A Maine man who’s creating a monument to a Penobscot Nation baseball star says he’s received a $10,000 donation from the Cleveland Indians.
Ed Rice, director of Louis Sockalexis Monument Fund, said the 8-foot bronze sculpture in Maine is estimated to cost between $80,000 to $100,000.
Rice said he’ll be traveling across the state, starting in November, to drum up support.
The author of the 2003 biography “Baseball’s First Indian” says Sockalexis inspired the nickname for the Cleveland Indians in spring training in 1897. The team was called the Cleveland Spiders during the time that Sockalexis played three seasons in the outfield.
