Season of Shattered Dreams: Postwar Baseball, The Spokane Indians, and A Tragic Bus Crash that Changed Everything, by Eric Vickrey
You know by the title that this isn’t going to be a feel-good story and in that regard Eric Vickrey doesn’t “disappoint.”
The Indians were an affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies in the Class B Western International League. On June 24, 1946, a bus carrying 15 members of the Spokane Indians tumbled off the highway crossing over the Snoqualmie Pass in Washington state. Nine team members died. The other six were severely injured. Professional sports — like life in general — was slowly returning to normal following World War II. Vickrey offers stories on most of the Indians’ players and staff as they move on to arrive at that point in their careers, each one similar yet at the same time unique. This was a time before expansion and teams on the West Coast had their own loyal following that rivaled many in the big leagues.
But you know what’s coming; it’s in the title. Vickrey does an impressive amount of research in setting up the horrific incident as well as the aftermath, with some players able to come back from their injuries while others had more extensive damage, physically and psychically, that prevented their return.
There was a contingency, known as Rule 29 — the Major League Disaster Plan — in the The Official Professional Baseball Rules Book for how to “repopulate” a team in case of a catastrophe. But the latest edition (2025) seems quite different and the spot for Rule 29 is listed as “reserved.”
Shattered Dreams brings to mind the film We Are Marshall, in which the plane carrying the college football team crashes, killing everyone on board. A coach and a handful of players who didn’t make the flight were spared. But that was an uplifting account, as students and the rest of the town came together to rebuild. Shattered Dreams does have its moments of support in the months immediately following the accident, but you can’t shake the trauma that must have lingered with the survivors for the rest of their lives.
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