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David L. Fleitz. Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian. Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2002. 229 pp. Paper, $28.50.
For a player whose Major League career consisted of only 94 games for Cleveland in the 18905, Louis Sockalexis continues to draw an unusual degree of attention and interest. His name often surfaces in the debate over the origin and appropriateness of "Indians" as the nickname of the Cleveland club. In addition to his part in this dispute, there is much more to the story of this athletically gifted Native American outfielder whose baseball career came to a tragic and premature end, with his enormous potential unfulfilled.
As with his excellent 2001 book, Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson, David Fleitz has produced a well-researched, highly readable study of an intriguing baseball figure whose career and persona have been wrapped in layers of confusion, myth, and misperception. Fleitz's enlightening introduction to Penobscot culture, history, and geography furnishes important background information for the story that unfolds. Sockalexis, born on the Penobscot reservation in Maine, grew into a young man who was a "five-tool player" in modern terminology. He could...