Dear Indians,
Please don’t break my heart again. I was almost healed. I had covered up the wounds with layers of busy years and baseball apathy. Better things to do than squander time and emotional energy on a game soiled by steroids, excessive salaries, free agents and tedium.
Aug. 28, 1959. I was 12 years old. My father, no great sports fan, bought cheap tickets to the first game of a four-game weekend series — my beloved Cleveland Indians vs. the Chicago White Sox. I didn’t get to go to many games in those days, but you could wait at the tunnel exit after games and get autographs and talk with players. Trades were infrequent, so a kid felt like he really knew the team. They and we were loyal, or at least it felt that way until the evil Frank Lane traded Rocky Colavito less than a year later. I don’t know if kids are fans in the same way these days. I knew every player’s batting average, home runs, doubles, triples, steals, ERA.
I took my transistor radio and baseball glove to bed and hid under the covers to record in my scorebook by flashlight. I still love the smell of neatsfoot oil. I listened to Jimmy Dudley do play-by-play in a way that brought every game to life just like a great novel lives in your imagination. I ate breakfast every day reading box scores in the Plain Dealer. Even now, all these years later, if I look at the major league standings a faint taste of Corn Flakes is aroused. In those years I read Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News every week, cover to cover.
Cleveland Municipal Stadium, a cavernous old-fashioned ballpark on the edge of Lake Erie, was a holy site. I remember my first game like it was yesterday, stepping from the dark tunnel into the glorious light, the perfect emerald grass, the crack of wood during batting practice. No gussied-up corporate boxes or Sushi. Just hot dogs, good mustard and peanuts.
On Aug. 28, as I recall, the Tribe trailed the White Sox by 2½ games. A four-game sweep would put us on top and the remainder of the schedule looked easy. The White Sox were our only close competitor and we were going to put their lights out. Vic Power at first. Tito Francona, Minnie Minoso and Rocky Colavito in the outfield. Woody Held at shortstop. Jack Harshman on the mound with the iconic Mudcat Grant in the bullpen. I was sure it was the greatest team ever assembled. There were 70,398 of us who knew our guys wouldn’t let us down.
Game tied 3-3 in the top of the seventh. Mudcat had come on in relief in the 6th and they couldn’t touch him. 1,2,3. I wasn’t even worried.
And then it happened. Mudcat was shellacked. Single, single, home run, wild pitch. Just like that it was over. Bobby Locke came in and stopped the bleeding, but the score was and remained 7-3.
They never recovered. I never recovered. The rest of the weekend series was a blood bath. Swept by the White Sox, the Tribe limped to the end of the season, humiliated.
In 1959, there was no history of despair. We hated the Yankees, but ’48 was still a recent triumph and ’54 was just a temporary setback. But after that game – that four-game series — I just never cared again. For 57 years I have not cared much. A few times since the Indians contended — even made it to the World Series twice in the ’90s — but I didn’t let myself care. Good thing I had calluses. They lost both times and I didn’t lose an hour of sleep.
I’m ready to risk my heart again. Maybe it’s because Terry Francona is managing. Terry is Tito Francona’s boy. It seems fitting that my boyhood hero’s boy will make things right. It has to be fate. Tito went 0 for 4 on that dreadful August night.
I’m going to watch it all. I don’t care that Cubs fans have suffered too. They should suffer. It’s Chicago, after all. I owe them nothing, even if they’re not the White Sox. I’ll take my revenge against the whole damn city.
I’ll ignore the gaudy corporate boxes and insurance company logos. I’ll put aside the unease I have looking at Chief Wahoo and the waves of guilt I feel about cultural appropriation and stereotypes. I’ll let myself drift back 57 years and feel the anticipation. As I write, the series is tied, 1-1. I know the Indians will win. I can feel it in my bones. It is the greatest team ever assembled.
And then, when they charge the mound as World Champions, I’ll sit in my chair, pump my fist and know the world is right again.
Steve Nelson lives in Sharon and New York City, where he is the head of the Calhoun School, a private school. He can be reached at steve.nelson@calhoun.org.