‘54 Pennant Conjures Fond Memories : Baseball: Former Cleveland Indian heroes say they were among best ever despite World Series sweep.

How could they imagine that it would be this long? It was impossible. They had just won 111 games, more than any team since 1906, even with the expanded schedule. They had the pitching staff to which all modern staffs are compared. They had the batting champion, and the home run and RBI leader.

And they beat the New York Yankees, which may be at the heart of the tale. Or maybe it was the shock of being swept by the New York Giants in the World Series of Willie Mays’ catch and Dusty Rhodes’ home runs that did it.

“They talk about the ’27 Yankees,” Larry Doby said. “For one year, we had to be one of the best ever.” Doby was the slugger on that team. He had been the first black man in the American League, second to Jackie Robinson in breaking the color barrier in baseball.

“We were probably as good as any team ever assembled for one season,” said Al Rosen, who batted fourth, behind Doby. He was fired as Yankees general manager by George Steinbrenner and went on to direct Houston and San Francisco to division championships.

Doby and Rosen were honored with the ceremonial first ball while the Indians were beating the Seattle Mariners for the American League pennant. It took 41 years for the Cleveland Indians to get back to the World Series.

Doby remembers Cleveland fondly for its “humanity” to a young black man. He is special assistant to the American League president and is now permitted to root for his team. “I’m not a lying man,” he said.

Bill Veeck won with Cleveland in ’48 and then moved on to St. Louis with the Browns. He gave Doby his Robinson’s Chance in 1947, and Doby reflects that he was 8 when he lost his father and “would have hoped he’d be the same kind of man as Veeck.”

Cleveland was a thriving city with a busy downtown, and that massive stadium on the lake was cold, but full of life. It was so full of life that when George Strickland, the shortstop with the great arm, broke his jaw he was replaced by Sam Dente, who came with the slogan, “Win plenty with Dente.” And they did.

They love Puerto Rican second baseman Carlos Baerga in Cleveland today. Rosen says they should have seen Bobby Avila, the Mexican second baseman who led the league in hitting in ’54.

Rosen, in retirement in Rancho Mirage now, played third base and batted .300 with 100 RBI three years in a row, a feat not matched in the American League until Thurman Munson in 1978. Rosen was headed for the Hall of Fame, until he broke his hand playing emergency first base. It never completely healed.

They had Al Lopez managing, whom Rosen identifies as the best manager he has seen. Between 1947 and 1964 the Yankees were beaten out of the pennant three times, twice by Lopez’ teams. To Rosen and Doby, it seems their whole careers were spent chasing the Yankees. “Beating them was the ultimate goal,” Doby said.

They played the Yankees every September. One year they went into Yankee Stadium with a three-game lead: Joe DiMaggio won one game with a pinch-hit opposite-field ball off the chalk in right field; lefty Johnny Mize won the next with a slice into the glare in left field, and Phil Rizzuto won the third with the famous bunt that made Bob Lemon fling his glove into the press box.

Except for the year the Yankees won 103 and the Indians won 111. The Indians had that great pitching staff: Lemon and Early Wynn, who led the league with 23 wins; Mike Garcia, who led in earned run average; Art Houtteman and Bob Feller, whose great fastball was spent but who still had a great curve, plus Don Mossi, Ray Narleski and Hal Newhouser--lefty, righty, lefty in the bullpen.

Doby recalls that if one of the Indians was knocked down, Wynn would respond by knocking down hitters one after the other. “To me, Garcia was the guy who took care of that,” Rosen said. Most likely, it was both.

Wynn had a terrible temper. “You didn’t dare go near him the day he pitched,” Rosen said. He recalls that metal shields were put over the lights in the runway in Cleveland because Wynn would whack them all out. And there was the time a new ceiling of transluscent plastic had been put in the clubhouse, and by the time the team got up there, early-out Wynn had thrown a barrage of trash cans through it.

In the September of ’54 the Yankees came calling in Cleveland--doubleheader on Sept. 6. The crowd spread to the batter’s background in center field. In the first game, Allie Reynolds relieved Whitey Ford to pitch to Rosen, who doubled in two runs to win.

In the second game, Wally Westlake doubled home three runs and missed first base. Rosen recalls one Indian yelling for Westlake to touch first until the others jumped on top to silence him. “Everybody saw it but Joe Collins, who was following the ball.”

Attendance that day was 84,587, still the largest to see a regular-season game. And the Indians took an eight-game lead. Doby reflects that the World Series was “anticlimax.” “Maybe somebody understands that,” Doby said. The parade celebrating the clinching was 18 miles long.

In the opener of the Series, Mays made his catch on Vic Wertz, over the head, 440 feet into center in the Polo Grounds with the score, 2-2. Doby was on second and Rosen on first. Feller, in his book, says everybody in the dugout knew from the moment it was hit that Mays would catch it.

“Maybe Feller was smarter than I was,” Doby said. “I took off running and the moment he turned his back, which you’re never supposed to do, I say, ‘No way.’ He caught it like a wide receiver . . . He’s the only guy I ever saw who could make that catch.”

Rhodes hit a Polo Grounds-homer in the 10th to win the game, and another in the second game. Indians’ memory believes Wertz’ ball would have been a homer in Cleveland and both of Rhodes’ homers would have been caught. No matter.

“Maybe it’s comfortable to say anticlimax now,” Rosen said. “I know I never saw anybody walk on the field in the pain Doby had; his legs were all bloody mass, no skin.

“You can’t imagine what it was like every year of my baseball life having to explain on Chicken-and-Peas [the banquet circuit] why we lost to the Yankees,” Rosen said. “Then we finally beat them and I had to explain that. I’ve never been able to.”

So few of today’s players or young people know history and Doby’s role as No. 2. “Jackie should get credit; he was first,” Doby, 71, said. “The problem is that people think he made it better in seven weeks. Thank God I was second. I got an opportunity. All I ask is for this whole country to give people an opportunity.”

And Cleveland is in the World Series.