What football player did the Cleveland Indians try to sign in 1959?

Thanks!
Jeff

Pele? (Just a guess)

Hi probonopublico-ga,

It appears to me that jefffromgreen-ga's asking about an AMERICAN
FOOTBALL player, not a soccer player. Cleveland Indians are a baseball
team and this question is a real toughie - straight out the trivia
books!

Good luck in your search!

Regards,

bestsearcher-ga

Hi Bestsearcher-ga

Oops!

Of course, it could still be Pele ... Maybe that's why the question is
such a real toughie:

The manager didn't realise that Pele played REAL football.

These things happen.

LOL, Bryan.

Gordy Coleman was a football player at Duke who had one major league
season with the Indians (1959) before being traded to the Reds:

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/C/Coleman_Gordy.stm

Jeff --

I'm probably the biggest Cleveland Indians fan among GA researchers
and even remember the 1959 pennant race between the Indians and the
White Sox.  But I haven't been able to find an answer to this one. . .
yet.

The Indians drafted Sam Huff, New York Giants (football) Hall-of-Famer
after his graduation in 1954 and Huff played at least one season with
the Tribe's Class A Reading affiliate.  And a personal guess was that
it might have been Ernie Davis, the 1961 Heisman Trophy winner who
signed with the Browns (then died at age 23 of cancer).

Here are some of the search strategies that I've used:
"cleveland indians" football 1969
"frank lane" football

Frank Lane was the notorious trading general manager of the Indians,
hated in Cleveland because of the 1960 trade of Rocky Colavito.  His
monniker is "Trader Lane" and he's even been reviled by Indians beat
writer Terry Pluto in "The Curse of Rocky Colavito," 1995.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

First of all, the Pele thing was really funny - thanks for the laugh,
guys. - Also, thanks for looking!

The answer that 'they' were looking for was Jim Brown.  I still
haven't found anything online that shows that, but I found
http://www.psacard.com/articles/article2458.chtml - which shows that
Carroll Hardy played for the SF 49ers before signing with the Indians
from 1958-60.  The search criteria I used was "Deion Sanders" "Bo
Jackson" "football and baseball".  Ironically, Hardy was not being
listed for his "two professional sport accomplishments" as much as
having pinch-hit for Ted Williams and Roger Maris.  Not many players
got to do that ;).

Thanks again, guys!