As Major League Baseball’s postseason moves along, it’s worth noting that one team (Los Angeles Dodgers) is angling for a third straight World Series Championship; another (New York Yankees) was trying to add a 28th title to its trophy case; another (Atlanta Braves) was seeking its fifth crown and second this decade; another (Chicago White Sox) won its first postseason series this year since claiming the 2005 championship; three others (Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres, and Tampa Bay Rays) were trying to win their first title ever.
And then there are the Cleveland Guardians, formerly the Indians.
It has now been 78 years since Cleveland’s MLB franchise won the World Series.
To put that into proper perspective, its opponent in the 1948 World Series, the Boston Braves, have taken up residence in both Milwaukee and Atlanta since the last time Clevelanders won the final of the game of the season.
The then-Indians won the Series 4-2 and finished the deal on October 11th with a 4-3 victory thanks to an eighth-inning RBI single by first baseman Eddie Robinson off future Baseball Hall of Famer Warren Spahn, which proved the difference.
Cleveland’s Game 3 starter Gene Bearden relieved Bob Lemon in the bottom of the eighth and limited the damage to just two Boston runs, before utilizing a double play and a fly ball in the bottom of the ninth to earn just one of his two big-league saves.
A few fun facts about this last Cleveland baseball team that tasted victory:
- One of the team’s most recognizable names – maybe ever! – Bob Feller failed to win either of his two starts. Despite tossing a complete-game 2-hitter, Feller lost a Game 1 pitchers’ duel to Johnny Sain, 1-0. He was then on the wrong end of an 11-5 Game 5 shellacking in Cleveland.
- The aforementioned Game 5 still stands as the most-attended MLB postseason in a stadium built, primarily, for baseball (Cleveland Municipal Stadium). A whopping 86,288 fans packed the so-called “Mistake by the Lake” that day. The three most-attended playoff games were in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Dodgers’ temporary home, during the 1959 World Series.
- The Cleveland Indians’ President during the 1948 season was none other than Bill Veeck Jr., who later went on to own the St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox.
- In large part due to Veeck, the 1948 Indians featured the first two black players to win a major professional team championship in the United States: Larry Doby and Satchel Paige.
- The last-surviving member of the team was Robinson, who drove in the winning run in Game 6. He died October 4, 2021 at the age of 100 years old.
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