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

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On Friday, November 2, the Cleveland Baseball Commission held its annual banquet at the Statler Hotel. In the audience were 190 amateur ballplayers to accept awards and wolf down a gourmet dinner. City Manager Hopkins delivered a brief speech on the merits of a new stadium. He was followed by Max Rosenblum, the commissioner of amateur baseball and a longtime booster of Cleveland sports. Rosenblum urged all in attendance to get behind the stadium issue. Attending on behalf of the Indians were Alva Bradley, Billy Evans, and Roger Peckinpaugh. They sat at a special table and did their best to talk up the project.

The Cleveland Umpires Association held a special meeting at city hall to marshal the forces of the amateur ballplayers and coaches. It was their goal to assign at least one person to canvas every precinct and voting booth the day of the election. Not everybody was twenty-one, but the younger guys could hold signs and encourage voters.

The day before the election, twenty-five hundred people lined up attempting to register to vote. There was a presidential vote to be held the next day, but the last-minute registrants were likely more interested in the stadium issue than in who would be running the country. Estimates were that 250,000 people would cast their ballots in the city. There were no predictions made, but most of the big names of Cleveland publicly urged a yes vote.