Luke Epplin on November 30 reported to the Club on four exceptional persons of the 1948 World Series Champion Cleveland Indians.
These four compose the essence of Epplin’s recent book Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball. The four are: pitcher Bob Feller, center fielder Larry Doby, pitcher Satchel Paige, and owner Bill Veeck.
Epplin told the Club he grew up a St. Louis Cardinals fan and was researching the old St. Louis Browns team along with its owner Bill Veeck when he became intrigued with Veeck’s previous tenure as owner of the Indians. “Veeck was years and years ahead of his time,” Epplin said, “not only as an owner who could generate excitement about a baseball team but also as a man devoted to bringing talented Black athletes into the all-white (save for Jackie Robinson) Major League teams.”
Epplin spent months in a rental apartment in Cleveland in order to research the book, mainly working in the Cleveland Public Library with copies of four Cleveland newspapers and several sports magazines. Epplin also traveled the nation tracking down descendants of the four protagonists as well as persons who knew them. The depth of research and the accomplished style of the story-telling have been noted in many reviews of the book. Epplin told the Club that the film rights have already been sold and a screenwriter hired to work on a script.
Epplin said each of the four men was intriguing in his own way and each brought a different story to the 1948 Indians. Feller was a Depression-era prodigy, a Navy veteran and one of the most famous persons in America. Paige was a rare combination of exuberant personality and astonishing athlete, already a legend from the Negro leagues and the oldest “rookie” – aged 42 – ever signed by a Major League club. Doby was almost the opposite of Paige – a generation younger and restrained to the point of being shy – but a spectacular athlete and, more importantly, a patient and stalwart man who could face the difficult trials of being the first Black player in the American League. Veeck was a kind of hell-on-wheels owner who with bottomless energy, outrageous imagination, and fierce determination within two years turned a middling team into a World Series Champion – as well as flinging wide the Major League doors to African-American baseball players.
Epplin said that Cleveland sportswriters were generally kind to Veeck’s efforts at integrating baseball and to Doby in particular. He said the Cleveland fans were of like mind – the more Doby proved himself an outstanding baseball player, the more accepted and popular he became.
Persons interested in buying a signed or inscribed copy of Our Team can do so through Astoria Bookshop at Astoriabookshop.com. Alternately, you can email Luke Epplin at lepplin@gmail.com and request a signed bookplate, which he will mail free of charge for you to place in your copy.
Thanks to Club Member Tom Steich for suggesting that Luke Epplin would be an outstanding guest for the Club. Also of note: During the course of the meeting, Chuck Clinton revealed that in 1950 as a boy in Rocky River he discovered that Bob Lemon had moved in across the street; Chuck soon was cutting his lawn. Then Early Wynn and Joe Gordon moved in around the corner, leading to autographs and special visits to the ball field. In addition, Myron Belkind mentioned he was chosen by his elementary school to be among those allowed at the East Cleveland train station for greeting the 1948 players returning from Boston after its victorious World Series final game.