelling as the Feller tales, if not more so, in this book, and they make for great reading.
"Our Team" gets Three Stars from The Grandstander.
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