Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | 921 BENDER | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 921 BENDER | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
The greatest American Indian baseball player of all time, Charles Albert Bender was, according to a contemporary, "the coolest pitcher in the game." Using a trademark delivery, an impressive assortment of pitches that may have included the game's first slider, and an apparently unflappable demeanor, he earned a reputation as baseball's great clutch pitcher during tight Deadball Era pennant races and in front of boisterous World Series crowds. More remarkably yet, "Chief" Bender's Hall of Fame career unfolded in the face of enormous prejudice. Winner of the 2009 Seymour Medal, this skillfully told and complete account of Bender's life is also a portrait of greatness of character in the face of incredible pressure. With a journalist's eye for detail and a novelist's feel for storytelling, Tom Swift takes readers on Bender's improbable journey--from his early years on the White Earth Reservation, to his development at the Carlisle Indian School, to his big break and eventual rise to the pinnacle of baseball. The story of a paradoxical American sports hero, one who achieved a once-unfathomable celebrity while suffering the harsh injustices of a racially intolerant world, Chief Bender's Burden is an eye-opening and inspiring narrative of a unique American life.
Author Notes
Tom Swift is an award-winning author and journalist, and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. He and his wife, Carrie, live in Northfield, Minnesota. Visit his Web site at www.chiefbendersburden.com .
Reviews (3)
Booklist Review
Charles Albert Chief Bender was raised on an Indian reservation in Minnesota, attended the Carlisle Indian School think Jim Thorpe and pitched his way into the Hall of Fame with the Philadelphia Athletics from 1903 to 1914. Swift's carefully researched portrait of Bender reveals a life and career characterized by hard work, dignity, and success but always shadowed especially early on by prejudice. No achievement could stand on its merits but was always modified by Bender's race ( good pitcher, for an Indian ). Sure, times were different, but people weren't, and Bender was stung by the condescension. Yet he put it in behind him, and after his major-league career ended, he spent many of the subsequent years playing and managing in the minor leagues. In Swift's hands, Bender's life unfolds gradually, as though he were a character in a novel, and the prejudice he experienced, though never justified, is set within the context of the times. Carefully researched and documented as well as stylishly written (uncommon in the genre), this belongs in most baseball collections.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2008 Booklist
Choice Review
Swift (a freelance journalist) writes about the life and times of a Native American baseball player and his rise to professional baseball. Known in the sport as Chief Bender, Charles Albert Bender (1884-1954) was a great athlete with a passion for competing. In order to maximize his chances of succeeding as professional athlete, Bender had to embrace white culture. The issues Native Americans face--racism, prejudice, the multiple social ills associated with the US--were, of course, profound in Bender's day, and Swift focuses on the barriers facing him and ethnic minorities in general in sport (and indeed in any profession). Swift presents his story in 25 chapters. Drawing from both primary and secondary sources, including newspapers and the narratives of others, the author offers a detailed historical framework for his subject and also a meaningful sociological perspective. Accordingly, this will be a solid resource for those interested in the history of sport, Native American studies, and issues of race, culture, and assimilation--in sport and in general. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; faculty; general readers. F. G. Polite Institute for Leadership, Ethics & Diversity In Sport
Library Journal Review
Signal thanks to journalist Swift for this authoritative biography of Charles Albert Bender, the early 20th-century pitcher who managed to shine in both the big leagues and in life while confronting poverty and racism. Swift sets aside the myths about this most famous American Indian player while vividly describing him in the context of the famed Carlisle Indian School, baseball's Golden Age, Connie Mack and his Athletics, and the effects of gambling and alcoholism on sports. For all interested in the First Nations, quite apart from baseball. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
