Bob Lemon signed the scorecard from his 1948 no-hitter. Bob Feller spoke of the controversial pickoff play that cost him his best chance at winning a World Series game.

Spinning tales like yarn that will never fray, members of Cleveland's 1948 World Series championship team gathered Friday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Indians' last title."It's a lot of fun," said Lemon, a Hall of Famer whose No. 21 will be retired today before Cleveland's game against the New York Yankees. "All you can do now is laugh like hell about it and tell lies."

From Hall of Famers Lemon, Feller and Larry Doby, to batboy Bill Sheridan and public relations man Marsh Samuel, 15 players and staff from the team that beat the Boston Braves in the 1948 World Series got together at a downtown hotel to reminisce about that remarkable season.

The Indians honored the '48 team, owned by Bill Veeck, in a ceremony before Friday night's game at Jacobs Field. Each player was chauffeured onto the field in a 1940s vintage car. Sandy Alomar, Omar Vizquel, David Justice and Charles Nagy presented modern jerseys to the players, and a 1948 championship pennant was raised atop the left-field scoreboard.

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Indians first baseman Jim Thome, mentioned earlier in the day by Al Rosen as someone he would have loved to play with, interrupted his pregame sprints and went right up to Rosen to give him a hug.

"He's a throwback," Rosen said. "He's a fine young man."

Fittingly, the opponent was the Yankees, whose dynasty limited the Indians to only one more Series appearance during that era, in 1954.

And while the Indians are enjoying their most successful era in half a century, the franchise is still waiting for another championship.

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