Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (69 page)

The Indians won the World Series over the Dodgers in 1920, in a battle of two teams that had never won it all. Under Speaker, the Tribe disposed of the boys in blue five games to two in a best-of-nine series. Game 5, which the
Indians won 8-1, saw Elmer Smith hit the first grand salami in October Classic lore. Also in the game, Jim Bagby, who led the Junior Circuit with thirty-one wins that year, hit the first homer by a pitcher in World Series play. And perhaps most remarkably, Indians second baseman Bill Wambsganss pulled off the first unassisted triple play in Series history in the fifth inning. With runners on first and second, Wambsganss snagged a line drive for one out, stepped on second to double off one runner, and tagged another runner coming from first to second. All this on October 10, 1920, at League Park.

Several Negro Leagues teams tried to make a go of it in the Forest City, with the Buckeyes being the one to last the longest. Some of the others were the Bears, Browns, Buckeyes, Cubs, Elites, Giants, Hornets, Red Sox, Stars, Tate Stars, and Tigers. The Buckeyes played at League Park from 1943 to 1948, winning the Negro League World Series in 1945 when they swept the Homestead Grays.

As for the Indians, they finally moved to Municipal Stadium full-time in 1947 under the ownership of Bill Veeck. Yes, that Bill Veeck. Veeck had been at the helm for less than two years when he brought the World Championship back to Cleveland in 1948, as the Tribe beat both Boston teams in the playoffs. That’s right, even before the days when there were multiple divisions in each league and Championship Series. Behind the hitting of Larry Doby—the AL’s first African-American player—and the pitching of Bob Feller and Satchel Paige, Cleveland was tied at the end of the regular season with the Red Sox. Both teams had 96–59 records. The Indians prevailed in a one-game playoff at Fenway Park, thus robbing Boston of its chance for an all-Beantown Series. Then the Indians defeated the Boston Braves, four games to two. After that great moment, Veeck left for St. Louis where he attempted to resurrect the Browns. Nonetheless, the Indians returned to the World Series in 1954 to face the New York Giants. But the Tribe lost in a four-game sweep. They would not return to the Big Dance until 1995.

Kevin:
A four-decade wait? Big whoop.

Josh:
Spoken like a never-been-kissed Mariners fan.

Kevin:
Yeah, the Tribe beat my M’s in 1995. But I’m not bitter.

Josh:
Sure, you’re not.

Originally 470 feet to center, the fences at Municipal were brought closer to the plate through the years, eventually reducing the distance to center to 404 feet. This and other ballpark tinkering occurred while the Indians became one of the worst franchises in baseball. But at least there were plenty of hijinks to keep the locals entertained. When the Indians were eliminated from the pennant race in 1949, Veeck ceremoniously buried the 1948 pennant in center field before a game. Then, during the seventh inning of a doubleheader dubbed “Nickel Beer Night,” Indians fans threw bottles at the umps, and the home team ended up forfeiting both games. And you wondered why the beverage attendant always insists on pouring your bottle into a plastic cup these days!

There were some highlights too. On May 15, 1981, Len Barker tossed a perfect game against the Blue Jays that is still replayed in local taverns on the anniversary. And it’s a good thing because only 7,290 fans were on hand to see it live. Municipal Stadium was also the site of the famous play on which Jose Canseco drifted back to the wall in pursuit of a deep fly ball only to witness it bouncing off his noggin and over the wall for a “ground rule” home run. Then there was Boston pitcher “Oil Can” Boyd’s much-publicized quote about the stadium. When a game was called off because of fog in 1986, the Can quipped, “That’s what you get for building a ballpark next to the ocean.” Oh, the humanity. In Oil Can’s defense, John Kruk made a similar statement and then got a gig as a talking head on the MLB Network, and there
was once a movement to rename the Great Lakes “the great north salt-free ocean.”

Municipal Stadium’s life as an MLB facility ended in 1993 and its life as a National Football League grid ended in 1995 after the Browns left town to become the Baltimore Ravens. The city wasted no time in demolishing it. Eager to put the “Mistake by the Lake” in its rearview, Cleveland imploded the monstrosity the very next November.

After playing an abbreviated first season at Jacobs Field due to the work stoppage that cancelled the second half of the 1994 baseball season, Cleveland quickly turned around its baseball fortunes in its new yard. Veterans like Eddie Murray, Dennis Martinez, Omar Vizquel, and Jose Mesa combined with a young core of up-and-comers like Kenny Lofton, Carlos Baerga, and Albert Belle to propel the Tribe to the World Series in both 1995 and 1997. In the 1995 Classic the Indians met an unstoppable Atlanta Braves team. In 1997, their loss to the Marlins was much more heartbreaking, because the team came so close to winning it all. It was, dare we say, Bill Buckner-esque. Cleveland was within two outs of victory in Game 7 when Craig Counsell hit a sacrifice fly against Mesa to tie the game at 2–2 and send it into extra innings. In the bottom of the eleventh, Florida’s Edgar Renteria singled over Chuck Nagy’s head with the bases loaded to plate Counsell with the winning run.

But the Indians bounced back, just not all the way back. They kept winning the AL Central. By 2001, they had won the division six out of seven seasons. Their management, farm system, and fan base had all improved by leaps and bounds, from mediocre to top notch. But in 2002 things fell apart when the front office surrendered to the pressures that face a smaller market team, trading ace Bartolo Colon and losing Jim Thome to free agency. Not surprisingly, the team’s 2003 edition won just sixty-eight games. But the Indians rebuilt and by 2007 were showing championship form once again. Led by the hard-hitting Travis Hafner, the multi-dimensional Grady Sizemore, and the eminently personable Victor Martinez, they won ninety-six regular season games to top the AL Central. Next, the Tribe vanquished the Yankees in a Division Series best remembered for the biting midges that swarmed flustered Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain in the second game played in Cleveland. In the AL Championship Series, the Indians held a three-games-to-one lead over the Red Sox, before the wheels came off their wagon and they lost three straight to fall short, once again, in their bid for a first world title since 1948. When the team traded ace C.C. Sabathia to Milwaukee the next season rather than risk losing him to free agency, the fans understood that another rebuilding phase was underway. And they stopped turning out at Progressive Field. When the return to glory does come for the Indians, and we believe it will, let’s not forget the role Cleveland’s beautiful ballpark has played in the team’s return to respectability. For many years, this team was the laughing-stock of the American League, until the park gave it, and its fans, new life. The baseball tides in Cleveland may ebb and wane more often than in most big league cities, but they will never fall so low again as they did during the desolate days of Municipal Stadium.

By 2012 it was hard to believe that a seat in Cleveland once ranked harder to come by than a seat at any other big league stadium. The Indians sold out 455 straight games at one point to set a record that would later be broken by the Red Sox in Boston. Still, selling out five-and-a-half seasons worth of games was an impressive feat. Luckily for road tripping fans, but sadly too, getting a good seat in Cleveland is no longer a challenge. You can show up on game day and do fine at the box office.

The Indians are one of many teams to charge different prices for the same seats depending upon the quality of the day’s opponent. There are three such game designations, Super-Value, Value and Prime. This means a ticket to watch a summer game against the Yankees or Reds will cost more than twice as much as an early season tilt against the A’s or Royals for those hoping to sit in the lower boxes around the infield. If you’re going to sit in the upper deck or bleachers, on the other hand, you’ll only pay a couple of dollars more on a Prime night. That said, even when the calendar says “Prime,” Progressive
Field’s seats are affordably priced compared to those at other ballparks. And it’s a good thing because this is a park where we sincerely recommend sitting in the lower bowl.

The entire lower bowl offers a fairly gradual pitch, which can make the back rows of these sections farther from the action than expected. The lowest rows of nearly all sections are called the Diamond Box seats and are occupied mainly by season-ticket holders. However, in sections 136 and 138 at first base and 165 and 167 at third, the first few rows are sold as regular Field Boxes while the rows behind them are labeled Lower Boxes. These are a good value for those who wish to sit as close to the infield as possible for the lowest price. Though there is ample foul ground behind home plate, it decreases down the lines, making the seats in Sections 136, 138, 165, and 167 very close to the action.

In Sections 136–149 avoid the double-letter rows (i.e., AA, BB, etc.) if you mind an overhang. Behind home plate and on the left side (Sections 150–167) the overhang is not an issue.

These are almost all good. They’re nice and wide, and angled toward the action. On the right-field side, fans in the back rows of Sections 128–134 face an overhang obstruction, so stick to Rows A-Z, and avoid the double letters, to be safe. That goes for Sections 122–126 in the next seating designation too.

On the left-field side, Section 168 is the only “pure” section as far as sight lines are concerned. Seats in Section 170 lose the tiniest bit of the left-field corner beneath the foul pole. In Sections 171, 172, and 173 this loss of sight lines is not too noticeable, but the loss of the corner increases until Section 176, from which the left-field wall and corner are obscured.

This outfield seating category actually houses seats from three different parts of the park. One is really good and the other two are pretty bad. The seats we like are the ones in Sections 101 through 113, in right-field home run territory. From here, only the tiniest bit of the field is blocked by the low wall, but it’s nothing compared with the bleachers in left field. These seats get a lot of sun, and angle nicely toward the plate. Section 101 is a good section, but do avoid the top four rows (Y, Z, AA, and BB) as the view is obstructed by trees growing in the batter’s eye.

The other two seating areas grouped into this pricing tier are the seats in deep right field (117–125) and left-field (175–179) foul territory. These are perhaps the worst value in the park. They are 300 feet from the plate and at a vastly inferior angle than the seats in home run territory. Compounding matters, Sections 115, 116, and parts of 117 are behind the right-field foul pole. Section 119 is oddly detached from the rest of the bowl in the right-field corner and feels removed from the field. Across the diamond, Sections 177 and 178 are blocked fairly significantly by the left-field pole. The seats in the back rows of Section 178—W through Z and AA through GG—have a significant blockage of sight lines and should be avoided.

Rather than being their own level (as the 200 labeling suggests) these are really just the top rows of the Field Boxes. Section 250 is aligned with the visitor’s on-deck circle on the first base side and Section 267 is just past third. There is only an overhang in the back few rows, and even then only a slight one. When we were sitting in our seats, it was barely noticeable. These are a much better value than the Lower Reserved seats in deep foul territory.

For ten bucks the left-field bleachers are the right price, but in a park this nice that often has a great many open seats, you should aim to do better. Then again, if you want to sit near the “drum guy” the bleachers may be your choice.