Book on Sockalexis confirms the legends behind the man

BASEBALL’s FIRST INDIAN LOUIS SOCKALEXIS: PENOBSCOT LEGEND, CLEVELAND INDIAN, by Ed Rice, Tide-mark Press, Windsor, Conn., 2003; 176 pages, hardcover, $24.95.

In the winter (or spring) a young (or old) man’s fancy turns to baseball. A great cabin fever antidote is a good book on baseball: “Baseball’s First Indian,” for instance.

Everyone in Maine (or the country) with a passing interest in baseball has heard the legend of Louis Sockalexis. The amazing thing about the legend is that most of it is true.

Sockalexis, a Penobscot Indian, really did become the model for the Frank Merriwell stories, have the name of the Cleveland baseball team named in his honor, throw a baseball across the Penobscot River, get thrown out of Notre Dame after a bordello brawl, get compared to Ty Cobb as potentially the greatest ballplayer of all time and ruin his Olympic talent with an unquenchable thirst for whiskey.

The most amazing thing about the Sockalexis legend is that it has never become a major Hollywood motion picture. Every two-bit athlete or tragic actor gets a life story treatment on the big screen. Here is a story so vast, so historic that it begs for a major movie.

Author Ed Rice delivers his 18 years of research in “Baseball’s First Indian” with a dry, straightforward style for such a colorful figure. He has so much to work with that it hardly matters. Rice graduated from servitude as a reporter at the Portland Press Herald and the Maine Times to teach journalism at the University of Maine in Orono.

The legend of Louis Sockalexis starts at Indian

Island on Oct. 24, 1871, or almost five years before Custer’s misfortune at Little Bighorn. He was not the son of an Indian chief, as if the legend needed padding. “Soci” attended local schools and was instructed by Jesuit priests. Even as a child, he dominated running, jumping and swimming events on the island. In high school he excelled at football, track and especially baseball. Although he was an exceptional batter and fielder, it was his throwing that shocked many fans.

It was reported that, on a bet, Sockalexis once threw a baseball over the Poland Springs House.

It was during the summer league games for the Warren town team that Sockalexis was “discovered.” Teammate Mike “Doc” Powers was already a star at Holy Cross, a national power in baseball at the time. During those summer league games, Sockalexis won so many games with late-inning heroics that he became the model for rival coach Gilbert Patten, when the Corinna native later penned the Frank Merriwell tales.

It is almost impossible to believe, but Francis Sockalexis was so upset with his son’s plan to leave the tribe for college ball, that he paddled a birch canoe 700 miles to Washington D. C. to beg President Grover Cleveland to intercede. Rice loves the story but admits that it is “impossible to verify.”

Sockalexis’ career at Holy Cross started in 1895 when he had two hits and stole three bases in his first game. The college team was so strong that five teammates eventually made the major leagues. But it was Sockalexis, called the greatest college baseball player of all time, who dominated the first season with a .436 batting average. Again his throws became legend. In the offseason, Sockalexis dominated the first football season at Holy Cross.

But his love for the grape became as legendary as his athletic exploits. The Holy Cross baseball coach ordered students to stand guard around Sockalexis’ room to keep him from evening forays to the bright lights of Worcester, Mass. When his mentor Powers went on to Notre Dame, Sockalexis followed. Sockalexis and another unnamed student visited “Popcorn Jennie’s” late one St. Patrick’s Day in South Bend, Ind., and proceeded to wreck the social establishment and knock out several police officers.

Notre Dame teammate William E. Hindel said “Had he never tasted whiskey, he could have lasted a long time in the majors and left a record that generations could shoot at without ever matching.” Another telling of the legend has it that Cleveland Indian official Oliver “Patsy” Tebeau got Sockalexis drunk to get him out of college baseball and into the pros.

If that was the plan, it worked.

Sockalexis signed with the Cleveland Spiders in 1897 for the princely sum of $1,500 and was so good that he was quickly jumped up to the maximum of $2,400 by midseason. One report said the contract included a non-drinking clause.

It was now 21 years after Little Bighorn and racism was overwhelming, despite this talent. Sockalexis was referred to as an aborigine, who learned to throw a baseball by throwing a boomerang on the reservation. The sports pages made constant references to redskins, bead peddlers, scalping, raids and cigar store Indians. One out-of-town story noted that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

Sockalexis was so overpowering that the Spiders quickly changed their name to the Indians.

Yankee General Manager Ed Barrow said “Sockalexis was the greatest outfielder in history, the best hitter, the best thrower, the best fielder and also the best drinker.”

Despite eye-popping statistics, Sockalexis had continuing problems with brown liquors and holidays. The club offered to raise his salary to $6,000 if he stopped drinking. But on the Fourth of July in a red light district, Sockalexis leapt from a second story window and injured his foot. Some reports indicated he was drunk during games. He batted .338 and stole 16 bases, but committed eight errors in his last 10 games. He was then suspended.

Sockalexis returned to the Indians the next year but was found unconscious on a downtown street and finally released from the team. After a sporadic career in the minors as a player and umpire, Sockalexis was back on Indian Island by 1902, running a water ferry.

He died at a Maine logging camp on Christmas Eve, 1913 at age 42. In his pocket was a crumpled newspaper clipping of his baseball exploits, a classic story of unfulfilled promise.

Emmet Meara can be reached at meara@msn.com.