Pitching to the Pennant: The 1954 Cleveland Indians ed. by Joseph Wancho

Abstract

Reviewed by: Pitching to the Pennant: The 1954 Cleveland Indians ed. by Joseph Wancho Russ Crawford Joseph Wancho, ed., Pitching to the Pennant: The 1954 Cleveland Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. 352 pp. $26.95. From the American League’s leading hitter Bobby Avila to reserve outfielder Wally Westlake, Pitching to the Pennant: The 1954 Cleveland Indians provides biographies of the personnel who made the 1954 season a memorable one for the Indians. Few, other than hard core baseball fans or Indians devotees, might remember that Cleveland finished the season with 111 wins, an American League record that stood until the New York Yankees won 114 in 1998. However, nearly everyone who has ever heard of baseball is familiar with “The Catch” that Willie Mays of the New York Giants made on a long fly ball by Vic Wertz in the first game of the World Series. Many credit Mays’ incredible feat with changing the nature of the series that year, leading to a Giant upset sweep of the Cleveland team that featured league leaders in home runs, batting average, and RBIs. As the title suggests, the Indians pitching was no less stellar, with a staff that included two twenty-game winners, and another who won nineteen while leading the league in ERA. Long before the Save became an official statistic, their bullpen featured two accomplished closers. The 1954 Indians seemingly had it all, but came away without a single win in the series, finishing second to yet another New York team. The volume is the latest edition of the University of Nebraska Press’s Memorable Teams in Baseball History series, and the authors of the sixty-two entries in the collection, who are members of the Society of American [End Page 74] Baseball Research, have done a creditable job of providing biographies of the men who made the 1954 Indians memorable. While the biographical essays vary in length and quality, for the most part this work succeeds in its goal of telling the story of the men who accomplished so much. These are not, however, hard-hitting, tear-down-the-clubhouse-door biographies. They largely emphasize the positive, celebrating the lives and accomplishments of their subjects. Some are rigorously cited, while others have few notes. What makes Pitching to the Pennant a pleasant and interesting read are the stories. Many are well known, such as the circumstances surrounding May’s miraculous catch. There have been thousands of words written, spoken, and recorded concerning that single, albeit spectacular play. Lesser known but still compelling stories told or retold in the work include the history of Mickey Grasso, the only one of eight World War II POWs to play in a World Series. Grasso, a reserve catcher, was captured by the Germans in North Africa in 1943, and spent more than two years in captivity before escaping near the end of the war. His interactions with his German captors reportedly left him with a strong dislike for authority, which led to his being ejected from twenty-three games while playing for the minor league Seattle Rainiers in 1949. Once he was even allegedly tossed because the umpire could tell what the catcher was thinking (236). As the first African American in the American League, Larry Doby faced the same challenges as Jackie Robinson, but received much less attention for being a pioneer. His story is told here, but also lost in the momentous story of MLB’s integration is that other leagues had their own integration stories. Dave Hoskins, who pitched sparingly for the Indians in 1954, was the first African American to play in the AA Texas League. No movies have chronicled his life, and academic treatments of his career do not fill the shelves. Nevertheless, the experiences he had playing for the 1952 Dallas Eagles and earlier at Grand Rapids and Dayton of the Class A Central League were as extreme as anything Robinson or Roby faced. There are numerous other amusing, appalling, or instructive anecdotes that fill the pages of the work. We are reminded, for instance, that Hall of Fame pitcher Hal Newhouser had difficulty controlling his temper. After being pulled from one game, he...