Our Team

Starred review from January 25, 2021
Sportswriter Epplin debuts with an inspirational account of the rise of the newly racially integrated 1940s Cleveland Indians, focusing on four remarkable men—players Larry Doby, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige, and team owner Bill Veeck. As Epplin follows the arc of the Indians’ 1948 season, he offers nuanced portraits of the team’s key figures. Pitcher Feller is the disciplined businessman who admires Black players, though not without a bit of patronization. Fellow pitcher Paige is larger-than-life, cocky, determined to join the Major Leagues, and resentful of his secondary status as a Black pitcher. Doby is the shy Black center fielder (and second player to break the color barrier) whose remarkable athletic skill became crucial in the team’s World Series run. Veeck, meanwhile, is characterized by his determination to integrate the American League by signing Doby and Paige. The thrilling game-by-game survey of the Indians’ roller-coaster season culminates in a rousing World Series win. Epplin’s epic saga is simultaneously a riveting drama and a searing portrait of the racism that plagued baseball for decades. This sharp and well-documented history will be a hit with baseball lovers and general interest readers alike.

January 15, 2021
A vigorous history of a little-known episode in the integration of professional sports. Jackie Robinson came first, of course, signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. For that reason, writes Epplin, "it is perhaps inevitable that the second team in Major League Baseball to integrate in the twentieth century would be overshadowed by the first." But in that season and the next, that second team, the Cleveland Indians, brought on two Black players. The first, renowned pitcher Satchel Paige, is well known today; by that time, he was already in his 40s and had been knocking around in the Negro Leagues for more than two decades, "someone who was incongruously both a major-league rookie and a baseball legend." Paige did not disappoint, striking fear in the hearts of those who faced him on the mound. The second player, Larry Doby, is less well known, but Epplin brings him vividly to life. The author provides an indelible portrait of the duo galloping across the season, giving the Indians a World Series win in 1948. In this deeply researched account, the author also chronicles the contributions of two White men: team owner Bill Veeck and pitcher Bob Feller, who once could "throw a fastball that some major leaguers deemed the swiftest they'd ever encountered." Feller had been having a bad time of it, but Indians fans flocked to Paige. Not only did Veeck integrate Cleveland stadium--at one game against the Dodgers, "one out of every six Black residents in Cleveland was in attendance"--he consistently demonstrated his skills as a showman. Quite apart from his role in bringing Black players into the game (Doby considered him a second father), Veeck also pioneered between-innings giveaways, pregame shows, postgame firework displays, and other standard tropes of modern pro baseball, contributions that have been largely unsung. Social and sports history meet capably in this eventful account, a boon for baseball fans.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 15, 2021
A feel-good sports story never goes out of style, more so in a pandemic operating amid unprecedented political turmoil, even if we've heard this story before--specifically, in 2014, with the publication of Lew Freedman's A Summer to Remember, an account of the Cleveland Indians' unlikely, magical run to the 1948 World Series title. Free-lance journalist Epplin revisits that season, while shifting his focus to two impactful Black players, one white Hall-of-Fame pitcher, and their team's owner: young Larry Doby, a stellar outfielder who'd broken the American League color barrier in 1947; the inimitable Satchel Paige, who at the age of 42 (or 52?), after decades of toiling in the Negro Leagues, cobbled together a 6-1 record just when the team needed it; legendary fireballer Bob Feller, who sometimes proved to be, among other things, all too human; and the consummate baseball showman, sage, and team owner, Bill Veeck. Add his savvy, gritty player-manager, Lou Boudreau, and a long-downtrodden fan base so utterly galvanized it would routinely fill the cavernous Municipal Stadium to its 75,000-seat capacity. Recommended for its thoughtful deep dive into the racial dynamics of the era, and for a more-relatable telling than Freedman's account.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2021

At first glance, one might wonder how the 1948 Cleveland Indians warrant a book. But then one stops to consider its cast of characters: Bill Veeck, team owner and impresario extraordinaire; Bob Feller, an Iowa farm boy whose blazing fastball elevated him to rock star status in the late 1930s and 1940s; Larry Doby, Major League Baseball's second Black player, who in many ways had a harder battle than Jackie Robinson, his predecessor; and last, but far from least, iconic Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige, who at over age 40 was finally admitted to the majors. Epplin, a veteran freelance writer, shows us how Veeck brought together these disparate parts to transform a beleaguered franchise into world champions. But he also shows that it wasn't easy: Veeck battled numerous surgeries, while constantly promoting his team even from hospital beds; Feller became a fallen star, excoriated for tending more to his money-making ventures than pitching; Doby battled the racism of fans, opponents, and his own teammates; and Paige fought both racism and aging. VERDICT Epplin has given us an entertaining account of this ball club, and we find ourselves rooting for them in the end. An enjoyable read for all sports fans.--Jim Burns, formerly with Jacksonville P.L., FL

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