A Look at the 1948 Cleveland Indians

Those who have read a lot of my sports stories know that I've written about some memorable Stanley Cup championship runs in the NHL. With MLB in the second half of this season, I felt that it's time to write about a few notable World Series runs, and I may as well start with this one, because I don't think I'll have any chances to talk about this franchise. The name may have changed (and for the better), but one thing--unfortunately--hasn't changed: this team is immensely hard luck.

One of the original American League franchises from 1901, the Cleveland Indians/Guardians have been suffering a lot from the get-go. It wouldn't be until Year #20 that Cleveland would finally win the World Series, but it would be a long and arduous road for the franchise. In the 27 seasons that followed, Cleveland only finished in second place three times, though the 1947 season was not one of those times.

Here's why I mentioned 1947:

On April 15, 1947, history was made when Jack Roosevelt Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier and became part of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Just under three months later on July 5, Lawrence Eugene Doby became the second Black player in MLB, joining the Cleveland Indians, breaking the American League's color barrier. Doby played 13 seasons in MLB, spending his entire career in the Junior Circuit, mostly with Cleveland and also being part of the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox. In his MLB career, Doby hit .288, accumulated 273 home runs, and drove in 1,099 runs. Regarding the 1948 season, Doby played 121 games, hit .301, sent 14 balls out of the park, and drove in 66 runs.

Doby was one of three Cleveland players to hit .300, the others were Dale Mitchell and Lou Boudreau, the latter leading the team with a .355 average. Joe Gordon led the team in HRs (32) and RBI (124) in 1948, and regarding the rotation, they were led by the 1-2-3 punch of Bob Gordon, Bob Feller, and Gene Bearden, winning a combined 59 games that season. Bearden was the ERA leader (2.43), while Feller's 164 strikeouts led the team.

After 154 games, the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox finished atop the American League standings at 96-58, and even crazier than that, the season series was tied as well: 11 wins aside for each team. As baseball fans know, between 1903 and 1968, the pennant is won by finishing in first place in each league. In the event of a tie in the standings, tiebreakers are played, but each league had different tiebreaker formats. In the National League, the tiebreaker was decided in a best-of-three series. In the American League, the tiebreaker is a single game. The American League's only tiebreaker in this era took place in Fenway Park in Boston, and that game saw the Indians victorious, 8-3, behind a pair of home runs by Boudreau. Cleveland also finished 2.5 games ahead the 1947 World Champions, the New York Yankees.

Cleveland's victory prevented what would have been MLB's first all-Boston World Series, as the Boston Braves won the National League pennant by 2.5 games over the second place St. Louis Cardinals (who were two years removed from winning the World Series). 1948's Fall Classic was the second to air on TV, airing on all four of the TV networks: NBC, CBS, ABC, and the long-defunct DuMont station. The Braves had the home-field advantage, and they took Game One, 1-0, at home, but would fall, 4-1, in Game Two. The next three games took place in Cleveland, with the Indians winning Games Three and Four by scores of 2-0 and 2-1, respectively. Game Four saw Larry Doby hit what would be his only World Series home run; a solo shot in the 3rd inning. Game Five was Cleveland's chance to clinch the Series, but the Braves blasted them, 11-5, to force a trip back to Boston, but that trip would see Cleveland win, 4-3, to win their 2nd World Series Championship.

The Cleveland Indians clinched their second championship on October 11, 1948, and nearly three-quarters of a century later, it remains their last World Series crown. They returned to the World Series six years later in 1954, but were defeated by the New York Giants, and that would be their last pennant until 1995, which saw them lose to the now-Atlanta Braves. Cleveland would lose another Fall Classic in 1997, this time to a Florida Marlins team who was in their fifth season, and then there's 2016. In that year, the Indians reached the World Series and led 3-1, but they ended up losing the next three games, with two of them being in Cleveland. The team who defeated them: the Chicago Cubs, who won their first championship in 108 years! As a result, the now-named Guardians have the longest current championship drought in baseball, and the second-longest in sports, with only the NFL's Arizona Cardinals having a longer drought (by one year).

Regarding Larry Doby, he was inducted in the Hall of Fame on March 3, 1998, and five years later, Doby passed away at the age of 79. The team was also the first to have two Black players, as the legendary Leroy "Satchel" Paige began his MLB career with the Indians. Paige became the first Black pitcher to appear in a World Series game, making his appearance in Game Five and pitching 2/3 of an inning. Paige was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971, and passed away on June 8, 1982 at the age of 75.

As I said before, overall, the Cleveland Indians/Guardians have been a hard luck team, but even so, their 1948 championship remains the stuff of legends. They won a tiebreaker to win the pennant, and won an evenly contested World Series--the first to feature an overall tie in runs (each team scored 17 total runs). Time will tell if Cleveland's long drought will be over, if the current iteration keeps their talented players and adds on, well, Cleveland could have a celebration that is, at least, 75 years in the making.