bedsitter23

The Curse of Rocky Colavito: A Loving Look at a Thirty-Year Slump by Terry Pluto

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m aware of Pluto’s reputation as a great sports writer with an appreciation for a good sense of humor. I saw this in a used bookstore and couldn’t resist.

There’s a famous meme that shows the top song of the year that every Major League Baseball team won a World Series. Maybe your team has won in the era of Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny, or even Adele and One Direction. Maybe it’s 50 Cent or Nelly or if things are particularly tough for your team you can joke about New Kids on the Block, Garth Brooks, Whitney, Lionel Ritchie, Michael Jackson or gasp as far as back as ABBA.

Then there’s the Cleveland Guardians (nee Indians) whose last World Series win predates rock n roll. Is the Cleveland team cursed so bad that they have not won since the days Perry Como, Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby dominated the hit parade.

Perhaps. After being competitive in the 1940s and 1950s, their luck seemed to change in 1960 when they traded their most popular young All-Star player to Detroit for an aging Harvey Kuehnn. Was it a curse? Well, it certainly seemed like an unusual move. For the ensuing decades, it seemed like Cleveland had nothing but bad luck.

In truth, there is probably a straight correlation from the curse to the fact that the Indians were always owned by people who didn’t have the extra money to make the team worthwhile. Sure, there was bad luck, but without that cash infusion to offset it with any better luck.

It’s funny. I was a huge fan of 70s and 80s baseball and I don’t know a ton of Indians players. They were not a competitive team for so long. Sure there were team legends like Andre Thornton and Mike Hargrove but they were few and far between.

The Indians did reacquire Covalito in 1965 but it was the beginning of a series of trades where they sent prospects who became stars for players who didn’t pan out.

Through the years, when the team had great young players, they inevitably got hurt. Sam McDowell, Ray Fosse, Wayne Garland (almost the instant he signed a ten year contract) and most famously Joe Charboneau, the 1980 Rookie of the Year. He would only play 70 more games total in 1981 and 1982 before being forced to retire.

Then there’s hall of famer Dennis Eckersley who the team was forced to trade due to Rick Manning causing marital problems.

Offsetting good news is rare. The Indians did give Frank Robinson a managerial start- the first African American to do so- though they can hardly provide him with a winning team.

In 1986, the team has young stars and a winning team, but 1987 expectations come crushing down. The book ends in 1994. Tragedy has hit in 1993 when two pitchers die in a boating accident. But good things were on the horizon. The Cleveland Stadium- a hulking structure built for football and devoid of the intimate charm of modern day baseball parks; not to mention right off the chilly winds of Lake Erie- is replaced in 1994. Richard Jacobs has taken complete ownership in 1992. The days of partial ownership, lackluster finances and inept front offices may be gone.

Now 30 years after the book was published, we know things do get better. The team went on a run of success from 1995 to 2001, as if Pluto’s book may have exorcised some demons. The team reached the World Series in 1995 and 1997. Pluto suggested in the 94 book that longtime Indian player Hargrove (hired in 1991) was the right manager for the team and he was not wrong. The 41 year World Series appearance drought had ended.

But we also know that the team still hasn’t won the ring. The Indians come the closest in 2016 going to Game 7 against a team that had an even bigger gap in Championships, the Chicago Cubs. The fate of Cleveland has improved quite a bit since the Dolan Family bought them in 2000. No longer the joke Pluto wrote about, and yet that big prize is still elusive.

This is a fun book. If you are someone who loves baseball stories or perhaps you are taking on one of those 30 Teams 30 Books projects, then this is a good one to pick up.

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