The American Indian Integration of Baseball

The American Indian Integration of Baseball PDF Author: Jeffrey P. Powers-Beck
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803237456
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
For many the entry of Jackie Robinson into Major League Baseball in 1947 marked the beginning of integration in professional baseball, but the entry of American Indians into the game during the previous half-century and the persistent racism directed toward them is not as well known. From the time that Louis Sockalexis stepped onto a Major League Baseball field in 1897, American Indians have had a presence in professional baseball. Unfortunately, it has not always been welcomed or respected, and Native athletes have faced racist stereotypes, foul epithets, and abuse from fans and players throughout their careers. The American Indian Integration of Baseball describes the experiences and contributions of American Indians as they courageously tried to make their place in America?s national game during the first half of the twentieth century. Jeffrey Powers-Beck provides biographical profiles of forgotten Native players such as Elijah Pinnance, George Johnson, Louis Leroy, and Moses Yellow Horse, along with profiles of better-known athletes such as Jim Thorpe, Charles Albert Bender, and John Tortes Meyers. Combining analysis of popular-press accounts with records from boarding schools for Native youth, where baseball was used as a tool of assimilation, Powers-Beck shows how American Indians battled discrimination and racism to integrate American baseball.

The American Indian Integration of Baseball

The American Indian Integration of Baseball PDF Author: Jeffrey P. Powers-Beck
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803237456
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Get Book Here

Book Description
For many the entry of Jackie Robinson into Major League Baseball in 1947 marked the beginning of integration in professional baseball, but the entry of American Indians into the game during the previous half-century and the persistent racism directed toward them is not as well known. From the time that Louis Sockalexis stepped onto a Major League Baseball field in 1897, American Indians have had a presence in professional baseball. Unfortunately, it has not always been welcomed or respected, and Native athletes have faced racist stereotypes, foul epithets, and abuse from fans and players throughout their careers. The American Indian Integration of Baseball describes the experiences and contributions of American Indians as they courageously tried to make their place in America?s national game during the first half of the twentieth century. Jeffrey Powers-Beck provides biographical profiles of forgotten Native players such as Elijah Pinnance, George Johnson, Louis Leroy, and Moses Yellow Horse, along with profiles of better-known athletes such as Jim Thorpe, Charles Albert Bender, and John Tortes Meyers. Combining analysis of popular-press accounts with records from boarding schools for Native youth, where baseball was used as a tool of assimilation, Powers-Beck shows how American Indians battled discrimination and racism to integrate American baseball.

American Indian Sports Heritage

American Indian Sports Heritage PDF Author: Joseph B. Oxendine
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803286092
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
“Neither the highly commercialized nature of professional sports today nor the more casual attitude prevailing in amateur activities captures the essence of Indian sport,” writes Joseph B. Oxendine. Through sport, Indians sought blessings from a higher spirit. Sport that evolved from religious rites retained a spiritual dimension, as seen in the attitude and manner of preparing and participating. In American Indian Sports Heritage, Oxendine discusses the history and importance in everyday life of ball games (especially lacrosse), running, archery, swimming, snow snake, hoop-and-pole, and games of chance. Indians gained nationwide visibility as athletes in baseball and football; the teams at boarding schools such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania and the Haskell Institute in Kansas were especially famous. Oxendine describes the apex of Indian sports during the first three decades of the twentieth century and chronicles the decline since. He looks at the career of the legendary Jim Thorpe and provides brief biographies of other Indian athletes before and after 1930.

Money Pitcher

Money Pitcher PDF Author: William C. Kashatus
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271028620
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Charles Albert Bender was one of baseball&’s most talented pitchers. By the end of his major league career in 1925, he had accrued 212 wins and more than 1,700 strikeouts, and in 1953, he became the first American Indian elected to baseball&’s Hall of Fame. But as a high-profile Chippewa Indian in a bigoted society, Bender knew firsthand the trauma of racism. In Money Pitcher: Chief Bender and the Tragedy of Indian Assimilation, William C. Kashatus offers the first biography of this compelling and complex figure. Bender&’s career in baseball began on the sandlots of Pennsylvania&’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he distinguished himself as a hard-throwing pitcher. Soon, in 1903, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack signed Bender to his pitching staff, where he was a mainstay for more than a decade. Mack regarded Bender as his &“money pitcher&”&—the hurler he relied on whenever he needed a critical victory. But with success came suffering. Spectators jeered Bender on the field and taunted him with war whoops. Newspapers ridiculed him in their sports pages. His own teammates derisively referred to him as &“Chief,&” and Mack paid him less than half the salary of other star pitchers. This constant disrespect became a major factor in one of the most controversial episodes in the history of baseball: the alleged corruption of the 1914 World Series. Despite being heavily favored going into the Series against the Boston Braves, the A&’s lost four straight games. Kashatus offers compelling evidence that Bender intentionally compromised his performance in the Series as retribution for the poor treatment he suffered. Money Pitcher is not just another baseball book. It is a book about social justice and Native Americans&’ tragic pursuit of the white American Dream at the expense of their own identity. Having arrived in the major leagues only thirteen years after the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, Bender experienced the disastrous effects of governmental assimilation policies designed to quash indigenous Indian culture. Yet his remarkable athleticism and dignified behavior disproved popular notions of Native American inferiority and opened the door to the majors for more than 120 Indians who played baseball during the first half of the twentieth century.

Our Team

Our Team PDF Author: Luke Epplin
Publisher: Flatiron Books
ISBN: 1250313805
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
The riveting story of four men—Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige—whose improbable union on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond. In July 1947, not even three months after Jackie Robinson debuted on the Brooklyn Dodgers, snapping the color line that had segregated Major League Baseball, Larry Doby would follow in his footsteps on the Cleveland Indians. Though Doby, as the second Black player in the majors, would struggle during his first summer in Cleveland, his subsequent turnaround in 1948 from benchwarmer to superstar sparked one of the wildest and most meaningful seasons in baseball history. In intimate, absorbing detail, Luke Epplin's Our Team traces the story of the integration of the Cleveland Indians and their quest for a World Series title through four key participants: Bill Veeck, an eccentric and visionary owner adept at exploding fireworks on and off the field; Larry Doby, a soft-spoken, hard-hitting pioneer whose major-league breakthrough shattered stereotypes that so much of white America held about Black ballplayers; Bob Feller, a pitching prodigy from the Iowa cornfields who set the template for the athlete as businessman; and Satchel Paige, a legendary pitcher from the Negro Leagues whose belated entry into the majors whipped baseball fans across the country into a frenzy. Together, as the backbone of a team that epitomized the postwar American spirit in all its hopes and contradictions, these four men would captivate the nation by storming to the World Series--all the while rewriting the rules of what was possible in sports.

Redskins

Redskins PDF Author: C. Richard King
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496213475
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
The Washington Redskins franchise remains one of the most valuable in professional sports, in part because of its easily recognizable, popular, and profitable brand. And yet “redskins” is a derogatory name for American Indians. Prominent journalists, politicians, and former players have publicly spoken out against the use of Redskins as the name of the team. The number of grassroots campaigns to change the name has risen in recent years despite the current team owner’s assertion that the team will never do so. The NFL, for its part, actively defends the name and supports it in court. Redskins: Insult and Brand examines how the ongoing struggle over the team name raises important questions about how white Americans perceive American Indians, about the cultural power of consumer brands, and about continuing obstacles to inclusion and equality. C. Richard King examines the history of the team’s name, the evolution of the term “redskin,” and the various ways in which people both support and oppose its use today. King’s hard-hitting approach to the team’s logo and mascot exposes the disturbing history of a moniker’s association with the NFL—a multibillion-dollar entity that accepts public funds—as well as popular attitudes toward Native Americans today.

Baseball's Great Experiment

Baseball's Great Experiment PDF Author: Jules Tygiel
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195106206
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Offers a history of African American exclusion from baseball, and assesses the changing racial attitudes that led up to Jackie Robinson's acceptance by the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Baseball's Roaring Twenties

Baseball's Roaring Twenties PDF Author: Ronald T. Waldo
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442274263
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
Following the 1919 Black Sox scandal, baseball needed men willing and able to pump life back into the game during tough times. Numerous ballplayers stepped forward and left their mark on the national pastime as it continued to thrive and grow during a decade that became known as the Roaring Twenties, a raucous, happy time period when a free-spirited nature prevailed. In Baseball’s Roaring Twenties: A Decade of Legends, Characters, and Diamond Adventures, Ronald T. Waldo recounts the rollicking escapades surrounding a distinctive collection of players, managers, and umpires that truly personified this era of baseball history. Waldo includes a mix of unique stories and amusing tales surrounding baseball greats like Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, Rabbit Maranville, and Casey Stengel, alongside less famous diamond performers such as Duster Mails, Jay Kirke, Jimmy O’Connell, and Possum Whitted. The fans—who were every bit as important in helping the game grow during the ‘20s—are also given their due with a chapter of their own. From the story of Heinie Mueller unceremoniously pushing his attractive cousin out of sight when he saw manager Branch Rickey approaching to the tale of minor league hurler Augie Prudhomme literally following the sarcastic directive from pilot George Stallings to burn his uniform, Baseball’s Roaring Twenties provides an entertaining perspective of baseball during this singular decade. Amusing and informative, this book will be of interest to baseball fans and historians of all generations.

If You Were Only White

If You Were Only White PDF Author: Donald Spivey
Publisher: University of Missouri
ISBN: 0826219780
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
If You Were Only White explores the legacy of one of the most exceptional athletes ever—an entertainer extraordinaire, a daring showman and crowd-pleaser, a wizard with a baseball whose artistry and antics on the mound brought fans out in the thousands to ballparks across the country. Leroy “Satchel” Paige was arguably one of the world’s greatest pitchers and a premier star of Negro Leagues Baseball. But in this biography Donald Spivey reveals Paige to have been much more than just a blazing fastball pitcher. Spivey follows Paige from his birth in Alabama in 1906 to his death in Kansas City in 1982, detailing the challenges Paige faced battling the color line in America and recounting his tests and triumphs in baseball. He also opens up Paige’s private life during and after his playing days, introducing readers to the man who extended his social, cultural, and political reach beyond the limitations associated with his humble background and upbringing. This other Paige was a gifted public speaker, a talented musician and singer, an excellent cook, and a passionate outdoorsman, among other things. Paige’s life intertwined with many of the most important issues of the times in U.S. and African American history, including the continuation of the New Negro Movement and the struggle for civil rights. Spivey incorporates interviews with former teammates conducted over twelve years, as well as exclusive interviews with Paige’s son Robert, daughter Pamela, Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, and John “Buck” O’Neil to tell the story of a pioneer who helped transform America through the nation’s favorite pastime. Maintaining an image somewhere between Joe Louis’s public humility and the flamboyant aggression of Jack Johnson, Paige pushed the boundaries of segregation and bridged the racial divide with stellar pitching packaged with slapstick humor. He entertained as he played to win and saw no contradiction in doing so. Game after game, his performance refuted the lie that black baseball was inferior to white baseball. His was a contribution to civil rights of a different kind—his speeches and demonstrations expressed through his performance on the mound.

We Are Not a Vanishing People

We Are Not a Vanishing People PDF Author: Thomas Constantine Maroukis
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816542260
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
The early twentieth-century roots of modern American Indian protest and activism are examined in We Are Not a Vanishing People. It tells the history of Native intellectuals and activists joining together to establish the Society of American Indians, a group of Indigenous men and women united in the struggle for Indian self-determination.

Native Hoops

Native Hoops PDF Author: Wade Davies
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700629092
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
A prominent Navajo educator once told historian Peter Iverson that “the five major sports on the Navajo Nation are basketball, basketball, basketball, basketball, and rodeo.” The Native American passion for basketball extends far beyond the Navajo, whether on reservations or in cities, among the young and the old. Why basketball—a relatively new sport—should hold such a place in Native culture is the question Wade Davies takes up in Native Hoops. Indian basketball was born of hard times and hard places, its evolution traceable back to the boarding schools—or “Indian schools”—of the early twentieth century. Davies describes the ways in which the sport, plied as a tool of social control and cultural integration, was adopted and transformed by Native students for their own purposes, ultimately becoming the “Rez ball” that embodies Native American experience, identity, and community. Native Hoops travels the continent, from Alaska to North Carolina, tying the rise of basketball—and Native sports history—to sweeping educational, economic, social, and demographic trends through the course of the twentieth century. Along the way, the book highlights the toils and triumphs of well-known athletes, like Jim Thorpe and the 1904 Fort Shaw girl’s team, even as it brings to light the remarkable accomplishments of those whom history has, until now, left behind. The first comprehensive history of American Indian basketball, Native Hoops tells a story of hope, achievement, and celebration—a story that reveals the redemptive power of sport and the transcendent spirit of Native culture.