Eric Vickrey’s Season of Shattered Dreams brings new life to one of baseball’s most devastating and least‑remembered moments. It's a book I've been looking into for a long time and finally got the chance to read it. Here is my review.
Title/Author:
“Season of
Shattered Dreams: Postwar Baseball, The Spokane Indians, and a Tragic Bus Crash
That Changed Everything” by Eric Vickrey
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (excellent)
Review:
One of the most
tragic dates in baseball history is June 24, 1946. On that day, a bus carrying
16 members of the Spokane Indians of the Western International League crashed
on a mountain road in the Cascades. Nine team members were killed. A city, a
team, and an entire league were left in shock. In Season of Shattered Dreams,
Eric Vickrey tells the stories of the players who survived, the ones who
didn’t, and the many people whose lives were permanently altered by the
deadliest day to that point in professional baseball history. It was a finalist
for the prestigious Casey Award in 2024, and after reading it, the recognition
makes perfect sense.
While Vickrey
devotes a chapter to the crash itself and the immediate aftermath, the
strongest parts of the book are his portraits of the players and manager who
made up the 1946 Indians. The pre‑crash
chapters are especially compelling, particularly those on Jack Lohrke, Ben
Geraghty, and Vic Picetti. After the crash, Vickrey follows Geraghty’s long,
determined, and ultimately unsuccessful quest to become a major‑league manager, a journey that ended at
the AAA Louisville Colonels despite his widely respected baseball mind.
The book
captures everything a reader might want from baseball history of that era: the
impact of World War II on rosters, the unique structure of baseball west of the
Mississippi before MLB expanded, the near‑major‑league quality of the Pacific Coast
League, and vivid profiles of the players themselves.
Vickrey also
excels in widening the lens. He includes the stories of players who were not on
the bus — Lohrke being the most famous example — and shows that their
experiences were just as dramatic and meaningful as those who survived the
crash. He brings in voices beyond the roster as well: wives and girlfriends,
the bus driver, and even the search for the mysterious car that nearly collided
head‑on with
the team bus before swerving away and sending the vehicle down the ravine.
These shorter narratives add depth and texture without ever feeling like
digressions.
As Vickrey does
in the book, it feels right to name the nine players who died, ensuring their
memory endures nearly eighty years later: Freddie Martinez, Chris Hartje,
George Risk, Bob James, Mel Cole, Bob Kinnaman, George Lyden, Bob Patterson,
and Vic Picetti.
I wish to thank
Mr. Vickrey for providing a copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this
review are strictly my own.
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