Читать книгу Bad Boys, Bad Times. The Cleveland Indians and Baseball in the Prewar Years, 1937–1941 онлайн

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Be that as it may, O’Neill had no control of Johnny Allen’s appendix issues or Bob Feller’s sore elbow. The two pitchers, counted on to lead the rotation, won only twenty-four games between them. The remaining staff of the All-Star Harder, Hudlin, Galehouse, and Whitehill went 44–45. Had some of those guys, particularly the last three, stepped up, a change in managers might not have taken place. Bradley did not follow his usual motto that “The owner hires the manager, the fans fire him.” In this instance he listened to nobody, informing the press the show must go on. Indeed it would, with Oscar Vitt running that show—or circus, depending on how one looked at it.

Chapter 4

ROLLICKING ROLLIE

In what was hopefully not an omen of things to come, Indians general manager Cy Slapnicka suffered a heart attack just before the start of the annual Major League meetings in early December. While attending a banquet in Milwaukee, he became uncomfortably ill but attributed the chest pains to a simple case of indigestion. At 3 a.m. he realized the pain had gone far beyond indigestion. He reached for the phone and called the room of Indians scout Bill Bradley to tell him to get a cab and rush him to the hospital. The doctors confirmed that Slapnicka had experienced a heart attack and restricted him to a cumbersome oxygen tent. He would be out of action for an extended period of time. Alva Bradley’s right-hand man usually had an active role in talking trades and ideas with the other team representatives. Now Bradley only had Oscar Vitt with him, who was not expected to have much of an impact due to his unfamiliarity with the club.