July 4, 1897: The Tragedy of Louis Sockalexis

July 4, 1897: Louis Sockalexis suffers an injury that turns him from the newest and most exciting star in baseball into a has-been.

Louis Francis Sockalexis was born on October 24, 1871 in Old Town, Maine. A member of the Penobscot tribe, it was said that he could throw a baseball across the 300-foot-wide Penobscot River. The outfielder starred with the Cleveland Spiders of the National League as a rookie in 1897, batting .338 with 16 stolen bases.

But his drinking problem, all too common among Native Americans, had already gotten him expelled from the University of Notre Dame, and caused problems for him with the Spiders. And on July 4, when the brothel he was visiting was raided by the police, he jumped out of a 2nd-story window and wrecked his ankle. He was never the same player. He was only 25 years old.

The circumstances surrounding the 1899 Cleveland Spiders are too convoluted to briefly summarize, but they were the worst team in Major League Baseball history, and they were Louis Sockalexis' last major league team. They released him on May 7. If they'd kept him, despite all his trouble -- he was hitting .273 in spite of his carousing and his injury -- maybe they wouldn't have finished 20-134. Maybe they would have finished 30-124.

He kept playing on minor league teams until 1907, suffered from tuberculosis, and died of a heart attack in Burlington, Maine on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1913, only 42 years old.

It was long presumed that the Spiders' American League replacements, originally called the Blues, then the Broncos, and then the Naps in honor of 2nd baseman and manager Napoleon Lajoie, were renamed the Indians in 1915 in honor of either "Sock," the 1st Native American to play in the major leagues; or the tribes that once lined the shore of Lake Erie.

According to Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Terry Pluto, who knows more than anyone about the Cleveland franchise of the American League, neither story is true: Baseball is a monkey-see-monkey-do game, like most sports; and, the year before, the World Series had been won by the Boston Braves.

However, there is an honor for Sockalexis at the Guardians' Progressive Field: He is one of the former Cleveland baseball players honored in Heritage Park beyond the center field fence, along with one other Cleveland Spider, Jesse Burkett. Its text, however, sticks to the story that he "inspired the nickname used to this very day."

It is no longer used: Finally bowing to pressure to drop the Native American team name, as the NFL's Washington Redskins had recently done, becoming the Washington Commanders, the baseball team changed its name to the Cleveland Guardians for the 2022 season.

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July 4, 1897 was a Sunday. Bad news for teams that needed the revenue from holiday doubleheaders, because some of them were places where the law prevented them from playing on Sundays. Out of 12 teams then in the National League, only 6 played on the day, and the Spiders were not one of them:

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-4 at National League Park in Cincinnati. Crosley Field would be built on the site in 1912.

* The Louisville Colonels beat the St. Louis Browns, 6-3 at Eclipse Park in Louisville, Kentucky.

* And the Chicago Colts beat the Washington Senators, 16-7 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago.

The Spiders, the Orioles, the Colonels and the Senators would be contracted out of the NL after the 1899 season. The Browns became the Cardinals in 1900. The Colts became the Cubs in 1903.