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

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Despite the outstanding play of Speaker, the Indians continued to deteriorate. The 1924 season saw the ball club fall to sixth place with a record of sixty-seven wins and eighty-six losses. Attendance at League Park dropped off significantly: the Indians drew 481,905 fans, for an average of 6,425 per game. In 1923 attendance had equaled 558,856, or 7,165 each game. The difference between the two years was an alarming 76,951, a reduction of nearly 14 percent. The Yankees and Tigers drew over one million fans each, while Cleveland was near the bottom in attendance figures.

The steady profits racked up by Jim Dunn were beginning to erode. Mrs. Dunn, although a fan of the game, was reluctant to put more funds into the franchise. It remained for Ernest Bernard to bring the club back to a suitably profitable level. If that did not occur, the sale of the team seemed to be the other alternative. Surely Mrs. Dunn, a full-time resident of Chicago, had to be thinking in those terms.

The 1925 Indians failed on the field and at the box office. On the positive side, Tris Speaker just missed winning the batting title, losing to Harry Heilmann, while Joe Sewell hit .336 and knocked in ninety-eight runs. The pitching turned out to be abysmal, with George Uhle the leader at thirteen wins. Attendance continued to plummet, with only 419,005 for the season. The economy rolled along, jobs were plentiful, but Cleveland fans had given up on the ball club, spending their money on other diversions. The Cleveland front office knew the only thing keeping fans away from League Park was a below-average team.