later years, Bradley enjoyed telling the story of how he bought the Cleveland team. In September 1927, Tom Walsh stopped by the Hotel Cleveland and met Alva and Chuck Bradley in the steam room. Barnard was also likely in the room, as was John Sherwin, a wealthy banker who wanted a piece of the team. While everybody dripped with sweat, a deal was put together. Bradley and partners to be named later would buy the Indians for a million dollars, double what Jim Dunn paid in 1916. All the stockholders in the Dunn group had to give up their shares before any documents were signed. Everybody shook hands, and unofficially, as Bradley would say, it was the only time a baseball team had been sold in a steam bath.
By October, almost all the stockholders had agreed in principle to sell their shares. Nevertheless, a select few dragged their feet. Despite the best of efforts, the sale of the team remained in limbo. Alva Bradley kept busy assembling a team of investors. John Sherwin, the president of Union Trust Bank, came officially on board, along with Percy Morgan, the owner of Morgan Lithograph. These men were giants of Cleveland, capable of pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the ownership group. They were sportsmen as well. John Sherwin raced horses as a member of the exclusive Gentleman’s Riding Club. Percy Morgan was a skilled golfer, often shooting in the low eighties. When he was not on the golf course Morgan produced billboard advertisements and movie posters for the local theaters. The new Cleveland ownership group represented some of the most prominent men in town, if not the most wealthy.
By early November the remaining stockholders from the Dunn era had been whittled down to one. The lone holdout was W. J. Garvey from Chicago. Mr. Garvey wanted double the price of the Bradley group offer. The men went back and forth with the obstinate Garvey, who refused to budge on his 156 shares. Ernest Barnard, now the president of the American League, kept in touch with the old stockholder, trying to dissuade him from blocking the sale. On November 15, 1927, Barnard telephoned Bradley to let him know the final roadblock had been removed: Garvey had agreed to part with his stock. The next day, newspapers from Seattle to Boston reported that the Cleveland Indians had been sold.
When the details of the sale were released it came as a surprise that Alva and Chuck Bradley only controlled 18 percent of the total stock. There was ample money in the Bradley fortune to purchase a considerably larger share of the club. For reasons not mentioned, the brothers chose to keep their investment a conservative one. Alva was the driving force behind the sale, yet he would be only a minority shareholder. Percy Morgan bought 20 percent of the stock while John Sherwin acquired 30. Other Clevelanders, including attorney Joseph Hostetler and former secretary of war Newton Baker, bought up the remaining shares in varied amounts. When officers were named, Alva Bradley became president and treasurer of the Cleveland baseball club. Percy Morgan would be the vice president. The new owners all agreed that Bradley was the decision maker and spokesperson for the group. The job of rebuilding the Cleveland Indians rested on his shoulders.
The Cleveland papers began to speculate on what the first moves of the Bradley regime would be. Within days, the Cleveland club began to hunt for a general manager, a relatively new position in baseball. This person would be responsible for acquiring and developing talent, player trades, and salary negotiations. The new hire had to be a baseball man, fully knowledgeable about the intricacies of the game. It seemed plausible that the new general manager would be an ex-ballplayer or manager. Surely, a reasonably intelligent man who had played the game most of his life had the qualifications. Or a manager, skilled at analyzing talent and keeping his players in line, might be ideal for the job. Yet, Alva Bradley went a different route for his choice. On November 29, he named umpire Billy Evans as the new general manager.
What were the credentials of Billy Evans that led to his hiring? Certainly, in his twenty-two years as an American League umpire he had seen every aspect of the game. Evans was born in Chicago on February 10, 1884. The family moved to Youngstown, Ohio, when Billy was a small child. He spent two years at Cornell University, where he played freshman baseball. The death of his father caused Evans to leave college and return to Youngstown. He took a job as a sportswriter for the Youngstown Vindicator, covering local baseball and other sports. It was there that fate intervened for young Mr. Evans. On a whim, he was asked to umpire a local baseball game. He was astounded to learn his pay was fifteen dollars for the game, which equaled his weekly salary at the Vindicator. Soon he was umpiring Class C baseball in addition to his reporter’s job. While working a game between local rivals Niles and Youngstown, Evans made a late strike-three call against a Niles hitter. The partisan crowd stormed the field, prepared to give the young umpire a complete thrashing. Evans kept his cool and managed to survive the game without a scratch. In the stands was former Cleveland Spider star Jimmy McAleer, who admired the young man for his courage. Now the manager of the St. Louis Browns, McAleer convinced American League president Ban Johnson to hire Evans. At age twenty-two, Billy Evans became the youngest umpire in the Major Leagues.
Evans became a trusted arbiter, rarely blowing his top. He withstood the heated tirades of American League managers, often using diplomacy to get his points across, but every once in a while there were exceptions to the rule. In September 1921, Evans challenged Ty Cobb to a fight after the conclusion of a ball game. Reports were varied, but Evans seemed to have gotten the worst of it, wearing bandages on his face for the next several days. There was nothing to be ashamed of. More than a few ballplayers had come up short in their efforts to teach the widely disliked Cobb a lesson.
Evans traded on his popularity as an umpire to write syndicated baseball columns throughout his career. The articles covered a wide variety of topics related to the baseball world. One of his readers was quite likely Alva Bradley, who apparently saw Evans as much more than an umpire and writer. Another factor in Bradley’s decision was that Evans had made Cleveland his home for the past twenty years. All the Indians stockholders were from Cleveland and Bradley wanted no outsiders associated with his club. That was the clinching argument as Billy Evans accepted the general manager position.
As the new man in the front office, Evans agreed with Bradley that current manager Jim McAllister had no chance of being rehired. Speculation centered on big names from the Major Leagues, including Eddie Collins of the Philadelphia Athletics, Bucky Harris of Washington, and Art Fletcher, manager of the New York Giants. Collins was near the end of a brilliant playing career, but had stated that he wanted to pilot a ball club when he retired. Harris was player-manager of the Senators, but he was not thrilled with the fans, who had been riding him for the past two seasons. They had somehow forgotten that Harris had brought home two pennants and a World Series win in 1924. Fletcher, the manager of the New York Giants, had not indicated he was looking to change jobs, but the Cleveland sportswriters believed he could be had for the right price. Bradley and Evans told the writers a new manager would be in place in time for the minor-league meetings scheduled for the first week of December. Cleveland fans were quite eager to see what kind of manager the new ownership had in mind. The process went on longer than expected. On December 11, the front office surprised a number of folks by hiring former Cleveland Naps shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh.
Once again, Alva Bradley was following the Cleveland-only rule. The Peckinpaugh family had once lived in Wooster, Ohio, just a short train ride south of the big city. There, on February 5, 1891, Roger was born. The family moved to Cleveland when Roger was a small boy, settling in the Hough neighborhood. By coincidence, League Park, the home of the 1890s Cleveland Spiders, was only a few blocks away. In the early 1900s the neighborhood was honored to have a certain gentleman from Philadelphia move in: Napoleon “Larry” Lajoie became a full-time resident.
Roger’s father John had played semipro baseball in the 1880s, eventually getting a tryout with the Cincinnati Reds. A shortstop by trade, the elder Peckinpaugh failed in his opportunity, causing him to leave the game behind and become a salesman. Roger attended East High School, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. A legend on the sandlots, “Peck,” as his friends now called him, was the best young shortstop in northeast Ohio. He joined the Collinwoods, a semipro team where he apparently accepted some cash for his services. Later, during Peck’s senior season, an anonymous letter surfaced, claiming he had been paid for play and was a professional. The East Senate League suspended Peck from further play.
After graduation Roger continued his dazzling play on the sandlots. The Cleveland Naps paid close attention, signing him to a contract in February 1910. Stories circulated that