The Beginnings of the Cleveland Indians

Cleveland is one of the cities where professional baseball first took root. It has been a baseball city since at least 1869. The first 30 years of baseball in Cleveland saw several different teams competing in different leagues before the current franchise appeared in 1901.

  1. 19th Century

    • The first professional baseball game in Cleveland was played on June 2, 1869, between the Cleveland Forest Citys and the Cincinnati Red Stockings. In 1871, Cleveland joined the National Association, baseball's first professional league, but that club disbanded just one year later, leaving the city without a team until 1879. The next Cleveland team joined the National League and played until 1885. In 1886, a team was created for the new American Association and that team, the Cleveland Spiders, switched to the National League in 1889. In 1890, the city had two teams, with one in the short-lived Players' League. In 1898, the team's owner bought the St. Louis Cardinals and moved Cleveland's most talented players to the new city. The remaining team was so bad that it was dropped from the National League.

    Naps

    • Despite every professional major league but the National League folding by 1900, Western Baseball League executive Ban Johnson decided that the United States could support two major leagues. In 1901, he moved a minor league team from Grand Rapids to Cleveland and changed the name of his minor league from the Western League to the American League, a major league with designs on competing with the National League. Cleveland was the visiting team in the first American League game in Chicago that year. The team was called the Cleveland Blues in 1901, the Broncos in 1903 and became the Naps in 1905, in honor of their best player and biggest attraction at the time, Nap Lajoie. The Cleveland Naps retained the name until 1915.

    Indians

    • In 1914 Nap Lajoie became the first player in baseball to collect 3,000 hits. It was also his last season with the club. With Lajoie's departure, the team needed a new name. Team owner Charles Somers invited baseball writers to help make the selection. Indians was chosen in remembrance of the 1890s team that had been called "the Indians" in honor its star player Louis Sockalexis, a Penobscot Indian.

    World Series

    • New owner "Sunny" Jim Dunn took over the Cleveland franchise in 1918. Dunn brought in a new star in Tris Speaker, who would go on to the Hall of Fame. After narrowly missing winning the pennant in 1918, Dunn fired manager Lee Fohl and made Tris Speaker the player-manager of the club. Cleveland finished second again in 1919. In 1920, despite the death of player Ray Chapman, who was hit by a pitch, the team brought Cleveland its first World Series championship. Since then, the Indians have won only one additional World Series title, in 1948.