Remembering Cleveland's World Series heroes

SANDUSKY — It's been a while since Cleveland baseball fans could savor a World Series triumph. As baseball fans watch the current World Series, pitting the Arizona Diamondbacks against the Texas Rangers, the number of Cleveland fans who can recall a World Series win is dwindling. October is the 75th anniversary of the team's 1948 World Series victory against the Boston Braves with the Indians downing the National League team with four victories against two losses. It was an interesting series in many ways. The Indians' stars included Larry Doby, the first Black player in the American League. Indians great Bob Feller took both of the losses, although the hall of fame pitcher was hurt by one of the worst umpiring calls in World Series history. To look back, the Register interviewed Luke Epplin, the author of the 2021 book "Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball." (The four men referenced in the book's title are Doby, Feller, team owner Bill Veeck and Black pitcher Satchel Paige.) "Our Team" is fascinating. Readers will learn, for example, that Veeck tried to buy the Philadelphia Phillies in 1942 and planned to revive the last-place team with players from the Negro Leagues. His attempt to integrate baseball years before Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 apparently failed because of the opposition of baseball's then-current commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Readers who email Epplin can get an autographed bookplate. His contact information is listed on his X account. Q: Your book was well-reviewed, and it's the only book that focuses on the 1948 World Series. Do you think any serious Cleveland baseball fan would enjoy your book? Epplin: They seem to enjoy it. Though the book culminates in the 1948 World Series, it's really about the intersection of four different people: Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, Larry Doby and Satchel Paige. These four men — two Black, two white — each represent a different facet of the integration experience happening at the time, from the progressive (Veeck) to the traditional (Feller) and to the differing viewpoints and attitudes of opposing generations in the Negro Leagues (Paige was 17 years older than Doby). It's got barnstorming and World War II battle scenes and sign stealing and the debut of Satchel Paige in the majors at age 42. And, of course, it's got plenty of Cleveland. Q: How was being a baseball fan in 1948 different from 2023? Could Indians fans at least listen to the games on the radio? Was baseball a bigger sport in those days than the NFL? Epplin: In 1948, baseball was the biggest sport in the country, and, in some ways, it was at its absolute peak. When soldiers streamed back home from World War II, one of the ways that they re-established themselves as civilians was to go to a baseball game. A ttendance records shattered across the board in 1946, not only in the major leagues but also in the Negro Leagues. It was as if so many had gone through a great trauma and now they were using baseball to heal. Those numbers stayed strong through the late 1940s, peaking in 1948 when the Cleveland Indians shattered every record across the board: day game, night game, opening day, World Series game, total attendance, etc. Bill Veeck really changed the entire feel of a baseball game. When he became owner of the Indians, he introduced bands, fireworks, wild giveaways — blocks of ice, orchids, livestock, etc. — clowns as coaches, circus acts, stuntmen, etc. He was, in essence, the father of the modern stadium experience, so fans going to Indians game in 1948 would've been entertained not only by baseball but just as fans are entertained in various non-baseball ways now, too. One guy I spoke with in his 90s told me that you could walk down a block in Cleveland in 1948 and know exactly what was happening with the Indians because all the houses were tuned in on the radio. The Indians drew more than 2.6 million fans that year, although because many tickets weren't counted, many believe that the number was at least a million more. That was the major league record at the time, and the Indians didn't come close to it until they moved out of Municipal Stadium in the 1990s. It was, basically, the height of baseball in Cleveland. Q: Obviously, Larry Doby is not as familiar a name as Jackie Robinson, but didn't Doby also face a lot of prejudice? And do the Indians deserve credit for helping to integrate the American League? Epplin:That's basically the central thesis of my book. I wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post a while back about how Major League Baseball should celebrate Larry Doby Day every July 5. The argument was that by having Jackie Robinson Day every year and telling the story of integration solely through one player, MLB, in turn, erases the other pioneers who sprouted up alongside Robinson and who had narratives and experiences that were different from his. The story of integration in baseball has become the story of Jackie Robinson, and while it's richly deserved that we should honor Robinson in this way, I think that holding a Larry Doby Day not only would allow us to honor Doby's sizable legacy as the pioneer of American League integration but also would make space for all the other pioneers who trailed in their wake, Satchel Paige chief among them. It would also give us an occasion to remember Bill Veeck, who, in many ways, was more progressive than Branch Rickey when it came to integration Veeck, for example, actually compensated the owners of Negro Leagues teams for their players. And, of course, the Indians were the first integrated team to win the World Series, so we should certainly celebrate them in the same breath as the Brooklyn Dodgers. Q: Is it true Phil Masi revealed after his death in his will that he had been picked off? Did Bob Feller arguably suffer the toughest loss ever for a World Series pitcher? (Masi scored the only run in Boston's 1-0 opening game victory. Associated Press photos appeared to show that Feller had picked off Masi. Indians fans were not pleased by the bad call). EPPLIN: When Phil Masi died, there was a series of articles about him in which several players confessed that Masi admitted he'd been out but didn't want to say so in his lifetime. I mean, it's hard to dispute the clear photographic evidence. Lou Boudreau claimed that before games he'd always talk to the umpires about the pickoff move that he and Feller had perfected, just so that they're aware it could be coming when someone was on second base. But he'd been unable to break free during the pregame ceremonies and duties that first game of the World Series, so the umpire wasn't ready for it. They probably just reflexively, called Masi safe. As for Feller, of course, it's tough to lose a game in which you allow two hits, especially one in which Red Smith said that he looked like he had the stuff to throw a no-hitter. It's doubly heartbreaking because Feller never ended up winning a World Series game in his career. Ever since he shot from the Iowa cornfields to the major leagues at age 17, he seemed destined to lead the Indians to the championship. But when it finally happened, he lost the only two games for the team. During the celebration after the World Series win, Feller was the only one who seemed subdued, a little separate from the team, as if he hadn't played his role. Q: Aren't you a New Yorker? Why did you write an "Indians book" rather than something about the Yankees or the Mets? Epplin: No, absolutely not. I would never in a million years root for or write about the Yankees. I'm from a small town outside of St. Louis, a lifelong Cardinals fan. My dad split season tickets with some friends, so I grew up going to about 10 Cardinals games or so each year. So here's how I came to the book: My grandpa, my dad's dad, was a huge fan of the St. Louis Browns. This was at a time when St. Louis had two major league teams: the Cardinals, who were usually great, and the Browns, who were always terrible. My grandpa was an odd man in that he chose the Browns. So I grew up hearing him talk about the Browns, and, of course, most of that talk revolved around the team's last owner, Bill Veeck, and the crazy stunts he pulled in St. Louis, bringing a little person to the plate, having fans manage from the grandstand, etc. So I had it in the back of my mind that Veeck would be the perfect character to center a book on — he was larger-than-life, forward-thinking, seemingly a man out of time. I researched maybe six months in the hopes of writing a book on Veeck and the Browns, and it was while researching that I read deeply about Veeck's integration of the American League. I knew nothing about Larry Doby and what he went through, and I figured that if I didn't, then probably numerous others didn't as well. All that stuff that Veeck pulled in St. Louis paled in comparison to what he accomplished in Cleveland, so I ditched my home city for Cleveland. Best decision I ever made.