The 2024 World Series matchup is set. The Los Angeles Dodgers will face the New York Yankees beginning this Friday night and will surely record historic moments for decades of fans to enjoy. With the World Series just days away, pitting two historic baseball franchises against each other, I took the time this week to read about another historic World Series championship. This baseball story tells a deeper, less Hollywood like tale of one championship run and four of its integral players. As the book’s subtitle reads “the World Series that changed baseball.”

“Our Team” by Luke Epplin is the woven tale of four baseball men whose paths could not have been any different. Four paths that led them, of all places, to Cleveland, Ohio and the Cleveland Indians. In their own way, Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Satchel Paige, and Bob Feller each wrote a page in the championship story of the Cleveland Indians 1948 World Series title. If you are short on your baseball history and an unfamiliar with one or any of these four, I highly suggest you read “Our Town” to get up to speed. Here are some cliff notes on the book to get you excited to read it.

Bob Feller was a teenager when he joined the Cleveland Indians team. He was a fireballing, rocket armed farm boy who left the fields of Iowa for the baseball cathedrals of Major League baseball well before his 20th birthday. No college prep, no seasoning and conditioning for years in the minor leagues. Straight to the top, and Feller excelled from literally Day 1. He played his entire career with Cleveland, spent several years fighting for the United States in the US Navy, came back to the Major Leagues after World War II, and even promoted the game off season via his barnstorming tours. Where he faced…

Leroy “Satchel” Paige was a folk hero in baseball that actually existed, one that you could pay money to see all over the United States. One might argue, Paige was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. No one can argue that he was the biggest draw outside of Babe Ruth in all of baseball for nearly 3 decades. Paige had nicknames for his pitches and pitched seemingly every day, every exhibition, and with wonderful excellence. From New England to California, Satchel pitched in exhibition games, later for the Negro Baseball League, before finally getting the call in 1948 to join the Cleveland Indians pitching staff. His teammate on the Indians that year was…

Lawrence “Larry” Doby, an athletic prodigy from Paterson, New Jersey who was the first African American player to sign and play in the American League. It was months after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 when Doby suited up and pinch hit in a game for the Cleveland Indians. Like Paige, Doby had played in exhibition games, barnstorming tours, and the Newark Eagles of the Negro Baseball Leagues, where he was one of the best if not the best player on the field in every game. Effa Manley’s Newark Eagles club was the team Doby played on just before his historic signing with the Cleveland Indians. Like Feller, Doby served his country in World War II overseas and returned to the game having fulfilled his patriotic duty. Unlike Robinson, who won Rookie of the Year honors, Doby struggled mightily his rookie year and the thought of a demotion to the minors for 1948 was looming. However, a change of position to the outfield and a new approach at the plate was just what Doby needed to have a breakout season in 1948. Doby never went to the minors and was an integral part of the 1948 World Series run. These three Indians players were all part of one man’s quest to win a World Series. That man was…

Bill Veeck, who was the son of a baseball man himself. Growing up watching his father run the Chicago Cubs, then later becoming an eccentric baseball owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, then the Cleveland Indians, Veeck was hellbent on entertaining the fans. Fireworks, wacky promotions, fan engagement tricks and ploys – Veeck wanted to do it all and spare no expense to get his stadium filled with cheering fans. Integrating baseball had been an idea of Veeck’s long before the Dodgers and Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson. One might argue that if Veeck had been successful in his bid to buy the Philadelphia Phillies in 1943, we would have seen integration nearly 4 years before Robinson’s historic debut. Veeck sacrificed his family, his health, and his dignity to get baseball to a fever pitch in Cleveland. And perhaps his reputation when he went out and signed Larry Doby and Satchel Paige to contracts in 1947 and 1948, respectively. The signings paid off, as both men were instrumental in the run to the 1948 World Series.

Four men, interwoven and now together on a mutual quest for the Cleveland Indians to win the 1948 World Series title. What sacrifices did each men have to take in order to be on that quest? What about the families of these players, what sacrifices were they subject to? How did race relations in the late 1940s affect the play of Larry Doby and Satchel Paige? Was Bob Feller the same rocket armed pitcher in 1948 as he had been prior to the War? Was he the hero of the World Series, like many predicted. How did Paige, who was now at an advanced age, fare against Major League hitters on a consistent basis? How did Veeck juggle all the operations of running a major league ball club with a debilitating leg injury? In the end, how did the World Series title change the lives of these 4 baseball legends? Simply put, read “Our Team” and find out the answers to these and so many other baseball questions you might have about that era of baseball, and the world.

I loved reading “Our Team” and learning about the game of baseball in the late 1930s to 1950s. It was an easy to read book with tons of historic and cultural references. I highly recommend any baseball fan and history buff to read “Our Team.”