Читать книгу No Money, No Beer, No Pennants. The Cleveland Indians and Baseball in the Great Depression онлайн

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The remaining part of the Cleveland roster was somewhat unsettled. Billy Evans did not have the time needed to implement the immediate changes he felt necessary. Alva Bradley and his partners were willing to spend a small fortune to acquire some top-shelf talent. They believed that if enough money was waved around, great players were sure to follow. Bradley reasoned, if he offered the Yankees George Burns and $100,000, they might part with Lou Gehrig. The team president would learn quickly that players of Gehrig’s ability were not available even for a yacht filled with cash.

With spring training just around the corner, Billy Evans thoroughly studied his roster. The infield was decent enough with Burns at first base, the veteran Lew Fonseca at second, Joe Sewell at short, and a young Johnny Hodapp at third. Fonseca, primarily a singles hitter, could bat well over .300 but had difficulty staying healthy. The Indians acquired Hodapp in August 1925 from the minor-league Indianapolis Indians. He was a big kid, six feet tall and weighing 185 pounds. He came from a family of undertakers, an always steady profession, although slightly on the morbid side. The club shelled out between forty and fifty thousand dollars to bring Hodapp to Cleveland. There was a two-week delay, during which the twenty-one-year-old refused to report until he got part of the purchase price for himself. Manager Tris Speaker was probably not too angry with the holdout, as Spoke had done the same thing in 1916 when Cleveland purchased him from the Red Sox. Hodapp did eventually arrive and showed some potential in the last two months of the season.