100 Things Indians Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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100 Things Indians Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633191914 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2015 |
| Series: | 100 Things...Fans Should Know Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
100 Things Indians Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
By Zack Meisel
Triumph Books
Copyright © 2015 Zack MeiselAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63319-191-4
CHAPTER 1
The Rebirth of the Franchise
The Indians were set to host an open house at newly minted Jacobs Field on April 3, 1994, a Sunday afternoon. It snowed. The event was canceled.
It was not the most promising omen for the grand opening of a new ballpark set to happen the next day.
The Friday before Opening Day, the Indians dedicated a statue to Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller outside of Gate C, out beyond center field. A day later, the Indians and Pirates squared off in an exhibition game intended to serve as a test for ballpark operations. Fans poured into the stadium until it was packed to near capacity.
The open house was supposed to give fans who didn't have tickets to Saturday's affair a chance to explore the new building. Mother Nature, however, refused to cooperate. Fortunately for the team, Opening Day brought sunny skies, albeit with chilly temperatures. It was 48 degrees at first pitch.
"People were so excited and they were wide-eyed, their jaws dropped, smiling and thanking us," said Bob DiBiasio, Indians senior vice president of public affairs. "They were in awe that this was theirs. It was a real badge of honor for people in our town to say, 'This is mine. This is ours. I'm so proud to call this my ballpark.'"
Just how much better was Cleveland's new venue compared to old Municipal Stadium? Mark Shapiro, then the club's director of minor league operations, was overseeing the end of minor league spring training in Winter Haven, Florida, so he could not attend the opener at Jacobs Field. Instead, he and player development advisor Johnny Goryl ventured to a local Beef 'O' Brady's and requested that management find the game on TV.
"It was a major cultural shift, not just for the fans, but for us," Shapiro said. "We went from a weight room that was basically a crowbar and three sets of dumbbells in the corner of the training room to a state of the art weight room. We went from a kitchen that was one refrigerator with a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly and a loaf of bread on top of the fridge to an incredible kitchen.
"When you look at the training, the fueling, the development of our athletes, we went from prehistoric to state of the art, cutting edge. It wasn't a subtle jump. It was a dramatic jump."
And its debut received a dramatic amount of attention.
DiBiasio escorted President Bill Clinton around the ballpark that day. Clinton tossed out the ceremonial first pitch. Draped in a blue Indians windbreaker and blue Tribe hat with a red brim, he wore a light brown mitt on his right hand as he heaved a baseball down the middle to catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. Ohio Governor George Voinovich and Feller followed with ceremonial first pitches of their own.
The Indians had planned for this day. They rebuilt their roster, devoting long, trying years to developing young players. When that green talent started to blossom, they cashed in on the free-agent market and pieced together a group that they felt could contend, all right as the organization opened the doors on a brand new ballpark. The endeavor culminated in that Monday afternoon. All the hard work and pain suffered through decades of losing, the long, miserable nights at a massive, mostly empty stadium — it was all set to dissipate in favor of a new era, one Cleveland hoped would be rife with triumph and glory.
And then Seattle Mariners pitcher Randy Johnson held the Tribe hitless through the first seven innings of the first game.
Alomar finally ended Johnson's bid at an Opening Day no-hitter with a single to right field with no outs in the eighth. The base knock came after Feller, the only pitcher in major league history to toss a no-no on Opening Day, broke into the ESPN TV booth and attempted to jinx Johnson on air. Alomar's hit moved Candy Maldonado, who had walked, to second. Both runners advanced a base on a wild pitch and Manny Ramirez brought them home with a double off the wall in left field to tie the game.
The matinee extended to extra innings and both teams plated a run in the 10th. In the 11th, the Indians christened their new home with a fitting finale to its first affair. Reserve outfielder Wayne Kirby slapped a two-out single to left field off of Seattle reliever Kevin King. Eddie Murray scored from third and the Indians celebrated.
The Indians would take an immediate liking to their new residence. They won a franchise-record 18 consecutive home games from May 13–June 19 in their inaugural year at Jacobs Field. The club had the best home record in the league in 1994, at 35–16. Of course, it all began with that Monday afternoon. What a fortuitous finish and a proper culmination to everything the organization had worked toward.
"I would contend that that was the singular most important day in franchise history," DiBiasio said. "It provided us the ability to carry forward, where if this thing is not built, we're gone. There is no baseball in Cleveland."
Ballpark Firsts
Plenty of history has been made at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, where Progressive Field, then named Jabobs Field, opened in 1994. The ballpark's firsts include the following:
First pitch: President Bill Clinton on April 4, 1994
Actual pitch: Dennis Martinez on April 4, 1994
Hit: Seattle Mariners outfielder Eric Anthony, a home run, on April 4, 1994
Home run: Anthony on April 4, 1994
Hit by an Indian: Sandy Alomar on April 4, 1994
Home run by an Indian: Eddie Murray on April 7, 1994
Grand slam: Paul Sorrento on May 9, 1995
Inside-the-park home run: David Bell off of Seattle's Randy Johnson on April 15, 1998
No-hitter: Angels right-hander Ervin Santana on July 27, 2011
Triple play: Casey Blake to Asdrubal Cabrera to Victor Martinez on August 27, 2007
Unassisted triple play: Asdrubal Cabrera on May 12, 2008
CHAPTER 2A Long Time Coming
September 8, 1995, was akin to Christmas in Cleveland. Call it "Clinchmas." You know presents will reside under the tree, but it's still exciting to first spot them. The Indians knew their division title was inevitable in '95, but celebrating the capturing of the playoff berth still proved to be a joyous occasion.
The Indians won 100 games in 1995, a strike-shortened season that limited teams to 144 contests. They outscored their opponents by nearly two runs per game, finishing 14 games ahead of any other American League team and 30 games ahead of the second-best finisher in their division, the Kansas City Royals. Cleveland led the American League in runs, hits, home runs, stolen bases, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and total bases. Indians hitters struck out less frequently than any other offense, while the pitching staff's ERA was nearly a half-run better than that of any other AL staff. They issued the fewest number of free passes and recorded the third-most strikeouts.
Jason Giambi was a rookie infielder for the Oakland Athletics in 1995. They went 0–7 against the Indians that season.
"If you could go into Cleveland and play well, you knew what kind of ballclub you had," Giambi said, "because they were so good and so stacked that if you could play with them, you had a good team."
The Indians finished at least nine games over the .500 mark in each full month of the regular season. Their worst showing came in July, when they posted an 18–9 mark. They didn't slow down in August or September, when the division title was all but a guarantee. The players wanted to out-do one another. They sought bragging rights within the clubhouse. They didn't want to stop. The hunger to exceed their own standards and those of their peers drove them to new heights.
"That's why you win by 30 games," said Bob DiBiasio, Indians senior vice president of public affairs.
The Indians sat at 85–37 on September 8. They gripped a commanding 221/2-game lead in the division. That Friday evening, they hosted the Baltimore Orioles in a series-opening affair. An eager group of 41,656 — a sellout crowd, of course — filled Jacobs Field, knowing what was likely to come after nine triumphant innings. In the third inning, Omar Vizquel opened the scoring with a sacrifice fly. Eddie Murray followed three batters later with a two-run single. Cleveland coasted from there. Orel Hershiser didn't need any more backing. The back end of the Tribe bullpen — Paul Assenmacher, Julian Tavarez and Jose Mesa, who earned his 40 save — cruised through the final frames.
As Jim Thome straddled third base, waiting — for eons, seemingly — for Jeff Huson's two-out pop-up to descend from the stratosphere and fall into his glove, fans shrieked with excitement. Thome squeezed the division-clinching out in his glove, kept his left arm raised and dashed to the mob scene at the center of the diamond. Indians coaches embraced in the home dugout as fireworks exploded high above the outfield. The players dumped a cooler of Gatorade onto manager Mike Hargrove.
Radio announcer Tom Hamilton shouted: "The season of dreams has become a reality. Cleveland: You will have an October to remember!"
It marked the earliest any team in the divisional play era had clinched a postseason berth. It marked the Indians' first ticket to October in 41 years. It marked a new beginning for a franchise that had suffered through decades of ineptitude.
The team raised a flag after the game to signify its accomplishment. Kenny Lofton was granted the honor of pulling it, as Garth Brooks' "The Dance" played on the ballpark sound system, a request called in by Hargrove. It was the favorite song of Steve Olin, the Indians relief pitcher who died — along with teammate Tim Crews — in a tragic boating accident just two years earlier. As the Indians paid tribute on this momentous evening, tears streamed down the players' faces.
Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared 'neath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known that you'd ever say goodbye
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance
Upon clinching a playoff spot, the front office received congratulatory phone calls from former players, including Gary Bell, Max Alvis, Duane Kuiper, and Pat Tabler. Former Cleveland Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano wrote the team a note that read: "Wonderful job knocking the town on its ear."
"Right then, you thought, 'This is blown up,'" DiBiasio said. "Just pure joy. There is no joy in doing things by yourself. The joy comes in working as a team and achieving success. You're able to turn to your buddy and have big hugs and tears. Just, 'Wow. We did it. We're here. We're legit.'"
For former shortstop Omar Vizquel, it's a feat only appreciated more with time: "You don't realize what kind of team and what kind of teammates you have until you see it now from where we are. You look back and say, 'Wow, those guys were amazing. We had one of the greatest teams ever.'"
CHAPTER 3A Year to Remember
The Indians had everything in 1948. They had three starting pitchers with at least 19 wins: Bob Lemon (20), Gene Bearden (20), and Bob Feller (19). They had hitters who produced sparkling offensive numbers: Joe Gordon (32 home runs, 124 RBIs), Lou Boudreau (.355 average, 18 home runs, 106 RBIs), Ken Keltner (.297 average, 31 home runs, 119 RBIs), Larry Doby (.301 average, 14 home runs), and Dale Mitchell (.336 average, 204 hits).
Cleveland had three players (Boudreau, Gordon, Keltner) in the All-Star Game starting lineup and two more (Lemon, Feller) on the pitching staff. They had a player/manager (Boudreau) who also captured the American League MVP award and had plenty of motivation. Owner Bill Veeck had planned to trade Boudreau during the previous offseason before rumors swirled and overwhelming backlash convinced him to keep him. They also had a landmark midseason addition in Satchel Paige, a legend in the Negro Leagues who contributed to Cleveland's stout pitching staff down the stretch.
The Indians topped their opponents by five or more runs on 43 occasions. Tribe hurlers tossed 26 shutouts. It was a complete team, one that jockeyed with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for American League supremacy throughout the summer. The Indians spent about half the season in first place. They never held a lead larger than 31/2 games and never trailed by more than 41/2 games. Facing their most daunting deficit with only three weeks remaining in the regular season, they rattled off a pair of seven-game winning streaks in September to erase the gap.
Cleveland held a two-game lead entering the final series against the Detroit Tigers at Municipal Stadium. The Indians sent their three-headed monster of Lemon, Bearden, and Feller to the mound, but the Tigers took two of three to force the Tribe into a one-game playoff with the Red Sox. The winner would advance to the World Series to face the Boston Braves.
Bearden started the playoff game, despite twirling a complete-game shutout just two days earlier. He logged another nine innings against the Sox, as Boudreau socked a pair of home runs and the Indians proceeded to their first Fall Classic in nearly three decades with an 8–3 triumph.
The Indians captured the championship in six games, clinching the series at Braves Field. It was a series dominated by pitching; in only one game (Game 5) did either team score more than four runs. Bearden relieved Lemon in the eighth inning of Game 6 to close out the decisive victory, as the Indians recorded the second championship in franchise history.
The Funeral
When the Indians were mathematically eliminated from the pennant race in 1949, owner Bill Veeck captained a funeral for their status as world champions, acquired when they won the World Series the previous year.
They folded up the pennant flag and buried it in a coffin. Player/manager Lou Boudreau, his coaching staff and several front-office executives served as pallbearers. They placed the coffin into a hearse, which Veeck drove around the field at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The players joined in on the ceremony as the team nestled the coffin into a grave in center field.
The Indians finished the 1949 campaign with an 89–65 record, good for third place in the American League.
CHAPTER 4
Filling the Seats
On a cluster of pillars in right field reside the names and retired numbers of Bob Feller, Larry Doby, Bob Lemon, Earl Averill, Lou Boudreau, Mel Harder and Jackie Robinson. On an adjacent wall rests one other retired number, perhaps the most cherished in Indians lore. It reads: "455: The Fans."
From June 12, 1995, to April 4, 2001, Indians fans filled Jacobs Field to capacity. The club established a Major League Baseball record with 455 consecutive sellouts. It became the first team in the league to sell every ticket to every game for an entire season. It did that for five straight years.
The Red Sox eventually topped the Indians' sellout streak in 2008, but Cleveland's stretch will never be forgotten near Lake Erie. The Colorado Rockies had owned the league's longest streak, at 203 games, before the Indians bested that mark.
"The convergence of things that resulted in 455 consecutive sellouts is a miracle," said Bob DiBiasio, Indians senior vice president of public affairs. "People just don't truly understand. It never happened in the history of baseball. Not once."
On June 7, 1995, 36,363 watched the Indians top the Tigers in 10 innings on a Jim Thome walk-off home run. For nearly six years thereafter, every green seat and silver metal bench in the ballpark was occupied. Jacobs Field was a new entity, a shiny new toy in the forefront of the downtown landscape. Fans were going to flock to the building for a while anyway. Then, the realization of the team's potential began to spread.
"As that talent on the field started to be more and more evident to our fans, they started to feed off of it," said team president Mark Shapiro. "The packed houses were no longer here just to see a new ballpark. They were here to see one of the best teams in baseball in one of the nicest ballparks in baseball. It just became an incredible amount of civic pride bubbling over in a combination of what was a crown jewel building with a team that they were proud of."
The lineup included a litany of All-Star caliber players: Kenny Lofton, Carlos Baerga, Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, Sandy Alomar Jr., and Thome. Those talents boasted flamboyance, flair, and swagger, and they backed it up on the diamond. Fans lined up to partake in that powerful aura.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from 100 Things Indians Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Zack Meisel. Copyright © 2015 Zack Meisel. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Tom Hamilton,Introduction,
1. The Rebirth of the Franchise,
2. A Long Time Coming,
3. A Year to Remember,
4. Filling the Seats,
5. The Pinnacle of Heartbreak,
6. Rapid Robert,
7. Little Lake Nellie,
8. Ring the Belle,
9. Planning Ahead,
10. Ten Cent Beer Night,
11. Hometown Hero,
12. Check out Heritage Park,
13. Little O,
14. Swing and a Drive,
15. Breaking Barriers,
16. A Bug's Life,
17. Perfection,
18. The Clock Strikes 2:00 am,
19. The Catch (and the Sweep),
20. World Series Walk-Off,
21. Comeback for the Ages,
22. Bang John Adams' Drum,
23. Slim Jim,
24. The One That Wasn't,
25. The Curse of Rocky Colavito,
26. The 180-Foot Dash,
27. A Most Unfortunate Pitch,
28. A Series to Remember,
29. Hold Up,
30. In the Nick of Father Time,
31. The Dark Ages,
32. Meet Slider, Indians Mascot,
33. "Major League",
34. Comedy of Errors,
35. Taking Back Tito,
36. Handsome Lou,
37. The "SI" Jinx Strikes,
38. K-Love,
39. Visit League Park,
40. Center of the Baseball Universe,
41. Stick a Cork in It,
42. The End of an Era,
43. The First Taste of Victory,
44. Wild Wednesday,
45. Cleveland Municipal Stadium,
46. Snow-pening Day,
47. Visit the Player Statues,
48. The Quest for 200,
49. Veeck's Trek,
50. Decisions, Decisions,
51. Once in a Lifetime,
52. Pick Your Favorite Condiment in the Hot Dog Derby,
53. Grover,
54. Bye Bye, Cy,
55. Web Gem,
56. Quite Frankly,
57. Rally Alley,
58. Hard-Headed,
59. Honoring a Legend,
60. Justice for All,
61. Super Joe,
62. A Banner Season,
63. Selby vs. Rivera,
64. Great Sock-cess,
65. The Score,
66. Vote for Pedro,
67. Negotiation Tactics,
68. Kenny's Catch,
69. Carnegie and Ontario,
70. Visit Indians Spring Training,
71. Living in the Shadow,
72. Streak Snappers,
73. Friends Turned Enemies,
74. Colossal Collision,
75. Start of the Franchise,
76. Manny Being Manny,
77. Nap Time,
78. Off the Scoreboard,
79. Red to Toe,
80. Sunk by the Sun,
81. "Wow",
82. Attend Both Parts of the Battle of Ohio,
83. Sibling Rivalry,
84. Catch-22,
85. Mr. 3,000,
86. Thunderstruck,
87. No Help Needed,
88. Fifty-Fifty,
89. Experience Opening Day,
90. Dynamic Double-Play Duo,
91. Spitting Image,
92. Bizarre Bartering,
93. Mental Blauch,
94. Turning the Paige,
95. Killer Twin Killings,
96. The Art of Pitching,
97. Juan Gone,
98. Blast Off: Watch Postgame Fireworks,
99. Atta Boy, Addie,
100. Pronk's Cycle,
Sources,