As thousands watched from the stands, the late Loren Dale Mitchell was inducted into the Cleveland Guardians (former Cleveland Indians) Baseball Hall of Fame on Saturday, August 19, 2023. Mitchell, a Washita County native, was a member of the 1948 Cleveland team that won an epic four-team pennant race before going on to win the World Series. In addition, he was a standout baseball player for the University of Oklahoma Sooners, setting records that still stand. The OU baseball field also bears his name.
In attendance at the induction ceremony were several of Mitchell’s family, including his two sons, Dale E. Mitchell and Dudley “Bo” Mitchell, and daughter Lana Mitchell Roskamp.
Both Cordell and Cloud Chief issued proclamations designating August 19, 2023 as L. Dale Mitchell Day.
Mitchell attended Lone Tree school east of Cordell through eighth grade, then enrolled in Cloud Chief high school where he earned 12 athletic letters in baseball, basketball and track. He was named to the All State basketball team and set a state record in the 100-yard dash with a time of 9.8 seconds.
Mitchell had a stellar, if brief, career at the University of Oklahoma. As a freshman in 1940, he was ineligible to play, but had an excellent sophomore season, hitting .420. Records were probably going to be broken in his junior season, but World War II intervened and Mitchell left college to serve in the Army Air Force. He was sent to Germany and remained there until Germany surrendered in 1946. (Side note: Dale’s oldest son, Dale, Jr., was quoted as saying he remembered his father arriving home, dressed in a full uniform. It was the first time father and son met!) Following his discharge from the Army, Mitchell returned to college and the baseball diamond. That was the year he hit a remarkable .507, a record that still stands.
An outfielder with a legendary left arm, Mitchell played 11 years in the major leagues with a lifetime batting average of .312, an on-base percentage of .368 and a slugging percentage of .416. Over his career he had 3,984 at bats and struck out only 119 times, meaning he struck out on average only once in every 34 at-bats! He had 1,244 hits, including 169 doubles, 61 triples and 41 home runs, with a total of 403 runs batted in.
Mitchell’s professional baseball began when he made his first appearance as a minor-league player on June 3, 1946, suiting up for Oklahoma City in the Double-A Texas League. After a bit of a shaky start, Mitchell found his groove and hit .337, winning the batting championship that year. The Cleveland Indians called him up in September where he made his major- league debut on September 15, 1946. He played in center field and had three singles in five at-bats in a game the Indians won 8 to 1 over the Philadelphia Athletics. Mitchell played in the last 11 games of the season and hit .432.
Following a brief trip back to the Oklahoma City team, Mitchell returned to the lineup in June and played in left field. At one point during the season he had a 22-game hitting streak. He was never thought of as a power hitter but did hit one homer to the right-field grandstand at Municipal Stadium, only the fourth batter to do that since the ball field had opened in the 1930s.
No-hitter games were to be the stuff of Dale Mitchell legend, with the first of those coming against Detroit on June 30 of the 1948 season. He was playing in left field with Bob Lemon on the mound. Lemon had a no-hit game going when, in the seventh inning, the Tiger third baseman, George Kell, sent a ball into deep left field. Mitchell, a former high school and college track star, ran back toward the fence and caught the ball before crashing into the wall. Although he hit the ground hard he kept hold of the ball and preserved Lemon’s no-hitter.
The second of the games to be part of the Mitchell legend did not go as well, as his name often calls to mind that he was the final out in the October 8, 1956, World Series game against the New York Yankees. Don Larsen, the Yankee pitcher, had pitched a perfect game through 8 2/3 innings of the fifth game of the Series. Mitchell, who had only recently been traded by his longtime team, the Cleveland Indians, to the Brooklyn Dodgers, stepped to the plate to pinch hit for Dodger pitcher Sal Maglie. Mitchell took a ball, then a called strike, before fouling off a pitch. According to almost all observers, the next pitch came in high and outside, but was called a strike by umpire Babe Pinelli. Mitchell turned around to argue the call but Pinelli had already left. Pinelli retired after that game.
Although there is no question that Mitchell was called out by the umpire, there is also very little question that it was a bad call. Even Yankee players believed the umpire got it wrong. Fellow Oklahoma great Mickey Mantle later said that he had “a clear view from center field, and if I was under oath, I’d have to say that the pitch looked like it was outside.” Other Yankee players agreed, but the game was over and the legend continued.
Mitchell was more than a great baseball player, however, faithfully fulfilling roles as husband, father, grandfather and friend. He was also a successful businessman, working in the oil business and later serving as president of the cement division of Martin Marietta Corporation. Mitchell, born August 23, 1921 in Colony, Oklahoma, died on January 5, 1987, in Tulsa, and was buried in the Cloud Chief Cemetery alongside his wife, Margaret.