19 to 21

No, that’s not the number of “Chiefs” there have been in the major leagues, it’s,

Baseball... Then and Now

Volume 6, #13, April 22, 2008

News Item: April 20, 1903 – An 18 year-old pitcher, the circuit’s youngest player, makes his American League debut.

Two pitchers…

While by no means a perfect match, their similarities are more striking than their differences, especially given their respective historical contexts. Even without the historical context, here are two starting pitchers who also put in around 130 games each in relief and closed out a few games as well. A pair of 200-game winners with good won-loss records, with good control, who didn’t give up a lot of hits. Pitcher “A” (the first listed) may initially look like the better of the two, despite his lesser strike out rate, since his won-loss record is better and his ERA is much better, a full run per game better. However, two of these factors are mirages – images formed by the historical context. Pitcher “A” threw his 3000+ innings in an era with a lot fewer strikeouts than the era of Pitcher “B,” and he still finished in the top 10 in strikeouts in his league six times. On the other hand, Pitcher “B” clearly played in a much higher scoring era, since his Adjusted ERA is actually better than that of Pitcher “A.”

Now look at their post season records, and see if the similarities continue to hold.

A couple of pretty good men when the chips were down. In this measure, “B” looks a little better (more accurately, “B” looks almost unreal), but “A” isn’t exactly chopped liver, and ALL of his post season performances were in the World Series. Furthermore, A’s long-time manager said of him, “If I had all the men I’ve ever handled and they were in their prime and there was one game I wanted to win above all others… {he] would be my man.” And, “I consider [him] the greatest money pitcher the game has ever known.”

Well, if you know your baseball history, you know the name that fills in the blank. He was an “A” alright, he was Charles Albert Bender, arguably the greatest Native American baseball player of all time, and his manager, Philadelphia Athletics’ major domo Connie Mack, while referring to Bender by his middle name, Albert, did unhesitatingly call on the tall right-hander for the biggest games. Recalling that Mack also managed Lefty Grove – perhaps the greatest pitcher of all time – as well as fellow Hall of Famers Rube Waddell and Eddie Plank, that’s quite an endorsement. And, although no one has said quite the same thing about Pitcher “B,” aka Curt Schilling, he has nothing to apologize for in regards to his record in either the regular season or the post season. He is, in many ways, the equal of Bender.

Since Schilling has indeed gained some notoriety over the past 15 seasons for his prowess in big games, it seems only fitting that Charles Albert Bender, if not his historical double at least a good historical match, has been brought back into the spotlight in a new biography by Tom Swift, “Chief Bender’s Burden.” (ISBN 978-0-8032-4321-7) In one of those rare cases where the title of a book says it all, Swift details Bender’s various successes (and failures) while operating under the burden of performing on a stage at a time in history when Native Americans were regarded with much the same disdain as African Americans. It is, of course, indicative of that fact that Charles Albert Bender was inevitably known as “Chief” Bender, an ultimately inappropriate nickname that was often hung on the few Native Americans who made a big splash in the major leagues in the first part of the 20th Century. It is to the credit of Swift and his publisher, University of Nebraska Press, that the truth behind this particular corner of American baseball history is being illuminated many years after the fact.

Swift’s work is, in effect, an individual companion piece to Jeffrey Powers-Beck’s 2004 overview of this subject, “The American Indian Integration of Baseball,” also published by University of Nebraska Press. Where Powers-Beck gives us the big picture of Native Americans’ attempts to break into the American game between 1887 and 1945, Swift has built on Powers-Beck’s work (and wisely used Powers-Beck as a source, along with other experts in the Philadelphia baseball field, notably Norman Macht and Bruce Kuklick) to produce a memorable and thorough biography of one of the earlier author’s figures. And, although Powers-Beck’s book, and Swift himself (in “Deadball Stars of the American League”) have previously produced brief bios of the part-Ojibwe (his father was a farmer of German-American descent) star, the time is long since past for telling the true story of Charles Albert Bender.

While Swift does not make pretensions to the level of scholarship reached by Dr. Beck (a professor of English at East Tennessee State University), he unquestionably tells a good story (and his Bibliographical Essay at the end of the book is invaluable to both the historian and the casual reader), mixing modern journalism (his primary field) with the storytelling style more commonly associated with the sportswriters of Bender’s day, the Charles Drydens, Jimmy Isamingers, Fred Liebs, Ring Lardners, et al. The only difference is, Dryden and his compatriots had a tendency to make up stories about their subjects when things got dull. Swift is an historian who has done yeoman work in the background of the greatest clutch pitcher of his generation. It is here that Swift shines the brightest. Admittedly, the on-the-field portion of Bender’s career is already pretty well known, the stories of the 1903-1914 Athletics having been told many times before, sometimes in semi-fiction (i.e., the aforementioned Mr. Lieb), sometimes in historical detail, most notably, though not exclusively, by Macht and David Jordan. For goodness sakes, even the “Baseball Padre” has given his version of the $100,000 Infield team. As a result, Swift is at his best, and most informative, when discussing Bender’s life, and his burden(s). His unsettled youth, when he bounced back and forth between an Indian reservation in White Earth, Minnesota and Indian schooling (an experience almost as bad as the reservation, though in a different way) in Pennsylvania. His years at Carlisle. His many and varied interests outside of baseball. And, finally, his life and burdens after he was no longer a major league pitcher.

Not exactly a linear treatment of Bender’s life, much of “Chief Bender’s Burden” is framed around the first game of the 1914 World Series – the only time Bender was ever knocked out of a World Series game and his only real failure to come through in the clutch. At first glance, this seems like an odd way to tell Bender’s story. It is somewhat as if a biographer, writing some 80 years hence, would choose to tell Schilling’s story by framing it around game one of the 1993 World Series. However, there would appear to be method in Swift’s madness, as he illustrates how the burdens in Bender’s life, including racial prejudice, Bender’s drinking problem, Bender’s physical ailments (largely stomach-related problems and rheumatism) and the unrest caused by the Federal League war, came to a head and sent his life spiraling downward after October 9, 1914. By doing so, Swift gives us an explanation of this complex man, a complete measure of the man, as complete a Charles Bender as Charles Alexander gave us of Tyrus Cobb, a complete enough measure that we can forgive Swift’s unquestionably accurate assertion that, “by the conclusion of the 1914 World Series Connie Mack didn’t have any more patience for Chief’s benders.” (Yes, that’s really in the book.)

Although this may sound like Swift is telling something of a Greek tragedy, the opposite is really true. Swift’s book is a success, and a success story. Bender’s story is one of highly intelligent Renaissance Man (he was good at an astonishing variety of skills… trapshooting, painting, billiards, jewelry-making, gardening, just to name a few) who overcame the burdens to reach the highest level of his chosen profession, in a life, says Swift, “that raised him to the heights of celebrity, dragged him through the gutter of racism, placed him on a pedestal by generations of American Indians, forced him to face rare tragedy, provided winsome memories of money games, and, at last, allowed him to know the comfort of home.” How many of us, either in or out of baseball, can make that same claim of success?

-- John Shiffert