pitching to the pennant

Reviewed by Amy Essington

21 august 2014 archive

Pitching to the Pennant is one of the first six books published by the University of Nebraska Press in conjunction with the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) as part of their Memorable Teams in Baseball History Series, edited by Mark Armour and Bill Nowlin. This book focuses on the Cleveland Indians of the 1954 season. Edited by Joseph Wancho, associate editors include Rick Huhn, Leonard Levin, Bill Nowlin, and Steve Johnson. In the introduction, Wancho presents the team as a remarkable, record-breaking team that has not received its deserved recognition because it lost the World Series.

Forty-two authors write about sixty-two topics. The topics, divided into chapters, include biographies of the team manager, coaches, and players, as well as month-by-month timelines. Other chapter topics include the Cleveland Stadium, the All-Star Game, which Cleveland hosted, the World Series, and personal reminiscences. Each biography includes a photograph and, for the players, statistics for the 1954 season. Each chapter includes notes and references.

In 1954, the Cleveland Indians had a record 111 wins, a record .721 winning percentage, two pitchers who won twenty-three games each, and one pitcher who won nineteen games and the ERA title. That season, the Indians lead the league in homeruns, runs batted in (RBIs), and batting average. Six players from the team would later become members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The one thing the team did not do was win the World Series. The Cleveland Indians lost to the New York Giants in four games. In the first game, fans saw the famous back-to-the-plate "catch" by Willie Mays.

The biographies of each player on the roster make up the central information about the 1954 Cleveland Indians. The first biography is of Hank Greenberg, the Indian's General Manager. A man who as a player in the 1930s and 1940s challenged anti-Semitism and received attention when he opted not to play in a World Series game on Yom Kippur. The pitchers who played a central role in the success of the team and biographies include (with wins) Early Wynn (23), Bob Lemon (23), Mike Garcia (19), Art Houtteman (15), and Bob Feller (13). Each player on the roster is included, although a chapter on the owner is not.

As a book authored by SABR members, the articles focus on the professional baseball history of each player. As part of the Memorable Teams in Baseball History Series, this book collects the details of everyone's association with the team during the 1954 season into one volume. However, rather than having a common theme of the 1954 season run through the chapters, they read separately, not really connecting the parts into a whole. The sections in the player biographies on the 1954 season are no longer than any other time during their career. Other than chapters on the All-Star Game and World Series, there are no articles that bring the individuals together as a team. The editors could have strengthened the book by including articles that pulled together topics from across the season and the team.

In 1948, Cleveland Indians' owner Bill Veeck was a pioneer in racial integration when he added African Americans Larry Doby and Satchel Paige to the team roster. The 1954 Cleveland Indians roster included five African Americans, Larry Doby, Luke Easter, Dave Hoskins, Dave Pope, Al Smith, and Puerto Rican-born José G. Santiago Guzmán. Each of the African American players was a member of the first generation of players of color who re-integrated professional baseball. The 1954 season was just eight years after Jackie Robinson integrated the National League and Larry Doby integrated the American League. With five African Americans on the 1954 roster, an article about the experience of the black players on the team could have strengthened an understanding of this record-breaking team as well as the process of integration during this period.

This well-edited and well-researched volume provides information about the record-breaking Cleveland Indians in 1954.

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