On the morning of June 24, 1946, the Spokane Indians baseball club departed Eastern Washington in a 25-passenger prewar bus bound for Bremerton, a Navy town across the Puget Sound from Seattle. Sixteen of the team’s eighteen players were on board. Two pitchers, Joe Faria and Milt Cadinha, made other arrangements. Rather than endure another long, bumpy bus ride, Faria decided to drive his new Cadillac convertible. He brought his wife and invited fellow pitcher Cadinha and his wife, Yuvonna, to ride along.

It’s easy to understand why Joe Faria and Milt Cadinha wanted to enjoy the open road with the top down. As they drove out of Spokane on U.S. Highway 10, they sped past a Ponderosa Pine forest and rolling fields of wheat and barley. In central Washington, the road descended into the stunning Columbia River gorge with basalt cliffs rising on either side of the snaking river. Further west, the road the climbed into the snow-covered Cascade Mountains. At Snoqualmie Pass, elevation 3,000 feet, the highway descended to Seattle. As the foursome approached the Emerald City, Smith Tower dominated the skyline, and the Olympic Mountains loomed over the horizon. 

A Welcome Demotion

The Pacific Coast League’s San Diego Padres had optioned Faria to Spokane six weeks earlier. Although it was a demotion, being sent to Spokane gave the 27-year-old righty an opportunity to pitch—something he hadn’t found in San Diego. Faria had missed the previous three seasons serving in the military during World War II. He resumed his baseball career in 1946 under Padres manager Pepper Martin but only made one mop-up relief appearance in the first few weeks of the season. Martin finally told Faria he’d get a long-awaited starting assignment, only to change his mind just before game time. Understandably frustrated, Faria refused to dress for the game. The Padres fined him $50 and sent him down the minor-league ladder to Class-B Spokane.  

Although Faria dropped a level, he joined an Indians team chock full of talent. The lineup included several legitimate major-league prospects, including Jack Lohrke, Bob Paterson, and Vic Picetti. Spokane’s rotation was led by the 24-year-old Cadinha, who, like Faria, hailed from Oakland, California. In fact, Joe and Milt had known each other since childhood. Cadinha, who served in the Army during World War II, had gotten off to a terrific start with Spokane. Two months into the season, the 5-foot-10, 165-pound righty carried a sparkling 8-1 record.

Faria, Cadinha, and their wives sped well ahead of the old rickety bus during the afternoon hours of June 24. After arriving in Seattle in the early evening, they took a ferry across the Puget Sound to Bremerton. It was around this time that they heard shocking news: the Indians’ bus had been involved in an accident. As further details trickled in, Faria and Cadinha learned that eight of their teammates had been killed, and seven were injured, in a horrific crash near Snoqualmie Pass—on the same stretch of road that had just traveled a couple hours earlier. By incredible happenstance, one teammate, Lohrke, had been pulled off the bus an hour before it crashed after receiving news he was being called up to the Padres.

Faria and Cadinha rushed to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center, where their injured teammates received treatment for their various ailments, many of them serious. Former Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Chris Hartje succumbed to his injuries two days later, becoming the ninth fatality. 

The Season Must Go On

Within a few days of the accident, Indians owner Sam Collins began piecing together a new roster. The team was his business, after all, and he had bills to pay. Faria and Cadinha felt a responsibility to honor their teammates by playing out the season. The Indians resumed play with a roster comprised of Faria, Cadinha, and a hodgepodge of semipro players and minor-league castoffs. The team was so short on talent that the team trainer, Dutch Anderson, suited up and played third base. 

Cadinha, the team’s unquestionable ace, was particularly popular with Spokane fans following the tragedy. Both he and Faria performed yeoman’s work, consistently pitching on two or three days’ rest for the shorthanded Indians. On days they didn’t pitch, they often played outfield. With no offense to speak of, losses mounted up for the Indians. They were 30 below .500 after the crash. Neither hurler could wait for the season to end.

Faria finished the season with a 7-12 record. He pitched 183 innings for Spokane despite not joining the team until mid-May. Cadinha registered a 16-7 mark, completed a whopping 23 games, and tossed a team-high 233 innings. Had he received more run support, he would have easily won 20 games. 

After the 1946 campaign, the PCL’s Hollywood Stars purchased Cadinha’s contract. With another good season or two, he could have potentially worked his way up to the big leagues. But it was not meant to be. While experimenting with a screwball during a semipro game that winter, Cadinha felt a lightning bolt of pain in his right elbow. X-rays showed a fractured bone. Because of the injury, the Stars nullified his contract. Cadinha toiled on semipro teams for years but never again pitched professionally. He eventually went into the insurance business.

Faria experienced an eerily similar end to his career. While pitching for the PCL’s Oakland Oaks early in the 1947 season, he felt his arm go limp, “I had chipped a bone in my right elbow,” he said later. “I was washed up at 28.” After his injury, Faria bought a plot of land in San Leandro and opened up a sports bar called the Stadium Club, which operated until the 1980s. For a time, he catered the Oakland A’s clubhouse.

A fateful convertible ride may have saved the lives of the two pitchers, but it’s quite possible that their respective elbow injuries directly resulted from the heavy workload each shouldered after the bus accident. The rippling effect of America’s deadliest professional sports tragedy was felt by many, Joe Faria and Milt Cadinha not excluded. 

You can read more about Joe Faria, Milt Cadinha, and the 1946 Spokane Indians in my CASEY Award-nominated book, Season of Shattered Dreams.