Then, in the pressure-packed situation of a one-game playoff for the ’48 AL championship, Boudreau lashed two bases-empty home runs and two singles as the Indians routed the Red Sox, 8-3, and won only the second pennant in club history. Boudreau’s 4-for-4 performance at Fenway Park backed the five-hit pitching of rookie lefthander Gene Bearden, whose victory in the extra game was his 20th of the year.
Cleveland’s other big winners in ’48, Bob Feller and Bob Lemon, were Boudreau’s pitching choices for the first two games of the World Series against Boston’s other big-time representative, the Braves, who under Manager Billy Southworth had captured the National League pennant by 6 1/2 games. While the Braves had a good-hitting ballclub, much of the National Leaguers’ hopes rested on the arms of Johnny Sain and Warren Spahn. In fact, the formula of “Spahn and Sain and two days of rain” seemed to capture not only the depth of the team’s starting pitching, but also the essence of the Braves’ strength.
Feller, who had won 25 or more games three times in the majors (and 24 on another occasion), was a 19-game winner in ’48. Since Feller had broken into the majors in 1936, the World Series wait had been a long one for the 29-year-old Iowan, and the hard-throwing righthander pitched superbly in his fall-classic debut.
Entering the last of the eighth inning of Game 1, Feller and Sain were locked in a scoreless duel. Boston catcher Bill Salkeld drew a leadoff walk and gave way to pinch-runner Phil Masi, who was sacrificed to second by Mike McCormick. Eddie Stanky then was issued an intentional walk, and Sibby Sisti ran for Boston’s pepperpot second baseman. Feller and Boudreau proceeded to work a pickoff play, with Feller whirling and throwing to his manager, who cut in behind Masi at second. Umpire Bill Stewart made a safe call on the sliding Masi, and Boudreau argued strenuously that he had made the tag before the baserunner got back to the bag. Sain lined out to right field, but Tommy Holmes singled home Masi and it was 1-0, Braves.
Sain, a 24-game winner in ’48, overcome third baseman Bob Elliott’s two-base throwing error in the ninth and protected the one-run lead. His four-hitter had defeated Feller’s two-hitter.
In Game 2, Lemon pitched shutout ball over the final eight innings as Cleveland squared the Series with a 4-1 triumph. Boudreau and Larry Doby, who had become the American League’s first black player in July 1947, each singled, doubled and drove in a run for the Indians.
Bearden continued his marvelous season by tossing a five-hit shutout against Boston in Game 3, a game in which the 28-year-old pitcher singled and doubled and scored the first run (on a throwing error) of a 2-0 contest. Steve Gromek then put the Braves on the edge of elimination by hurling Cleveland to a 2-1 triumph in a contest featuring home runs by Doby and the Braves’ Marv Rickert. An end-of-the-season replacement for outfielder Jeff Heath, who had batted .319 for Boston with 20 homers before breaking his ankle, Rickert wound up starting five World Series games for the Braves after appearing in only three regular-season games for Southworth’s club.
Boston wasn’t through yet. Before a record major-league crowd of 86,288 at Cleveland Stadium, the Braves hammered out an 11-5 victory in Game 5. Elliott belted a three-run homer in the first inning for the Braves and a bases-empty shot in the third, but the Indians rallied from a 4-1 deficit with a four-run outburst — capped by Jim Hegan’s three-run homer — in the fourth. Salkeld tied the game with a homer off Feller in the sixth, and Boston then tore into Feller and Cleveland’s relief corps for six seventh-inning runs.
Spahn, who hurled one-hit, scoreless ball in 5 2/3 innings of relief, was the winning pitcher. Among the five pitchers used by the losers was 42-year-old Satchel Paige, the Negro leagues legend who had been signed to his first big-league contract by Indians President Bill Veeck in July. The appearance by Paige, who compiled a 6-1 regular-season record for the Tribe, made Satch the first black pitcher to take the mound in a World Series.
Lemon, with 1 2/3 innings of relief help from the steady Bearden, was a 4-3 winner in the decisive Game 6. Bearden yielded a run-scoring fly ball and an RBI double in the eighth, drawing Boston within a run, but worked out of trouble and nailed down the World Series crown for Boudreau’s Indians.
Lemon, who had broken into the majors as a third baseman and played center field for Cleveland in Feller’s no-hitter against the New York Yankees in 1946, showed everyone in 1948 that his conversion into a pitcher had been a wise move. He won 20 games for the AL champions, a plateau he would reach six more times in the majors, and added two victories in the Series.
Cleveland prevailed against the Braves despite the Series slumps of Joe Gordon and Ken Keltner and the failure of Feller to beat the National Leaguers. Gordon, who hit 32 homers and totaled 124 RBIs while batting .280 in the regular season, had one homer, two RBIs and a .182 hitting mark in the fall classic; Keltner, coming off a .297 season in which he slugged 31 homers and knocked in 119 runs, collected two singles in 21 Series at-bats (.095) and did not drive in a run. Feller was 0-2 with a 5.02 ERA against the Braves.
But Cleveland had Lemon, Bearden, Gromek and timely hitting. Plus, the Indians had the ever-present leadership of Lou Boudreau, who played errorless ball at shortstop during the Series and contributed a .273 average for a team that hit .199 against the Braves.
