Sockalexis lives

In many ways, the 1997 World Series is all-too familiar in its banality: overpaid mercenaries scratching and spitting their way to endorsement fortune; commentators spewing space-filling statistics and pointless anecdotes; innings squeezed in between beer and car commercials.

But for Maine, this Fall Classic offers an opportunity to reflect upon a more innocent past, to recall a time when athletic endeavor was its own reward. This is the 100th anniversary of the legendary season of Old Town’s Louis Sockalexis, the Penobscot Indian for whom the Cleveland squad is named.

It’s a story every true Mainer knows and of which every Penobscot is justifiably proud. After wowing locals as a youth with his awesome combination of blazing speed, cannon-like arm and explosive bat, the “Deerfoot of the Diamond” went on to a stellar college career at Holy Cross and then signed with the Cleveland Spiders of the National League in 1897.

He sent the first pitch of his first professional at bat into the stands for a home run. For the next 66 games, Sockalexis ruled the sport, turning in an unprecedented string of dazzling performances. Cleveland fans started calling their Spiders the Indians, sometimes the Tribe, in his honor. The blaze of glory began to fade with a serious injury in a Fourth of July game and Sockalexis, who played off and on for two more years, was never the same. He returned home to Indian Island and died in 1913.

Back in Cleveland, Sockalexis was gone, but not forgotten. In 1915, the team, now in the American League and called the Naps, needed a new name. A fan suggested the Indians in honor of their hero and no other suggestions were needed. To this day, the Cleveland Indians is the only big league team named after an actual person. And that person is from Maine.

Portland author Will Anderson told the Sockalexis saga beautifully in his 1992 book “Was Baseball Really Invented in Maine?” A “long-time and long-suffering” Indians fan, Anderson says Sockalexis should be revered for more than his athletic skills. “He had a drive, a determination that was extraordinary. When he first joined Cleveland, fans everywhere jeered him. Native Americans didn’t belong in baseball. He turned those jeers to cheers. He was electrifying, an intriguing personality. The way his incredibly brief career had such a lasting impact is one of the great stories in American sports.”

Actually, it’s a great story, period. Louis Sockalexis, as a Cleveland scribe of the day wrote, “is mighty — the mightiest of them all.”