The drive, the fumble, the shot, the meltdown, the move, the decision. The history of Cleveland sports is filled with failures, heartache, and plain old bad luck. But failure is a more recent trend of Cleveland sports history. The catastrophes of the 1980s Bernie Kosar-led Browns, the meltdown of Jose Mesa in the 1997 World Series, and the mind-numbing minutes leading up to LeBron James’ decision to take his talents to South Beach, all overshadow the past rich heritage of Cleveland sports history. Jim Brown and Otto Graham of the Browns, Bob Feller and Larry Doby of the Indians, are just several names that harken back to the lore of past great teams. But memory of sports is fickle; most people only remember great successes or epic failures, but forget the moments when teams of less notoriety, the underdogs, achieve victory. For example, in 2007, Appalachian State, then a Division I FCS (Football Championship Series) school, defeated the no. 5 team in the nation, Michigan, at Michigan, by a score of 34-32. The game is cemented into the lore of college football, but the narrative centers less on Appalachian State’s tremendous upset victory than on Michigan’s epic loss. It is in similar fashion that the long-forgotten Cleveland Buckeyes of the Negro League experienced a similar lack of notoriety. The story of the Buckeyes is of great victory, saddening loss, and an abrupt end that coincided with the integration of Major League Baseball.

Fall, 1945. The Cleveland Buckeyes had, in monumental fashion, swept the Homestead Grays in a best of seven series to earn the title of Negro American League World Series champions. It was a historic event; the Grays had posted back-to-back championships in the ’43 and ’44 seasons, only to be dislodged by a relatively new and unknown team, the Cleveland Buckeyes. The Buckeyes, minimized in Cleveland sports memory, were not only an impactful team in the Negro leagues, but a great historic franchise of professional baseball.

The team was formed at the end of 1941 by an Erie, Pennsylvania nightclub and hotel owner named Ernest Wright as well as a local Cleveland sports promoter named Wilbur Hayes, who served as the team’s general manager. Ernest Wright was a successful black business owner whose long list of business ventures included barbershops, nightclubs, restaurants, and pool halls. Most notably, Wright owned Erie’s Pope Hotel, which was a hotspot for black culture and music. According to Dave O’Karma of Cleveland Magazine, “Wright’s ventures and solid business acumen provided something the white business structure of the time ignored: entertainment and jobs for black people by black people.”

Wilbur Hayes, on the other hand, did not attain the level of financial success that came to Wright. Hayes, born in Cleveland, dreamed of forming a professional ball club, but without any financial backing he had been unable to see that dream to fruition. However, that was about to change. Wright, in his hunt for players to form a professional baseball team, arrived in Cleveland during the spring of 1941. After talking with a local reporter in Cleveland, Wright was told that Wilbur Hayes was the man he needed to see. That is when Wright approached Hayes at his Central Avenue shoe shine stand to present him with an opportunity. “For years,” stated O’Karma, “Hayes had tried unsuccessfully to get financial backing for a professional club in Cleveland. Hayes’ confidence and enthusiasm impresses Wright enough for him to back a local semi-pro team.”

The first years of the Buckeyes' existence coincided with the United States’ involvement in World War II. For professional ballclubs, especially those in the Negro League, players came and went. For example, Bob Feller, Hall of Fame pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, was the first professional athlete in the United States to enlist in the war. He served in the Navy during the peak of his career. Inconsistent play on the field led to a lack of revenue for Negro League teams and forced them to cut expenses. One popular cut was team transportation, a decision that proved fateful for the Buckeyes.

In the early hours of September 7, 1942, a carload of Buckeye players were involved in a tragic accident near Geneva, Ohio, while carpooling between road games. The resulting crash led to the tragic deaths of catcher Ulysses “Buster” Brown and pitcher Raymond “Smokey” Owens. Among the injured were pitchers Alonzo Boone, Eugene Bremerton, and Herman Watts as well as team General Manager, Wilbur Hayes. Despite such tragic losses, the Buckeyes chose to complete the remainder of their season. Unfortunately for the Buckeyes, the last two weeks of the season were all on the road. The Buckeyes lost every game.

The tragedy of 1942 was soon eclipsed by the great victories of the 1945 season. The Buckeyes had developed all-star centerfielder, Sam Jethroe, along with pitcher Willie Grace into a formidable core. To add to this talent, the Buckeyes signed all-star catcher Quincy Trouppe to act as player manager during that year’s campaign. Other all-stars who rounded out the 1945 squad included third basemen and team captain Parnell Woods and right fielder Lloyd “Ducky” Davenport. Call and Post sports editor Bob Williams declared “With the exception of the World Champion Homestead Grays, the Bucks are reputed to be the highest-paid Negro club in America.” The money Ernest Wright invested did bear fruit. The Buckeyes went 53-16 in the 1945 season and as stated above, swept the two-time Negro American League Champions, the Homestead Greys, in a best of seven series. The offense was prolific in 1945, having a team batting average of .270 while hitting 78 homeruns in 74 games, but it was the pitching that really set the tone. The Buckeyes, in 147 innings pitched, compiled a team Earned Run Average (ERA) of 2.57.

The Buckeyes again reached the Negro League World Series in 1947. Quincy Trouppe continued to guide the Buckeyes as player manager and posted a 44-25-1 record that year. Unfortunately, the Buckeyes fell short of their World Series title goals and lost to the Cuban Giants (New York) four games to two. The team’s defeat on the World Series stage was matched by a greater defeat off the field.

As was true of many Negro American League teams in the late 1940s, money became more of an issue for the Buckeyes. Starting in 1947 the Buckeyes began to lose money at a faster rate. In an attempt to save the franchise, Wright moved the team to Louisville, Kentucky, for the 1949-50 seasons. This attempt proved futile and the team returned to Cleveland. After a 3-33 start in the 1950 season, Wright folded the team. It is not surprising that the decline of the Buckeyes came at a time when Major League Baseball began to integrate. Larry Doby broke the American League color barrier in 1947 when he joined the Cleveland Indians. 1948 saw a title return to Cleveland in the form of an Indians World Series Championship. As a result of this progression, the Buckeyes faded into the shadows of Cleveland sports memory. The integration signaled the end of the Negro League as the black community was absorbed into the larger fan base of the Cleveland Indians.

The legacy of the Buckeyes is overshadowed by the integration of baseball in 1947 and the Indians’ World Series title in 1948. The onetime phenom of the Buckeyes, Sam Jethroe, played for the Boston Braves in 1950. At the age of 32 he hit .273, with 35 stolen bases, and 18 homeruns. He won the National League Rookie of the Year. Other former players also found success in the big leagues, but it was their experiences in the Negro Leagues that made them a formative force in baseball.

The Buckeyes deserve a place in the larger sports history of Cleveland. Decades before embarrassments such as the drive, the fumble, the shot, the meltdown, and the move, took over the Cleveland sports narrative, the Buckeyes reigned supreme in a city that was divided. The Buckeyes brought prominence and hope to many of its fans as they followed their favorite players' transition into Major League Baseball.

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Like so many parts of the city and the nation, Clark Field was once a farm—a swampy but arable plot stretching from Auburn Avenue to the Cuyahoga River. In the late 1940s, the city of Cleveland bought 67 acres of the farm to use as a recreation area for area residents. For the next three years, the city filled in the swampy areas. On immediately adjoining land, the federal government continued to maintain garages stocked with army surplus material. These 17 acres were later added to the park and the garages were removed.

In 1951 the City of Cleveland allocated $75,000 for a Clark Field play area, a football field and two baseball diamonds. Later, a stadium was built with concession stands and restrooms. For several decades, Lincoln High School and Cleveland Central Catholic High School played football games on Friday nights and often practiced there during the week. Tennis courts were built and children were enrolled in city-sponsored tennis leagues and tournaments. Every child in the program received a free tennis racket and lessons.

Over the years, the field deteriorated and the stadium was demolished. Concurrent with the depopulation of Tremont, park use plummeted. Baseball teams still played there (Little League, men’s leagues, a Republic Steel team), but the park’s principal features became discarded tires, empty beer bottles, drug paraphernalia and danger. Large gaps appeared in the tennis courts. Clark Field became a dumping ground and the place to go to burn a car.

In 2001, area residents banded together to take the park back. Friends of Clark Field was formed in 2002—in collaboration with the Mentor-Castle-Clark block club, Kent State Urban School of Design, and the City of Cleveland’s Parks and Recreation Department and Research, Planning and Development Departments. The new organization developed a master plan focused on cleaning up the park, bringing back recreation activities and maximizing safety. More than 100 trees were planted, a basketball court was added, and waste receptacles, picnic tables and benches made from recyclable materials were installed. Friends of Clark Field also worked to bring the first dog park to the city.

From 2012 to 2014, friends of Clark Field held regular free events for children and families. Funded by grants, Clark Field hosted Friday night movies, Easter egg hunts, Halloween parties, arts and crafts days, and family nights with ice cream, snow cones, popcorn, balloons, face painting, free books, pizza, apples and entertainment. Flag football teams began using Clark Field. High school baseball and men’s and women’s softball teams played weekly games. High school football practices returned. Flower and tree planting continued, along with regular maintenance and cleanup days. Under the aegis of the Cleveland Metroparks, plans were laid for a Towpath Trail Extension, which will ring the western and northern borders of Clark Field, running from the northern entrance of Steelyard Commons to Literary Avenue.

In 2015, the City of Cleveland stopped issuing permits for events and sports at Clark Field so soil testing could be undertaken in preparation for additional park upgrades. Unfortunately, EPA tests revealed that several areas required soil reclamation—a slow and costly process. Consequently, the flow of traffic and events slowed significantly. Tests continue as of this writing. However, members of Friends of Clark Field are confident that—once remediation efforts are completed, the master plan fully implemented, and the Towpath Trail completed—Clark Field will reclaim and most likely exceed the significant progress achieved in the previous one and a half decades.

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Art Modell. The very mention of his name in Cleveland still stirs up vitriol. In 1963 he angered many by firing legendary Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown, only two years after Art assumed principal ownership of the team. Most was forgiven in 1964 when the Browns won the NFL championship; but for decades after, Art was regularly criticized for meddling in on-field affairs. More bridges were burned in 1986 when the Ohio Supreme Court declared that Modell had enriched himself unfairly through the buying, operating and selling of Stadium Corporation, a company he founded to manage Municipal Stadium. Acrimony reached the stratosphere in 1995 when Art announced that he was moving the Browns to Baltimore.

The loss of the Browns — a blow from which many Cleveland sports fans have not fully recovered (even though the team name, colors, and traditions were salvaged when the NFL awarded Cleveland an expansion team in 1999) — is inseparable from the history of Jacobs Field, as the new stadium was known before Progressive Insurance acquired naming rights. That history is filled with perennial disappointments on the playing field for the Browns and Cleveland's professional baseball team, the Indians.

From the beginning of the 20th century, Cleveland Indians home games were played at League Park (also known as Dunn Field) at Lexington Avenue and East 66th Street. Beginning in 1932, some Indians games were staged in the newly built Cleveland Municipal Stadium on the city's lakefront. After 1947, the Indians used Municipal Stadium exclusively. Built as a multipurpose facility, Municipal Stadium began hosting football in 1946 — the year the Cleveland Browns came into being as part of the All-America Conference (the team joined the National Football League in 1950). By the early 1970s, the forty-year-old stadium was aging and needed major repairs, which the financially strapped City of Cleveland could not afford. In 1973, Art Modell agreed to lease the stadium and take responsibility for its upkeep. Over the years his Stadium Corporation made much more money from the stadium than it paid the city in rent, in part because Modell refused to share with the Indians any of the revenues from the 108 loges he added in the mid-1970s.

By the early 1980s, plans surfaced for a domed stadium that might house both the Indians and the NBA Cavaliers. At the same time, Cleveland State University was planning a convocation center for its basketball team, concerts, and university events. At Governor Richard Celeste's urging, the university agreed to study the feasibility of building a larger domed stadium that would serve CSU’s needs as well as those of Cleveland’s pro baseball and basketball teams. Researchers subsequently concluded that such a combination facility would lose money unless the Indians dramatically improved their dismal attendance. Advocates claimed a domed stadium would stimulate downtown revitalization and boost civic pride. Skeptics noted that the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, and the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans had fallen short of expectations and required constant public subsidies to break even. Many believed that the Indians didn't deserve a new home and that any money spent on the franchise should be used to field a team worthy of attracting larger crowds. Unsurprisingly, voters refused to foot the bill—rejecting a property tax issue to fund the dome in May 1984.

The Indians had threatened to leave Cleveland before, in 1958 and 1964, prompting emergency campaigns to "save the Indians." And when owner F.J. “Steve” O'Neill died in 1983, the Cleveland Indians’ tenancy was once again under threat. Salvation came in the form of sibling developers Richard and David Jacobs, who acquired the team in 1986. The newly formed Greater Cleveland Domed Stadium Corporation began assembling land around the former site of the old Central Market, just south of Prospect Avenue at East 9th Street and Carnegie Avenue. But even though the Jacobs family pumped new life into the Indians franchise, Art Modell continued to demand a new 20-year lease on Municipal Stadium in return for his agreement to make much-needed improvements. Among the most serious problems were structural concerns, antiquated restrooms, a paucity of concession stands and poor field drainage. The situation was chaotic: Art was adamant. CSU was going forward with its convocation center. And now the Domed Stadium group was proposing two stadia: an open-air baseball field and an adjacent arena to lure the Cavaliers back from suburban Richfield.

In May 1990, voters approved a 15-year "sin tax" on sales of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes to help fund what was now being called the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex. Combined with Jacobs money, the new Jacobs Field was built in what has sometimes been called the "retro-modern ballpark" style first used a few years before for Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Like Oriole Park, Jacobs Field aimed not only to revive a city's fan base, it also sought to stimulate downtown development and build upon Cleveland's "comeback" under George Voinovich, Cleveland's counterpart to "messiah mayor" William Donald Schafer of Baltimore.

On April 4, 1994, President Bill Clinton threw the ceremonial first pitch at the new Jacobs Field. Roughly 18 months later, the Indians appeared in their first World Series since being swept by the New York Giants in 1954 (the Tribe lost the ’95 Series to Atlanta in six games). Jacobs Field enjoyed a record 455 consecutive sold-out home games between 1995 and 2001. That same period marked the demise and rebirth of the Cleveland Browns. Art Modell, who had steadfastly refused to participate in the effort to build the Gateway complex, incurred millions of dollars in revenue losses when the Indians departed for Jacobs Field. Already burdened with excessive debt, Art turned his back on the crumbling Municipal Stadium and reestablished the Browns as the Baltimore Ravens in 1996.

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In 1914 and 1915, Brookside Stadium hosted a series of amateur baseball matches that set local and national attendance records. The bowl-shaped natural amphitheater and park setting offered an idyllic atmosphere for the games, which regularly reported audiences of between 30,000 and 80,000. While probably greatly exaggerated, the 1915 Class A intercity championship contest was estimated to have attracted up to 115,000 Cleveland residents. These games would be remembered as the peak of amateur baseball's popularity in Cleveland. But what prompted the throngs of Cleveland residents to line the sloping hillside of Brookside Stadium in what is now the Cleveland Metroparks Brookside Reservation? In part, attendance numbers can be attributed to an aura of public excitement that surrounded the local championship teams; the success of these amateur clubs contrasted with their cellar-dwelling American League counterpart, recently coined the Cleveland Indians. The public enthusiasm, however, should also be attributed to the efforts of the Cleveland Amateur Baseball Association (CABA). The organization developed one of the most successful and influential amateur systems in the nation. CABA helped organize and promote the sport in Cleveland--and amateur baseball's popularity reached unprecedented heights.

Baseball had been a favorite local pastime in Cleveland since before the turn of the century. Amateur games on both private grounds and throughout the park system regularly reported attendance in the thousands; spectators, drawn by both their personal ties to the teams and the option of free entertainment, crowded around the city's numerous official and makeshift baseball diamonds. The teams often represented neighborhoods, churches or places of employment, and were financially backed by these local businesses and institutions. The sport offered players affordable recreation and, to a select few, the possibility of moving on to the professional leagues. While payment of players in upper-level amateur and semi-professional leagues was frowned upon, it was not unusual. The backing of successful teams acted as advertising and offered status to local businesses. In addition, it was not an uncommon practice to charge spectators a small admission fee for games on private grounds. The revenue helped pay both backers and players, or covered the expenses of a visiting team.

By the turn of the 20th century, entrepreneurs had morphed baseball from leisurely recreation into a business. The National League had been establishing itself for nearly 25 years, and the American League was just emerging in markets such as Cleveland. At the professional and semi-professional level, the game was becoming increasingly organized in order to promote and protect the interests of owners and players. As part of this effort to advance the sport, a history of baseball's unique American origins was created by those financially invested in its growth; their marketing complimented the rhetoric of exceptionalism and individualism that was deeply rooted in Progressive Era society. The simple logistics of the highly stylized and complex game, tied in with population growth and urbanization, provided a framework from which the sport emerged as a favorite national pastime. Efforts to organize and market amateur baseball in urban centers such as Cleveland followed, and often mirrored the development of professional leagues.

In February 1910, the Cleveland Amateur Baseball Association was formed. Independent organizations had previously attempted to order and regulate Cleveland's numerous amateur and semi-professional clubs, but had little success competing with the city league. CABA, however, was backed by Cleveland's Department of Recreation as well as the city's moneyed men. Nationally, the organization was the first to successfully integrate its amateur leagues under a single governing body. This was no small feat, as CABA's early efforts included consolidating 18 leagues and nearly 250 teams into an amateur system. While the development of CABA and scope of their local influence was unique, it was informed by the creation of similar amateur organizations throughout the Midwest. In September of the prior year, for example, a branch of the National Amateur Baseball Association was formed in Cincinnati. This organization's development was governed by regulations from the National Amateur Baseball Association of Chicago, which was established as a union in 1906 by semi-professional baseball players of Chicago. Just as in Cleveland, these associations were meant to govern and standardize the sport between leagues and cities.

CABA was founded on the premise of promoting and protecting amateur baseball, which was growing in popularity each year. The role of the organization was predominately administrative; park officials were dealing with more independent teams than ever before. CABA, with the support of the city, was to provide assistance in the development of new grounds, improve preexisting fields, administer their use, and act as the point of contact for setting up games between teams- the latter of which was previously achieved by clubs advertising in newspapers. An umpire's association was also formed; CABA administrated both the assigning of games to officials and compensating them for their work. To pay the costs of this work, CABA annually held a field meet known as "Amateur Day." Proceeds from admission were used to cover the organization's yearly costs.

From 1910 to 1914, CABA's efforts focused on creating a competitive environment to generate public interest in the amateur system. The organization drafted rules and standardized the city's various leagues. Membership to the amateur system was free, with each player being required to sign a contract. American League rules of play were adopted, and teams were placed in four divisions--A through D--based on the age of the participants. Within each divisions, teams would battle to claim the title of city champion. Fostering the creation of a competitive environment paid off quickly; the 1910 Class A championship game at Brookside Stadium drew an estimated 30,000 spectators.

To ensure the stability of the amateur system, the power of managers was greatly expanded under CABA's administration. Rules and regulations were implemented to promote the support of financial backers. Newly drafted laws prevented players from jumping teams without written permission from a manager. This assured backers that the team in which they invested would retain its star players and, in a worst case scenario, that they would not be forced to disband their team if multiple members were given a better offer from a competing backer.

Other laws were drafted in a futile effort to remove what was deemed to be "professionalism" in the amateur sport. The organization threatened to expel players who demanded cash and throw out teams paying their players. After learning that nearly all Class A and many Class B players were being compensated, attempts were briefly made in 1912 to incorporate a semi-professional Class AA division that allowed for this practice. As it became clear that backers meant to enclose baseball diamonds and charge admission to the semiprofessional games, the league was quickly disbanded. By 1913, CABA had declared its intentions to wipe out the practice of paying players and worked to secure evidence against known offenders. As baseball was being marketed as a unique American institution, engrained with the simplicity and morality of the country's rural past, CABA rules were meant both to reinforce these ideals and minimize what was perceived to be the corrupting influence of commercialism on the sport. Charged by the rhetoric of the Progressive movement, city officials and social organizations supported the efforts of CABA as a means to promote the physical development of youth and provide sober recreation to the city's growing populace.

Within only a few years, CABA created an amateur system that attracted a high level of public attention. Their program earned a reputation as having the largest and best amateur baseball card available to the city's residents. By 1913, CABA made its first attempt at promoting intercity championship games. Working with leagues from St. Louis and Chicago, a tournament was scheduled. Problems quickly arose: there was a general lack of continuity in the rules and schedules employed by the multiple leagues. It was apparent that a governing body was needed. This set the stage for the sport's boom in popularity.

In February 1914, representatives of CABA met with members of thirteen other amateur leagues in Chicago to organize the National Amateur Baseball Association (NABA). The object of the meeting was to develop an elimination series for determining a national amateur baseball champion. With over 200 teams expected to participate, NABA split the fourteen cities into four sections, each representing four cities. Each city would organize its own league, with membership limited to unpaid players. The winner of the city championship would move on to a sectional intercity tournament, with a national title to be held about the same time as the major league championship game.

Cleveland's elimination series proved incredibly successful in raising public interest in the amateur sport. The 1914 Class A city and intercity championship games drew record-setting numbers of spectators to Brookside Park. Tournament games were reported to have attracted between 25,000 and 80,000 persons, with high attendance dependent on the cooperation of weather. Cleveland's Telling Strollers pushed through the city and sectional rounds, and moved on to beat Chicago's Butler Bros in a three game series for the Amateur World Series. The 1915 series proved even more successful in drawing the public to Brookside Stadium, with the Cleveland White Autos securing the national championship.

NABA's success, however, would prove to be short lived. Conflict within its governing body resulted in a schism at a 1916 meeting. The often tenuous relationship between local politics and businesses--not unusual in either professional or amateur baseball--had reached a breaking point within the organization and needed renegotiating. Led by the future mayor of Cleveland, Clayton Townes, representatives from ten of the fourteen cities composing NABA formed the National Baseball Federation. The Federation was created for the same ends as NABA, but with two distinctions. Concerned over the growing influence of sporting goods dealers in NABA's governing body, NBF's membership was restricted to non-commercialized baseball associations. The new federation also developed a AA semi-professional league as a response to amateur teams employing semi-professionals for tournament games. NBF would allow the payment of players in this new league, as long as baseball was not the main source of their income. With the Federation's leadership closely tied and influenced by Cleveland amateur baseball, CABA allied itself with the NBF.

Even with internal divisions and the advent of the Great War, amateur baseball continued to attract large audiences in Cleveland. Cleveland teams dominated NBF's Class A division in 1916 and 1918, and tied for the 1917 championship. NABA and CABA officials suspended their work for the duration of the war in 1918, probably in response to many players' responsibilities at factories and docks under the "Work or Fight" order from the War Department. The NBF focused its efforts on fundraising projects for American troops. Prior to the 1919 amateur season, however, it was decided that a merger between NBF and NABA was in the best interest of the amateur sport. The namesake of the the National Baseball Federation was kept.

CABA remained at the forefront of amateur baseball in Cleveland until 1932. While both CABA's development as an independent body and the control that they were able to assert over the amateur system was key to their growth, it eventually resulted in the organization's downfall. With the election of a new mayor in 1931, the commissioner of Cleveland's recreation department was forced to resign; this official was also the acting secretary of CABA. The ousting was primarily due to a shift in administration and Depression induced budget cuts. The commissioner's resignation, however, was accompanied by allegations that CABA had received preferential treatment from the city in the assignment of playing fields. CABA responded to the new administration's actions by removing their office from City Hall --symbolically breaking its longstanding relationship with the local government. The Cleveland Baseball Federation was quickly formed to take its place. With strong ties to the local government, backers of many major teams aligned with the Federation. CABA's governing body suspended its activities on April 21, 1932, citing concerns over securing adequate fields from the new administration and a decrease in backers' willingness to invest in the unstable economic climate. For twenty-one years, the organization had managed the development of sandlot baseball in Cleveland. The organization earned a reputation nationwide for its success in promoting and advancing the sport, and was a model for its organizational structure. Building upon the work of CABA, the Cleveland Baseball Federation continued to grow and refine the city's amateur system into the 1950s. For the better part of a half-century, Cleveland was home to the strongest and most popular amateur baseball systems in the country.

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On October 10, 1915, the natural amphitheater at what is now Cleveland Metroparks Brookside Reservation hosted possibly the largest crowd to ever assemble for an amateur sporting event. Attendance of the baseball game was estimated at between 80,000 and 115,000 by newspapers, park staff and city officials. The game would be remembered as the pinnacle of the sport's popularity in Cleveland. While amateur baseball continued to attract huge audiences until the 1950s, the matches held during the National Amateur Baseball Association tournaments of 1914 and 1915 proved to be the most memorable. Captured in film and panoramic photographs, Clevelanders would harken back to these games as the heyday of the amateur sport. The successes and complications that arose from the series of matches, though, provided a point of departure for the National Amateur Baseball Federation to be born and develop a lasting amateur baseball circuit in the Midwest.

The match on October 10 was representative of everything amateur baseball could be: The White Autos of Cleveland were down three runs at the end the third inning. Pitcher Big Six Louis Crowley struggled against the Luxus, Omaha's championship team. The game turned at the bottom of the fourth inning. The Autos rallied with seven hits, three errors, two hit baseman and a sacrifice for a total of eight runs. The screams and cheers of the crowd amassed into a deafening roar that contributed to the chaos of the inning; the visiting team threw wildly and missed easy fly balls. The noise continued to stilt conversations and drown out a brass band performing for the occasion. Unable to recover, the Luxus lost by a score of 11 to 6. As soon as the umpire called the final out and the championship was secured, a crowd swarmed the field. Crowley was lifted on their shoulder, and impromptu versions of "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Hail, Hail, the Gang's all Here" were sung. A procession of trucks loaded with rooters and the band led the victorious White Autos down West 25th Street to the viaduct, and eventually to the Hollenden on Public Square. Once the festivities waned, the trucks drove the players back to East 79th Street- where the amateur team lived and worked at their sponsor's auto factory. The White Autos went on to win the national championship in San Francisco.

The attendance of the game was astounding, and the event was quickly proclaimed to be the largest amateur baseball crowd to ever assemble. This defining match, however, almost never took place. The White Autos had already been eliminated from the 1915 tournament by a team from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Initially scheduled for three games, the president of NABA ordered the series cut to a single match the night before the contest. Backers from the club disregarded this ruling to give fans in each city a chance to see the teams play. Johnstown won the first game, and Cleveland the remaining two. NABA, however, only recognized the first match. Up to that point, the number of games in a series was decided on by the clubs. Because the tournament schedule had no set dates, NABA proved ineffective in managing multiple coinciding intercity series. Cleveland's division had fallen behind due to multiple extended series. The White Auto's loss against Johnstown was further marred by a dispute over the officiating; Johnstown's victory was gained through an umpire's call that ran contrary to major league rules. NABA conceded that the short notice provided for the abbreviated series was unfair, and ordered that the first game be played over to rectify the disputed call. Having lost two of the three games, Johnstowns forfeited the rematch and allowed Cleveland to move forward in the tournament.

Other Cleveland matches were disputed, further raising questions about the fairness and organization of the tournament. The Omaha Luxus filed a complaint against the White Autos for adding players to its roster. Since NABA failed to put in place a player limit for teams, an intercity series between Detroit and Cleveland found the latter club with two less members. An agreement was made between the teams that Cleveland could increase its roster by two persons in order that both clubs would have 15 players. Omaha's claim suggested that this practice resulted in teams being padded with elite players from their region, and claimed that only the original team should be permitted to play. At the root of this controversy was a gap in the National Amateur Baseball Associations' rules for taking into account the various conditions of amateur systems in different cities. In place of set tournament rules from NABA, the tournament matches were held under a series of agreements between competing clubs.

The list of problems and inefficiencies that arose from these informal agreements was long. Amateur systems represented in the tournament used both American and National league rules, often dependent on their city's major league affiliation. Procedures to assign skilled and fair umpires were lacking. Player limits did not exist. Dates for beginning the intercity competitions varied. Semi-professional players were brought onto amateur teams. No methods were defined to raise funds to pay visiting teams or reimburse the expenses of injured players. These issues provided the groundwork from which the National Baseball Federation was built. The ambitious tournament system was young, and would be refined by the Federation. The National Amateur Baseball Association as it existed would not stand the test of time, and merged with the National Baseball Federation 1919. While relics and public memory of the games suggest that the record-setting attendance signaled the pinnacle of the amateur sport's popularity in places such as Cleveland, the tournament more notably led to the creation of the National Amateur Baseball Federation- which is now the oldest continually functioning baseball organization in the United States.

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Oghema Niagara of the band Pishqua, tribe Osauckee of the Algonquin nation, was born amid the thunderous sound of the Niagara on September 10, 1865, in the Hut of Two Kettle on the Tuscarora Indian Village in Lewistown, New York. Cleveland became his home during the first decade of the 20th century. He came to be known among white men as Chief Thunderwater and built an impressive career as a business leader and civic booster while maintaining his native identity.

As a member of the Pioneers Memorial Association, Chief Thunderwater led a long crusade to save the Erie Street Cemetery from relocation/desecration with a warning that "should the body of [Mesquakie chief and cemetery resident] Joc-o-Sot’s ever be touched, a terrible disaster would befall Cleveland." It would not be his last or even most famous prophecy. He also claimed, ex post facto, to have seen a vision in 1948, correctly predicting a World Series win by the Cleveland Indians baseball team. It is unknown whether the Chief was sincere or if, understanding the strange condition of native peoples in modern North America, he was merely playing the expected role of mystic. After all, Oghema Niagara had an agenda.

Born and raised during the final stages of the Indian Wars, he knew that adopting the ways of white men came with both opportunity and risk. Native Americans who entered white society were expected – and often forced – to abandon native cultural practices. Oghema Niagara learned that if he were to preserve his culture, he would need to understand what white Americans saw as important. It is likely his experience as a performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show gave him some idea of how to proceed. By showcasing (sometimes imagined or invented) native ways, he sought to promote the humanity of native people and demonstrate the value of traditional cultures. Along the way, he also made the social connections that would help establish him among the burgeoning Cleveland business class and lend him the influence he needed to serve as a voice for his people.

Chief Thunderwater began selling herbal cure-alls in Cleveland in the early 1900s. His products – including "Mohawk Penetrating Oil," "Thunderwater Tonic Bitters," "Seminole Sweet Gum Salve," and "Jee-wan-ga tea," – were supposedly derived from traditional medicines "from back in the days when bison trampled the prairie flowers in the dust." He ran his own Thunderwater & Rose company and served as president of the Preservative Cleaner Company, a manufacturer of polishes. He belonged to the Cleveland Business Men's Taft Club, made up of Republican Party supporters, and personally met Presidents Wilson and Taft. His 17 room dwelling at 6716 Baden Court served as his business headquarters. It also became a de facto inn for traveling Native Americans and an occasional home for those in need.

Oghema Niagara was Cleveland’s last known "sachem" and served as a founder and leader of the Supreme Council of Indian Tribes from 1917 to 1950. During that period, he addressed Indian affairs from his home and often travelled thousands of miles to personally diffuse situations throughout North America. He lectured vigorously in support of American Indian rights, leading the fight, for example, in United States, Ex Rel. Diabo vs. McCandless regarding the border between the U.S. and Canada and Indian acknowledgement thereof. Thundering against the "wrongs that the white man did unto his red people," Oghema Niagara led The Thunderwater Movement, which agitated for, among other things, unification of the tribes for the purpose of securing an independent Indian Nation roughly the size of Texas. In the latter half of his life, he was a consistent and controversial figure in the still-nascent movement for Native American rights, butting up against the repressive policies of the Indian Affairs office in the US and the Indian Department in Canada, as well as more assimilationist Native Americans.

By the time of his death on June 10th of 1950, Chief Thunderwater had become something of a ceremonial celebrity in Cleveland, at least in part thanks to the name of the local baseball team, for which he rooted near the end of his life ("May the best warriors win, as long as they are Cleveland's" he declared prior to the Indians' 1948 World Series win). Some claim he was the inspiration for the team's racially-insensitive Chief Wahoo mascot, an indignity imposed on the memory of a handful of other Native American Clevelanders, including baseball players Allie Reynolds and Louis Sockalexis. The Canadian government claimed he was not a Native American at all, but a "negro" conman named Henry Palmer – a charge his supporters (plausibly) considered a transparent fabrication meant to discredit the Pan-Indian Thunderwater Movement.

Chief Thunderwater, Henry Palmer, Oghema Niagara, is buried at Erie Street Cemetery, a place he helped preserve, alongside the unmoved grave of Chief Joc-o-Sot.

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They say "a hot dog is only as good as the mustard that goes on it," and who would have known this better than Cleveland's own mustard icon and food purveyor, Joseph Bertman? Bertman Original Park Mustard and the Bertman family name are synonymous with a Cleveland food tradition dating back to the 1920s. Its story is as much about Joseph Bertman the businessman, entrepreneur and humanitarian, as it is about the popular award-winning spicy brown concoction that he created.

Born in Lublin, Poland in 1902, Joseph Bertman was 6 when he immigrated to Cleveland. At only 13 years old, Bertman witnessed his father being shot to death by someone taking target practice at an old boxcar. (Bertman and his father were making deliveries for the family dry cleaning store at the time.) Following his father's death, the young Bertman became the sole support for his mother, four brothers and a sister. To keep the family together, he worked two jobs, seven days a week.

At 19, Bertman quit working for other people and set up his own business in pickle packing. He established Bertman Pickle Company in a little garage on E. 103rd Street. He would rise at 4 a.m. every day to begin peddling his products. In the mid 1930s, he established Joseph Bertman, Inc., a wholesale food business, first located at East 103rd Street and St. Clair Avenue, and then at 2180 East 76th Street. Bertman supplied food products to a variety of institutions, caterers, and ball parks, including League Park and later to Cleveland Municipal Stadium. In the period shortly after World War II, Bertman had exclusive distribution rights to many products. At one point, he was warehousing many items and running 22 trucks and a sales team in order to service his customers. He expanded his sales territory across an area that ran from Pittsburgh to Toledo, handling every type of food. Bertman became so expert in the business of buying foods and finding and importing food products that he began spending more time as a food broker than as a wholesaler. He traveled all over the world, finding crops and locating sources of critical foods and kept permanent apartments in New York and Miami as well as his Cleveland home. From hometown food giants Hector Boiardi (a.k.a. Chef Boyardee) to Vernon Stouffer, Joseph Bertman was a friend and mentor to many renowned people in Cleveland's food industry.

As for "The Good Stuff" that Cleveland Guardians fans have known and loved for generations, the recipe for Bertman Original Ball Park Mustard has remained almost unchanged over the years. The finest vinegar, brown mustard seed and spices are processed in a unique manner and never watered down. Since 1921, when Joseph Bertman invented it from his secret formula, his Original Ball Park Mustard has tantalized taste buds at Euclid Beach, League Park, the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and now at Progressive Field, too.

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During the 1970s the area that now occupies the western edge of Cleveland’s Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant was still known as White City Park. The tract of land bordered by Bratenahl Village to the west and the city sewer authority property to the east existed as a public park in various incarnations since 1900. Lake Shore Boulevard bounded its entrance to the south at East 140th Street in Collinwood Village (later annexed by Cleveland). The park's lakeshore was attractive to swimmers, fishermen, and boaters for the rest of the 20th century. White City Park has shared several names and faces over the past century.

The 1.5-mile lakefront area to the east of Bratenahl Village was originally known as Manhattan Beach and is still informally named that today. The “White City” space noted above was first cited in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in June 1900 as Manhattan Beach Park in announcements of fraternal organization and secret society gatherings. The park also hosted baseball, bowling, a dance hall, entertainment, and a bathing beach. Its entertainment value to the Collinwood Village neighborhood was evident with the newspaper announcements and stories of daily activities and events at the park from 1900 to 1904. One socio-political dispute played out in the park and among its nearby neighbors. The Beal Law provided local options concerning alcohol sales and consumption. The dispute between the ‘wets’ and the ‘drys’ in the Collinwood community carried on for years. Undercover detectives were dispatched to the area in and around Manhattan Beach Park to ensnare alcohol salesmen for the Collinwood Mayor’s court. Repeated polling switched the wet-dry rules three times between 1902 and 1908 prior to Collinwood’s annexation into Cleveland in 1910, but stories abounded about the behavior in the neighborhood. Edward C. Boyce purchased Manhattan Beach Park early in 1905 with the intent to further develop it into an amusement park.

In the golden era of Cleveland’s amusement parks, White City Amusement Park was one of many built to compete with the most successful of them all, Euclid Beach Park, about a mile east on the lake, and was even served by the same streetcars. The two parks became common destinations for a day’s outing for the few seasons that White City Park and Euclid Beach Park were neighbors. White City Park shared a common design with the famous New York-based Coney Island. Ed Boyce, an owner of Coney Island’s Dreamland Park, adopted its concepts to build White City Park. The general idea was to bring in attractions, entertainers, and celebrities to draw people to the park. The Park was built in eleven weeks and featured a boardwalk, Shoot the Chutes, the Bostock Animal Show, Bump-the-Bumps, a scenic railway, and a midway which featured Drs. Couney and Stewart’s infant incubator hospital. About 20 premature babies, referred by Cleveland area physicians, were under care and on display as the best and most promising hope for infant survival. The first ‘resident’ arrived in June 1905 in time for the Park’s opening. The hospital gained local notoriety with full capacity and subsequent reunion celebrations in years to come.

Cleveland, however, suffered from a lack of star power and the Dreamland concept was less than successful. Unlike Euclid Beach, White City Park charged an admission fee, which hurt its business. After a fire burned down over half of the park in 1906 and a windstorm caused severe damage in 1907, the owners had been through enough. White City Park was closed in 1908 after only four years in operation. In 1909, new owners reopened it as Cleveland Beach Park to host local gatherings, much like Manhattan Beach Park did earlier in the decade. Between 1909 and 1911, investors and managers combined to rename attractions at White City. The Cleveland Trust Co. foreclosed on the property, a sheriff’s sale ensued, and M. F. Bramley bought White City land and Luna Park with the intention to manage several amusement parks in the region. He remodeled the property once more as Bay Park [Amusement Co.] in 1911, just barely long enough to be noted on some local maps. The company ceased operations within two months, spelling the end of amusement park activity.

The next several years saw White City revert to ‘city park’ mode with accommodations for picnic and game grounds and beach access. Much of the news concerning the area was devoted to the development of the adjacent sewage treatment plant serving Cleveland’s east side. Later in the decade, the grounds were devoted to stables and drill and practice by National Guard troops training for threatening World War I border duty.

Through the ensuing decades, the city of Cleveland maintained the park for swimming, fishing, and boating under the auspices of the White City Yacht Club and the Northeast Yacht Club despite occasionally dangerous water quality conditions created by the neighboring sewage treatment facility’s deficiencies. The constants which remain today through the evolving story of Collinwood’s northwestern shore, then and 100 years hence, are White City Park and the Manhattan Beach neighborhood.

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The building currently occupied by The Winking Lizard was built in 1913 and was the original home of The Lakewood Tennis Club. 2000 spectators were on hand at the club on July 3, 1916, to witness a national clay court tennis tournament. The tennis club vacated the building shortly thereafter, and in 1918 Lakewood Lodge No. 1350 of the Elks took control of the building. The Elks are a national fraternal organization with chapters (or "lodges") across the country. The lodges function as social clubs, but they also maintain a focus on doing good deeds and helping others in their community.

The tennis courts next to the Lakewood Lodge were soon converted into a state of the art softball stadium that regularly drew hundreds of spectators for men's and women's games. Elks' Field was the country's first lighted softball stadium, and the World Softball Championships were played there in 1944 and 1946. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Elks Lodge also hosted circuses and carnivals at the site. Al Capone's black bulletproof Cadillac was memorably featured at one carnival.

The fun at Elks' Field ended in 1958 when the land was leased for the construction of a supermarket. Today, the Winking Lizard inhabits the former Elks Lodge. The building contains a basement bowling alley and still features a grand stairway near the entrance and an upstairs fireplace.

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The demolition of Cleveland Municipal Stadium officially began in November 1996 and was complete by the following spring. In the fall of 1995, Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell decided to move the city's football team to Baltimore. Angry fans began the demolition process themselves during the Browns' final home game in 1995, tearing out seats and taking other pieces of Municipal Stadium with them as souvenirs, knowing it might be their last time in the stadium. Part of Mayor Michael White's deal with the National Football League to bring an expansion team to the city included the building of a new stadium. The old stadium would be torn down to make way for a new lakefront facility. Coincidentally, Cleveland's Osborn Engineering Company, which, along with architectural firm Walker and Weeks, had been the main designer of Municipal Stadium, oversaw the demolition of the stadium that it had so proudly helped build more than 65 years earlier.

The construction of Cleveland Municipal Stadium was completed in 1931. It had a seating capacity of slightly more than 78,000, which gave the stadium the largest outdoor seating capacity of any stadium in the world. In 1928, Cleveland voters approved a $2.5 million bond to help pay for its construction, one of the first instances in which the public helped finance a sports stadium. The final cost of construction came in at around $3 million. On July 3, 1931, the first event at the stadium was held when heavyweight boxing champion Max Schmeling defeated Young Stribling. This also marked the first time that a heavyweight boxing bout had taken place in Cleveland.

The Cleveland Indians played their first game at the stadium on July 31, 1932, and played all of the 1933 season there, as well. Until 1947, however, the team played its weekday games at the smaller League Park, opting to play at Municipal Stadium only during weekends and holidays when a larger crowd could be assured. In 1948 and 1954 the stadium hosted Major League Baseball's World Series.

The Cleveland Browns began playing at Municipal Stadium in 1946 when they were a part of the All-American Football Conference (AAFC) -- a short-lived rival to the NFL. The Browns won all four of the AAFC's title games, three of which ('46, '48, '49) were held in Municipal Stadium. The Browns also had a perfect regular season (14-0) in 1948 and won the AAFC championship at the stadium that year by defeating the Buffalo Bills, 49-7.

After moving to the NFL in 1950, the team continued their success. The Browns played host to the NFL Championship Game (the precursor to the Super Bowl) in 1950, 1952, 1954, 1964, and 1968, winning each time except for the last. Today, the new Cleveland Browns Stadium (opened in 1999) sits on the site of Municipal Stadium.

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The construction of the massive, 70,000-seat Cleveland Municipal Stadium in the 1930s spelled the beginning of the end for a much older stadium— League Park. This ballpark was constructed in 1891 east of downtown in Cleveland's Hough neighborhood at Dunham Street (East 66th) between Linwood and Lexington Avenues. Lexington Avenue trolley-line operator Frank Robison shoehorned the ballpark into the residential neighborhood, conveniently generating revenues from fares and game tickets. Its tight quarters and restrictive right-field fence to fit the property gave rise to “pinball” baseball, leaving outfielders never knowing where the ball would ricochet. Close-by homes featured signs advertising local businesses for home-run promotions. Despite renovations in 1910 that replaced the original wood with concrete and steel, expanding capacity to over 20,000, League Park was deemed to be too small and antiquated for professional baseball after Municipal Stadium opened. 

League Park began its run as the home of the Cleveland Spiders who became the Indians in what was the site of the 1920 World Series, in which the Indians beat the Brooklyn Dodgers for their first championship. From 1916 to 1927, as a perquisite of owning the team, Jim Dunn changed the name to Dunn Field, but thereafter the name reverted to League Park. Negro League baseball teams also thrived at League Park from the mid-1930s, culminating with the Cleveland Buckeyes winning the the Negro American League World Series in 1945. The Indians played their last game at League Park in 1946, but for ten years prior to that they had been playing weekend and holiday games at the bigger stadium on the lakefront. During its heyday, the Park hosted MLB’s best—manager Tris Speaker, hitter Ty Cobb, slugger Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, infamous shoeless Joe Jackson, shortstop Ray Chapman, and champion Bob Feller, among others. Joe DiMaggio finalized his 56-game hitting streak at the Park in 1941; the streak ended the next day at Muny Stadium. The Indians initially achieved success after departing League Park, but the team's fortunes soon declined. The last thirty years or so of the Indians' tenure at Municipal Stadium were marked by losing seasons and tens of thousands of empty seats until their move to Jacobs Field in the mid-1990s and re-emergence of winning ways.

Though usually remembered for baseball, League Park also hosted a wider variety of sporting events. In the second and third decades of the 20th century, boxing drew crowds in the mild weather months to see Clevelander Johnny Kilbane defend his titles at the Park. Local high school football first appeared at the Park in 1896 when Central High met University School in a championship contest. More games were hosted over the years, including several Thanksgiving Day games between Cathedral Latin and St. Ignatius. College football also came calling to the facility between 1920 and 1949. The Big Four League of Western Reserve, Case Tech, John Carroll, and Baldwin Wallace used League Park regularly, hosting visiting teams from Ohio State, Ohio U., and others. The 1945 NFL champion Cleveland Rams, the last of a series of Cleveland professional football teams predating the Browns, also called League Park home between 1916 and 1950. Much of the stadium was demolished in 1952, when the site became a public park. However, a few remnants, including the baseball diamond itself, still stand today.

In 2002 the last of the grandstand structure was demolished. Cleveland city councilwoman Fannie Lewis mobilized local interest in capturing and preserving memories of the glory days of the stadium, and in revitalizing the surrounding neighborhood. Osborn Engineering, the firm that managed the 1910 refurbishment, provided design work for a renewed League Park recreation area. The Baseball Heritage Museum has been located at League Park since 2014. The Museum is dedicated to preserving the artifacts and stories of baseball’s past with a special focus on diversity in the sport; the stories of challenge and triumph intrinsic in the stories of the Negro Leagues and other underserved demographics in the sport. “General programming, youth educational offerings, community outreach and other initiatives are driven by the rich repository of life lessons in these stories. The Museum is also a driver of Cleveland’s sense of place, by continuously working to become a center of neighborhood life and a destination location for baseball and history lovers from across the city and across the country.”

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