Souvenir Program for Spring Exhibition Game between Cleveland "Indians" and Oklahoma City "Indians," 1949

Cleveland Indians [Paige, Satchel; Wynn, Early; Boudreau, Lou; Feller, Bob]

Published by [April 1949]

About this Item

First edition. With 11 signatures in pencil to front wrapper, including Satchel Paige (HOF), Lou Boudreau (HOF), Early Wynn (HOF), Bob Feller (HOF), and Steve Gomek. Publisher's white wrappers, printed in red, with portraits of managers Lou Boudreau and Joe Vosmik to front wrapper. Very good, with light toning to wrappers, scorecard neatly filled out in pencil, a couple of tiny nicks to left edge of rear wrapper, and some glue and brown paper residue to rear wrapper. With LOA from JSA. Overall, a scarce program, with some excellent signatures. This program is for a Spring exhibition game played on April 10th, 1949 between the Major League Cleveland Indians, who were coming off of winning a World Series the year before, and the Texas League's Oklahoma City Indians. The program is signed by three all-time great pitchers, all of whom were on the Cleveland Indians in 1949. Satchel Paige had an incredibly long professional career, playing in the Negro Leagues from 1926 to the late 1940s, and finally joining the Cleveland Indians in 1948 when he was 42 years old. He was the seventh black player to join the major leagues, and the oldest player ever to debut in the MLB. In his rookie year with the Indians, he helped them with a World Series title. Sporting News ranked the blazingly fast pitcher 19th on its list of the 100 greatest baseball players of all time. Bob Feller came into the league when he was just 17 years old. Cy Slapnicka, the scout who discovered him, said, "I didn't know then that he was smart and had the heart of a lion, but I knew that I was looking at an arm the likes of which you see only once in a lifetime." The prodigy played all eighteen of his major league seasons with the Cleveland Indians. He garnered eight All-Star selections and won the unofficial Triple Crown in 1940 by leading the league in wins, ERA, and strikeouts. He was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 1962. Early Wynn was a ruthless pitcher, who famously said "a pitcher has to look at the hitter as his mortal enemy." In his twenty-three years in the league, he was selected for nine All-Star games, and in 1959 was the then-oldest person to win the Cy Young Award at the age of 39. One of only 24 pitchers to have won 300 games, Wynn was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972. Another notable Hall of Fame to have signed the program is player-manager Lou Boudreau, who earned eight All-Star selections and was the AL MVP the year that the Indians won the World Series in 1948.

Seller Inventory # CLIND001

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Souvenir Program for Spring Exhibition Game between Cleveland "Indians" and Oklahoma City "Indians," 1949
• Publisher: [April 1949]
• Binding: Original Wraps
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed
• Seller catalogs:
  • African American
  • Signed Books
  • Sports