Clearing The Bases - Issue 039

Read Time:7 Minute, 39 Second

Hello and welcome to Issue 039 of Clearing The Bases, an email newsletter in conjunction with the My Baseball History podcast hosted by Dan Wallach.

On Wednesday, May 14^th, our latest episode with BOB DIBIASIO went live.

Bob is the Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for the Cleveland Guardians, and has been a public relations executive with Cleveland for all but one season since 1979, making 2025 his 47th season in Major League Baseball. Bob is a Lakewood, Ohio, native who graduated from Lakewood High School in 1973. He earned degrees in journalism and education from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1977. While at Ohio Wesleyan, Bob was sports editor of the school paper The Transcript; the student Sports Information Director, and did color on OWU football and basketball broadcasts. Bob also played one year of basketball and two years of baseball at OWU. In 1978, he earned his Master’s Degree in journalism from the Ohio State University and started a stint as Assistant Sports Editor of the Fremont (OH) News-Messenger before joining the Indians.

Bob started with the Indians in 1979 as Assistant PR Director, and was named Director of PR in 1980. In 1986, he was named the Public Relations Director of Sports Illustrated’s Dream Team. Bob’s lone season away from Cleveland was 1987 when he served as PR Director for the Atlanta Braves, but he came back to Cleveland following that season and was named Vice President of Public Relations for the Indians in 1988. He was promoted to his current position in 2011.

Bob received the Mel Harder Distinguished Service Award for Community Involvement in 1997 and was inducted into the Lakewood High School Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame in 1999. He was the 1999 recipient of the prestigious Robert O. Fishel Award for Public Relations Excellence in Major League Baseball, and he received the ALS Cleveland Chapter Lou Gehrig “Iron Horse” Award for Community Service in 2009. This man is Cleveland, through and through. He’s been deeply involved with the team for decades. He’s seen it all, he’s experienced it all, and he remembers it all.

If you’re interested in hearing an in-depth discussion on the history of professional baseball in Cleveland, you can go back and listen to Episode 8 from Season 3, where I spoke with JEREMY FEADOR, who is the official team historian of the Guardians. Jeremy and I spent more than two hours tracing the history of professional baseball in the city, all the way back to the 1860s and ‘70s with the Cleveland Forest Citys. We moved chronologically through all of the different teams and team names Cleveland has had over the years, stopping along the way to talk about the great individual players who made up those teams.

Jeremy and I stopped at 1948, though, so that left a pretty big gap in the modern history of the team. With this being the 30^th anniversary of the iconic 1995 Indians, I thought Bob DiBiasio would be a fun person to talk to to get some perspective about that specific group, and everything they achieved.

Even though we’re focusing on just one specific season in Cleveland’s baseball history, in this episode, we cover LOTS of ground.

Bob tells us how the team was built, from the ground up, by John Hart and Dan O’Dowd, and what their philosophy was when acquiring talent and keeping that talent long-term.

We find out the importance of Jacobs Field and how building that stadium brought new life to the franchise and the fan base.

We learn why teams were afraid to come to Cleveland, and about the rash of injuries upcoming trips to Jacobs Field brought to opposing clubhouses.

And we hear some behind-the-scenes stories about the players and coaches, which give us some true insight as to what made these guys tick, and why it was no surprise they were as successful as they were, not just during the 1995 season, but for the duration of their careers.

I don’t want to give too much away, but the episode is out now, so you can listen to it as soon as you get done reading this email and re-listen whenever you want after that. Don’t forget to CLICK HERE to follow along with the liner notes as you listen.

The liner notes have over 175 carefully curated photos and videos which directly and chronologically follow the conversation Bob and I had. In the caption for each, I also include extra links so you can do a deeper dive into any particular person or story which piques your interest as you listen. I’ve already done all the work for you, so all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the episode.

Even though I grew up in Chicago as a White Sox fan, I’ve always had an affinity for Cleveland’s baseball team. The very first team I played on in Little League, which had an actual MLB team name and logo, was “The Indians” during the summer of 1994, when I was 7 years old (that’s me, standing in front of my friend and teammate, Matt Corning). Over the next few years, as I truly fell in love with baseball, the real-life Major League Indians dominated the American League, with a roster full of the young, talented, and exciting players Bob and I talk about in this episode. Their highlights were on SportsCenter seemingly every night, whether it was a monstrous home run from Albert Belle or Jim Thome or Manny Ramirez, or an incredible defensive play in the field by Kenny Lofton or Omar Vizquel or Carlos Baerga, or later by Roberto Alomar.

When I got old enough to watch the movie Major League, starring Bob Uecker as play-by-play man Harry Doyle, my eyes were opened to an entirely different side of the game. I eventually went to Southern Illinois University to study radio/television broadcasting, and I’m sure that path was influenced by Bob Uecker as much as it was by Ken “Hawk” Harrelson. In the late ‘90s, I would spend hours playing “Ken Griffey, Jr.’s Slugfest” on my Game Boy Color, and I would always play as the Cleveland Indians because I just loved their lineup so much. I would keep spreadsheets with my stats from the game, setting more and more ridiculous goals for myself every season, like “how many players can I collect 200+ hits with?” and “how many players can I steal 100+ bases with?”

All of that to say, even though I grew up a White Sox fan, and I should have hated Cleveland because they were a division rival and so often beat my favorite team and kept them from making the playoffs, I never even disliked them. To be able to sit down with Bob for this episode and talk about how those ‘90s Indians teams were built, and hear some behind-the-scenes stories and never-before-told anecdotes about the players and coaches, it was really an honor. You don’t have to be a Cleveland fan to enjoy this interview, but if you are, I’m confident you’re going to love it.

As you know, we do giveaways related to each episode, so I also want to tell you about an opportunity to win something for being an active listener to My Baseball History. You can enter for your chance to win a copy of the 1995 Cleveland Indians Media Guide by following @ShoelessPodcast on Twitter or Bluesky. The pinned post at the top of both our TWITTER profile and our BLUESKY profile asks a trivia question, which is answered during the episode with Bob. Answer that trivia question correctly with your quote-post, and you’re automatically entered into the contest.

We’ll pick a winner before the next episode of the podcast goes live on Wednesday, June 11^th. All you have to do to be considered is follow us on whichever platform you use and re-post that pinned post before then. You can also feel free to tag a friend in the comments or write why you think you should win. It may help your chances of winning…

Don’t forget, it’s a huge help when you Rate and Review the podcast on whatever platform you choose to listen. 5-Star ratings help our podcast get shown on more people’s suggested podcast pages, which means more people will hear our show. It just takes a couple of seconds of your time, but it really helps us a lot. And of course, liking us on social media, interacting with our posts, and sharing things with your friends is great, too. Feel free to forward this email to anyone in your life who loves baseball, and hopefully, they’ll enjoy the podcast and learn a thing or two. But no matter how you choose to support us, even if it’s just by listening, we appreciate you being here.

Until next time, I’m Dan Wallach, and this is My Baseball History.