Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 921 SOCKALEXIS | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
The Indian wars were over, and the Indians had lost. But on the green fields of our national pastime, this Indian stood tall ...
America, as always, was in the throes of change. Segregation was becoming law down South with the passage of Jim Crow. West of the Mississippi, the slaughters at Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee still stung recent memory. At the same time, in 1897, the name Sockalexis resounded in barrooms and backrooms, in the lurid headlines of the popular press, and in the bleachers of the legendary ballparks in Baltimore and Boston, Chicago and Cincinnati, New York and St. Louis.
More than a century ago, on a remote reservation in the wilds of Maine, a "natural" athletic talent was born who would change the face of baseball-- literally. The Indian, as he was labeled by friend and foe alike, caused a commotion in city after city as rowdy fans, hard-drinking players, and corrupt team owners all wanted a piece of the first Native American to play in the Majors. For one sensational season he was the toast of Cleveland and the National League, his appeal so strong that there's little doubt he inspired the name his old club carries today.
This is the story of Louis Francis Sockalexis, grandson of a Penobscot chief, who endured a firestorm of publicity while blazing a trail for such sports heroes as Jim Thorpe and Jackie Robinson. Unfortunately, Sockalexis also followed the well-traveled path of stars before and since who have sealed their own fate with alcohol and other temptations. And yet, as rendered by Brian McDonald, the forgotten story of Sockalexis reveals a most memorable figure from baseball's-- and America's-- storied past.
Author Notes
Brian McDonald 's first book, My Father's Gun , received critical acclaim as a "lucid" ( The New Yorker ) memoir of three generations of Irish-American police officers. It served as the basis of a two-hour docu-movie that aired on the History Channel in 2002. McDonald graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism and has written for the New York Times , Reader's Digest , and Gourmet magazine, among other publications. He lives in New York City.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Louis Francis Sockalexis, a full-blooded Maine Penobscot, played but a half-dozen seasons of professional baseball in Cleveland in the late 1890s. His professional statistics are spectacular, but anecdotal on the whole and ultimately too few for McDonald to really elevate "Sock" into baseball's pantheon or that of Native American athlete Jim Thorpe. Likewise, Sockalexis is not so much "forgotten" as he is faintly recorded. Biographic sources on his life apparently were frustrating and few, especially for his early reservation life before he became a student athlete. McDonald (My Father's Gun) is forced to backlight his primary story with such narrative devices as parallel news stories on Native American relations with the U.S. during this time, and his story gets stretched too thin. Still this is rich material, and MacDonald handles what he knows from the records with style and skill, creating a turn-of-the-century baseball story that follows a disturbingly modern tragic arc for minority athletes. Sockalexis was discovered in amateur leagues by a Holy Cross College scout and offered what must have been one of college athletics' first scholarships; a financial arrangement took him to Notre Dame; then he was drafted by the Cleveland Spiders of the burgeoning National League. From that point, McDonald reports with restraint how Sockalexis's sense of privilege in the white man's world rapidly overwhelmed him until his boozy ignominious finish in the New England minors. Baseball romantics will enjoy this tantalizing but shrouded and spare story about the man in whose honor the Cleveland Indians renamed their team. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
The author of My Father's Gun turns to the neglected subject of Native American baseball pioneer Louis Sockalexis, a brilliantly gifted major leaguer (and grandson of a Penobscot chief) who emerged in the late 1890s, drank himself out of certain greater stardom and into a forgotten death, but for whom, says McDonald, the Cleveland Spiders were later renamed the Cleveland Indians out of respect. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
