No Money, No Beer, No Pennants. Scott H. Longert

       PROLOGUE

      It was a brilliant afternoon, just made for baseball. Sure, there had been a small chance of rain, but the temperature stood at a comfortable seventy-nine degrees. The thousands of fans who walked down the new concrete ramps were filled with anticipation of what was going to take place. The long-awaited debut of Cleveland Municipal Stadium was just moments away. Since 1928, city officials and fans had been patiently waiting for the gigantic new facility to become a reality. Now, on Sunday July 31, 1932, it was about to happen.

      League Park had been the home of Cleveland baseball dating all the way back to 1891. The seating capacity at that time was nine thousand, quite adequate for the up-and-down Cleveland Spiders. Nearly twenty years later, owner Charlie Somers put a brick-and-steel second deck on the park that doubled the original number of seats. Jim Dunn, who acquired the team in 1916, found a way to push the seating capacity even higher, carving out another seven thousand seats. When the Cleveland Indians made their first World Series appearance in 1920 (and won, 5–2 over the Brooklyn Robins), temporary seats and standing room squeezed another thousand or two fans inside the grounds. Just one more row of seats and the park might have exploded.

      With a much-deserved World Championship, the bar had been raised for Cleveland baseball. In spite of its friendly confines and neighborhood appeal, League Park could no longer deal with the crowds that wanted to see the hometown boys play ball. American League stars like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx, Charlie Gehringer, and a host of others generated more ticket requests than could be handled. An alternative to the historic park at 66th and Lexington had to be found.

      A combined effort from civic boosters and the city manager’s office built the huge stadium downtown, right off the Lake Erie shore. It was their belief that a stadium located a bit north of the business district would be an economic boon for the city. They had no way of knowing in 1928 that the Great Depression was about to paralyze the entire country.

      Now, though, the Philadelphia Athletics were in town to christen the new stadium. An incredible crowd of 79,000 was on hand to see Robert “Lefty” Grove match pitches with Cleveland’s curveball wizard, Mel Harder. Special trains brought several thousand fans from as far away as Pittsburgh. Athletics owner Connie Mack had put together a champion club with players including center fielder George “Mule” Haas, catcher Mickey Cochrane, left fielder Al Simmons, right fielder Bing Miller,