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Saturday, April 12, 2008
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Swift's 'Chief Bender' worth checking out COMMENTARY Sports Editor A recent Associated Press survey revealed that about 25 percent of American adults read a book in the last year.
Despite that modest statistic, authors continue to crank out sports books, a few of which are mailed to me and most of which don't interest me.
One book I received that intrigues me is, "Chief Bender's Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star," by Tom Swift.
Charles Albert "Chief" Bender pitched 16 seasons in the major leagues with Philadelphia, Baltimore and the Chicago White Sox. According to the Baseball Encyclopedia the right-hander won 210 games. He was a member of three World Series championship teams and pitched a no-hitter.
His life has always intrigued me, primarily because the birthplace of the hall of famer has often been listed as Brainerd.
According to the Baseball Encyclopedia, Bender was born May 5, 1884. His mother was a full-blooded Chippewa Indian, his father a Caucasian. Swift's research indicates that Bender was born near Partridge Lake in Crow Wing County, about 20 miles east of Brainerd, between Mille Lacs and Bay lakes. His research also indicates that Bender's family left the county when he was an infant.
"Where he was born there wasn't a town ... His family moved to the White Earth Reservation around the time he was a year old or so," Swift said in a phone interview this week. "He wasn't born in Brainerd, and he didn't live in Brainerd."
As a youth, he attended off-reservation boarding schools like Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, the same school legendary Indian athlete Jim Thorpe attended, but not at the same time.
Race was Bender's burden. Throughout his major league career, he was the subject of racial insults. Swift said newspapers of that era often wrote disparagingly about Bender's heritage.
"Drawings, sketches and cartoons were very much part of the coverage," Swift said. "He was often portrayed as some happy warrior or almost like a predator. His facial features were so distorted (by illustrations) they made him look like something less than human.
See BIALKA, Page 3B
"It lessened to some degree after he established himself, but it really never went away."
Bender's race was not only an issue for fans in the stands. Bender also heard received an earful from opposing players and managers.
Swift wrote about an incident when Philadelphia played the New York Giants, managed by legendary John McGraw, in the World Series.
"In one game Bender was on the mound," Swift said. "McGraw was a very fiery, ornery, kind of guy. He was yelling at Bender with such invective that Bender stepped off the mound and put his hands up to his ears like, 'I can take it. I hear this every day.'
"Everywhere he went, even sitting in his own house, he was subject to those things."
Swift said Bender infrequently returned to the White Earth Reservation to visit. Bender owned reservation land but sold it later in life. Later, his mother remarried and lived in northern Minnesota the rest of her life.
"Being torn away from his family at a young age ... His father was not a gentle human being. ... It was not a good situation," Swift said.
"His family was ever expanding," Swift added. "They had a number of kids, they were poor, the conditions at the time were not conducive to a bright future. He never really established a strong relationship with his parents beyond his first few years so he didn't have a lot of incentive to come back for any length of time."
Swift became fascinated with Bender's story because he's a baseball fan. Bender was the first Indian elected to the hall of fame (in 1953), as well as the only native Minnesotan, until Dave Winfield was elected in 2001 and Paul Molitor three years later.
"I wouldn't have written about him if he was just a great baseball player," Swift said. "There is a lot in the book about baseball. He had an outstanding career, a fascinating career. He may have invented the slider.
"He was a pitcher's pitcher. He threw the kitchen sink up there. He had different pitches, different deliveries, a high leg kick. He pitched in five World Series. He developed a reputation as a money pitcher, as 'Mr. Clutch.'
"I found his cerebral approach to the game, his kind of coolness under fire, the demeanor he exhibited throughout his career fascinating. His baseball career is an interesting story. For me the human interest story was part of why he was so successful. That really grabbed me and I wanted to spend as much time as it took to write a book about him."
MIKE BIALKA, sports editor, may be reached at mike.bialka@brainerddispatch.com or at 855-5861.
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