Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian (review)

For a player whose Major League career consisted of only 94 games for Cleveland in the 1890s, Louis Sockalexis continues to draw an unusual degree of attention and interest. His name often surfaces in the debate over the origin and appropriateness of "Indians" as the nickname of the Cleveland club. In addition to his part in this dispute, there is much more to the story of this athletically gifted Native American outfielder whose baseball career came to a tragic and premature end, with his enormous potential unfulfilled.

As with his excellent 2001 book, Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson, David Fleitz has produced a well-researched, highly readable study of an intriguing baseball figure whose career and persona have been wrapped in layers of confusion, myth, and misperception. Fleitz's enlightening introduction to Penobscot culture, history, and geography furnishes important background information for the story that unfolds. Sockalexis, born on the Penobscot reservation in Maine, grew into a young man who was a "five-tool player" in modern terminology. He could run, throw, field, hit for average, and hit with power. Fleitz traces Sockalexis's career—his participation on local teams; his college days (where he was "the best athlete at Holy Cross, if not in the entire nation"), including his brief enrollment at Notre Dame; and his signing by Cleveland in March1897. When he made his dazzling debut as a Major League player (with no Minor League experience) in April1897, "he was the first minority athlete of any kind to play in the National League."

Fleitz provides an interesting and detailed account of Sockalexis's exploits during the first three months of the 1897 baseball season, when Cleveland was so taken by its new hard-hitting outfielder that fans and sportswriters started dropping the nickname "Spiders" and began referring to the team as the "Indians" in honor of the new star player. Fleitz points out that although the club featured future Hall of Fame members Jesse Burkett, Bobby Wallace, and Cy Young, the intriguing and talented Sockalexis, who hit .338 his rookie year, emerged as the fan favorite. "He was a nearly perfect physical specimen," writes Fleitz, "handsome and athletic, and showed his prodigious athletic talent by belting line drives and making circus catches in the outfield."

Unfortunately, the success and sudden acclaim Sockalexis enjoyed proved short-lived. Fleitz traces the rapid decline of the popular Indian outfielder to his excessive use of alcohol, which led to off-the-field injuries, erratic fielding, and the erosion of his skills. Sensitive, thoughtful explanations are offered regarding Sockalexis's inability to overcome alcohol problems, as the author chronicles his unsuccessful attempts to resurrect his career.

This biography of Sockalexis provides a window on baseball in the 1890s, when the rough-and-tumble style of the Baltimore Orioles dominated, local blue laws prohibited Sunday games, and Cleveland was in the National League. Especially informative is the description of "syndicate baseball," the reason for the abysmal record of 20 wins and 134 losses (the worst in baseball history) compiled by the 1899 Cleveland club, on which Sockalexis received and squandered his last chance to salvage his career.

The book is also, in part, a social history; the author provides insight into race relations of that time. Fleitz analyzes the exclusion of African-American players from the majors after 1884, the ethnic heckling and media references to scalping, war whoops, and going "on the warpath" that Sockalexis endured, and the accomplishments and experiences of other notable Native American players. He also offers a short course in the longstanding relationship between baseball players and alcohol abuse, citing King Kelly, Ed Delahanty, Hack Wilson, and Pete Alexander as others whose careers suffered due to serious alcohol problems.

In his treatments of Sockalexis and (in his earlier work) Jackson, Fleitz is at his best in demythologizing those areas of baseball history where the facts have been forgotten and the truth has been obscured. In creating this concise and accurate...