Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball

by Luke Epplin

Overview

A riveting tale of trailblazers who reshaped baseball and a nation: Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige, united on the 1940s Cleveland Indians.

In July 1947, mere months after Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Larry Doby followed suit on the Cleveland Indians. Though initially struggling, Doby's 1948 transformation from benchwarmer to superstar ignited one of the most remarkable seasons in baseball history.

With intimate detail, Luke Epplin's Our Team traces the Cleveland Indians' integration and World Series quest through four central figures: the visionary and eccentric owner Bill Veeck; Larry Doby, the soft-spoken pioneer whose breakthrough shattered stereotypes; pitching prodigy Bob Feller, who exemplified the athlete-as-businessman; and legendary Negro Leagues pitcher Satchel Paige, whose major-league debut electrified fans nationwide.

United as the backbone of a team embodying the postwar American spirit's hopes and contradictions, this quartet captivated the nation, challenging the boundaries of what was possible in sports - and society - as they surged towards the World Series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250313805
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	03/30/2021
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Luke Epplin’s writing has appeared online in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, GQ, Slate, Salon, The Daily Beast, and The Paris Review Daily. Born and raised in rural Illinois, Luke now lives in New York City.
LUKE EPPLIN’s writing has appeared online in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, GQ, Slate, Salon, The Daily Beast, and The Paris Review Daily. Born and raised in rural Illinois, Luke now lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I Beginnings

1 The Duel 11

2 Learning to Be Alone 29

3 The Storybook Ballplayers 39

4 The Gingerbread Man 50

5 Two Sides of the Navy 58

6 No Gentleman 66

7 Tales from the South Pacific 74

Part II Breakthroughs

8 The Crossroads 91

9 Effa Manley's Dilemma 97

10 The Deal Is Closed 103

11 Exploding the Fireworks 112

12 Opposite Directions 123

13 Head-to-Head 132

14 Hands and Knees 141

15 The Promise 155

16 A New and Strange World 161

17 Closed Ranks 170

18 Fever 185

19 The Final Duel 191

Part III Frenzy

20 If I Can Stick with This Team 199

21 Under the Knife, Beyond the Axe 210

22 Enter Paige 219

23 Pandemonium 230

24 The Gingerbread Men 242

25 The Photo 257

26 Fever Dreams 273

Epilogue 287

Acknowledgments 297

Notes 301

Bibliography 365

Index 381

Editorial Reviews

"Epplin has a journalist's eye for narrative and gives a dramatic account of the season and the series." —Wall Street Journal

“If you love baseball, Our Team is a three-run walk-off homer in Game 7 of the World Series. And if you care about justice, Epplin’s book is a crucial lesson in the fight for civil rights in post-World War II Cleveland.” —Sherrod Brown, U.S. Senator from Ohio and author of Desk 88

“One of the most entertaining and important baseball books to come out in years. OUR TEAM’s Cleveland Indians of 1948 finally get the respect, the insight — the historical attention — they deserve. Think you know about baseball’s integration years? On the heels of Jackie Robinson’s breakthrough came another team beset with perhaps even more challenges and half the publicity. Luke Epplin brings all the drama, the strife, the unity and the ultimate triumph to you — with the flair of a Satchel Paige windup, the power of a Larry Doby swing, and the panache of a Bill Veeck promotion!” —Laurie Gwen Shapiro

“From sandlots to stadiums, Luke Epplin generously offers up the best seat in the stands to revisit when both America and its greatest pastime were changing. Even as the color line impacted the best Black players’ access and opportunities, Our Team is a riveting reminder of the unifying power of sports—and the compelling men who sought to change America one game at a time.” —Caseen Gaines, author of Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way

From the Publisher

2020-12-22
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.

Kirkus Reviews