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Historical Indians memorabilia

Posted at 5:58 PM, Nov 02, 2016
and last updated 2016-11-02 18:00:27-04

It has been 176 combined years since the Indians or Cubs have brought home a World Series championship.

News 5 went to the Western Reserve Historical Society to comb through some Indians memorabilia and good luck charms.

 

"Those are two of the seats from Municipal Stadium and we used to display those behind a post in the museum. Some people got the joke," Eric Rivet said, curator, Western Reserve Historical Society.

A stroll through the museum and you are sure to find some gems. We saw the first ball that was thrown when Municipal Stadium opened in 1932.

"First unassisted triple play by an Indians player, first home by a pitcher - an Indians player. All in the same game, In 1920," said Rivet.

Not only that, the first grand slam in World Series history was hit by an Indians player at League Park. After it was taken down, Municipal Stadium was built in its place.

 

"When it was completed in the 1930s it was the largest baseball stadium in the country," said Rivet.

 

Fast forward to the 1948 World Series. Tickets were $6.25 and programs were just 50 cents.

"This is part of our newspaper collection, we have newspapers going back in Cleveland basically to the foundation of the city," Rivet said. "They had about 200,000 people who attended this one," said Rivet referring to the championship parade. "You notice that all of the players are wearing overcoats in all of the pictures that you see but it's not because it was really cold it's because they had celebrated on the way back and they had wine stains and beer stains on their uniform," said Rivet.

 

There is also another big attraction at Western Reserve Historical Society.

 

"We have Bob Hope's championship ring from 1948," Rivet said.

 

Hope was part-owner of the team.

"Not quite as elaborate as rings tend to be these days, but it's still for 1948, pretty fancy." Rivet said.