The original article was written by Tom Swift
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/charles-bender/
Researched and compiled by Carrie Birdsong
American
Indian. Innovator. Renaissance man. Charles Albert “
Chief” Bender lived a unique American Life, fashioned a Hall of Fame career, and was
an important member of modern baseball’s first dynasty.
He silently struggled against racial
prejudice, became a student of the game, and was a lifetime baseball man. His legacy, however, is less nuanced than all
of that. Bender is known foremost for a
rare ability to pitch under pressure.
“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,” said Philadelphia
Athletics icon Connie Mack, who managed fellow all-time pitching greats Lefty
Grove, Herb Pennock, Eddie Plank, and Rube Waddell, “Albert would be
my man.”[1]
For nearly the entire second half of the twentieth
century, Bender was the lone Minnesota representative in the National Baseball
Hall of Fame. That he is no longer a
household name in the North Star State is in part because he spent so little
time in Minnesota and because some details about that time remain unclear. Bender’s birthday, for one, is not
certain. His birth certificate, registered
decades after the fact, says May 3, 1883.
Other sources list May 5, 1883.
Based on the federal Indian census and on Bender’s school records, the
correct year, is almost certainly 1884.
Many sources list his birthplace as Brainerd but that is likely
inaccurate. According to research on
Bender’s early conducted by researcher Robert Tholkes, within a year of
Charley’s birth the family lived in an area close to Partridge Lake, 20 miles
east of Brainerd. No town existed on the
site at the time. So, it was most correct
to say that Bender was born in Crow Wing Country.
Not long after Charles’s birth, the Bender family
moved to the White Earth Reservation in the northwest section of the
state. Bender’s father, Albertus Bliss
Bender (often referred to as William), was an early white settler in Minnesota,
a homesteader-farmer of German-American descent. Charley’s mother, Mary Razor Bender, was
believed a member of the Mississippi Band of the Ojibwe. Mary, whose Indian name was “Pay shaw de o
quay,” gave birth to 11 children, perhaps as many as 14. Charley was the fourth child born and the
third son. His troubled older brother, John
Charles Bender, was an outfielder who bounced from team to team in the
minor leagues.
At White Earth, the family lived in a log house on a
small farm. The Benders had to be self-sufficient,
and they were not the only ones. As
scholar Melissa Meyer chronicles in The White Earth Tragedy,
during the early years of Charley’s childhood White Earth was
destitute.[2] Things were so meager that
as a young boy, Charley supposedly went to work, taking a job as a farmhand for
a dollar a week. At the time reservation
families such as the Benders often sent their kids to boarding schools. There were four on-reservation boarding
schools, and Charley attended one of them for a short time, but at age 7 he was
sent to the Educational Home, which was under the auspices of the Lincoln
Institution, and off-reservation boarding school for American Indian children
near Philadelphia.
Bender was at the Educational Home for five years
before he went back to White Earth not long after he turned 12 in June of
1896. He had been out of touch with his
family for those years and he returned to a situation that had not improved and
possibly regressed. During his time
away, too, the Bender family continued to grow; Charley was then one of nine
children in the modest Bender home. A
few months after he returned to White Earth, according to a story Bender told The
Sporting News as an adult, he and his older brother Frank ran away from
home. The two went to another White
Earth farm and got jobs in the fields.
While there, a teacher from the Carlisle Indian School, a boarding
school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, later made famous by Jim Thorpe-led
powerhouse football teams, came through and recruited Frank and Charley to
Carlisle.
In many respects, Charley Bender’s life was shaped
during five years at Carlisle, which was run by Richard Henry Pratt, a military
man who strictly drove his pupils to assimilate into the dominant white
culture. At Carlisle, Bender continued
to develop his sharp mind – during his career, teammates, and sportswriters
often attributed Bender’s success to his mental approach – and he met his first
real baseball coach, legendary football maven Pop Warner. After becoming a rare Carlisle Indian School
graduate in 1902 – not long after he held his own in an exhibition loss to the
National League’s Chicago Cubs – Bender was discovered by one of Connie Mack’s
birddogs.
Bender joined the Philadelphia Athletics in 1903 and,
as chronicled in Chief Bender’s Burden, had one of the great seasons in
history for someone aged 19.[3] After an
impressive debut in which he pitched six innings in relief for a victory over
Boston’s Cy Young, Bender earned his first complete-game shutout victory
on April 27, defeating New York Highlanders pitcher and future Hall of Famer Clark
Griffith. By the end of the 1903
season, the rookie had 17 wins and a 3.07 earned-run average (ERA), which was
about the league average. His control was
impressive from the start as he walked just 2.17 batters per nine innings.
Compared to his peers, Bender did not have an
inordinate level of pitching stamina as he was plagued by poor health during
several seasons. (Bender battled several physical ailments and, later in his career, he drank heavily.) He never pitched more than 270 innings in any
season, a feat regularly reached by top-tier starters of the Deadball Era. Near the end of the 1905 season, however,
Bender showed he could labor long if given the change. The Athletics needed to win two games against
Washington to all but secure the pennant.
Bender won the first game 8-0 and came on as a relief pitcher in the
second game to win that one as well. It
was an incredible one-day performance.
Bender pitched 15 innings, won two games, and struck out 14
Senators. What’s more, he was the
hitting hero. A right-handed hitter who
posted a lifetime .212 batting average, he made five hits in six official
at-bats, including two triples and a two-run double in the fourth inning of the
second game that pushed Philadelphia ahead.
On the day he drove in seven runs.
Bender’s poise in big games was most clear during the
World Series, and he received his first such opportunity in 1905. Starting the second game against John
McGraw’s New York Giants, he delivered a masterful, four-hit, 3-0 shutout
in the Athletics’ only victory of the series.
Following the 1905 season, and after studying New York’s Christy
Mathewson up close, Bender worked to further develop his control. He threw a well-directed fastball and a
sharp-breaking curve – a man named Bender has to have one – that was a
precursor to the slider, a pitch he may have invented.[4] He also threw a submarine fadeaway – a pitch
that moved like the contemporary screwball, away from a left-hander. “I use fast curves, pitched overhand and
sidearm, fastballs, high and inside, and an underhand fadeaway pitch with the
hand almost down to the level of the knees,” Bender told Baseball Magazine
in 1911. “They are my most successful
deliveries though a twisting slow one mixed up with them helps at times.”[5]
Bender was exceptionally bright. His intelligence was recognized by teammates,
opponents, and umpires, such as Billy Evans, who believed Bender was one
of the smartest pitchers in the game.
“He takes advantage of every weakness,” Evans said in his Atlanta
Constitution column, “and once a player shows him a weak spot he is marked
for life by the crafty Indian.”[6]
Bender possessed a keen ability to focus on the task at hand, attributes
that won the admiration of legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice, who once
called Bender one of “the greatest competitors I ever knew.” Rice and Bender often played golf together,
and Rice sometimes quoted Bender in his syndicated column. “Tension is the greatest curse in sport,”
said Bender, according to Rice. “I’ve
never had any tension. You give the best
you have – you win or lose. What’s the
difference if you give all you’ve got to give?”[7]
During his first eight years in the major leagues,
Bender continued to hone his craft.
Though his win-loss record fluctuated, his ERA dropped every year, to a
career-best 158 in 1910. That year he
also won 20 games for the first time, notching 23 victories against only five
defeats, which gave him the league’s best winning percentage (.821). Among his victories that season was a
no-hitter thrown May 12 against the Cleveland Indians. Bender was nearly perfect; he faced just 27
hitters as the lone man to reach, shortstop Terry Turner, was caught stealing after a walk. Bender won the opening game of the 1910 World
Series, and the Athletics beat the Chicago Cubs in five games – Philadlephia’s
first world championship.
The following year, Bender helped the
A’s win a second title, as his 17-5 record again led the league in winning
percentage (.773). Facing the New York
Giants in the World Series, Bender pitched brilliantly, winning two of three
starts, posting a 1.04 ERA, and striking out 20 batters in 26 innings. Philadelphia failed to win a third straight
pennant in 1912 as injuries, illness, and a team suspension for alcohol use
limited Bender to a 13-8 record in just 171 innings.{8] But the following year the A’s were again the
premier team, as Bender won 20 games and also led the league with 13 saves
(retroactively calculated). In that
year’s World Series – the A’s and Giants squared off one more time – Bender won
two games and the Athletics captured their third world championship in four
years.
Bender’s World Series career line
was blemished in 1914, as the favored Philadelphia Athletics were swept by the
so-called “Miracle” Boston Braves.
Bender had put up a fine regular season record, winning 14 straight
games during one stretch, finishing the year with a 17-3 mark and a
league-leading .850 winning percentage.
But, in his only appearance in the World Series, Bender started the opening
game and surrendered six earned runs in 5 1/3
innings. It was his
last appearance in an A’s uniform.
The next year, Bender signed with the Federal League and was assigned to Baltimore.
Pitching for the last-place Terrapins, he went 4-16 and was released by
the team in September. After the 1915
season, Bender was picked up by the Philadelphia Phillies, where, pitching
mostly in relief, he had a 7-7 record in 1916.
In 1917, he showed flashes of his previous level of performance with an
8-2 mark and a 1.67 ERA but nonetheless was released by the Phillies at the end
of the season. During the 1918 season, Bender went to work in the Philadelphia shipyards to contribute to the war
effort.
His life in baseball did not end,
however. When the war was over, Bender
began a successful career as a minor-league player and manager. He was offered opportunities to return to the
big leagues but enjoyed managing so much – and probably earned as much money in
the minor as he would have in the majors – that he declined. Bender managed Richmond of the Virginia
League in 1919 and also dominated the league as a pitcher, winning 29 games
against two defeats. Subsequently, he
pitched and managed at New Haven in the Eastern League (1920-21); Reading
(1922), and Baltimore (1923) in the International League; and Johnstown,
Pennsylvania, in the Mid-Atlantic League in 1927. During that period he also spent several
years as a baseball coach for the U.S. Naval Academy.
Bender pitched one more in the major leagues. In 1925, while employed as a coach for his
friend, Chicago White Sox manager Eddie Collins, he worked a gimmicky
frame in a game against the Boston Red Sox – the club he had beaten for his
first major-league victory 22 years prior.
Bender, 42 at the time, allowed two runs on a walk and a home run but
did manage to retire the side,
During the 1930s, Bender managed the Eastern team of
the independent House of David. He also
managed Erie in the Continental League in 1932.
Wilmington of the Inter-State League in 1940, Newport News of the
Virginia League in 1941, and Savannah of the Southern Association in 1946. Thereafter he was associated with the New
York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, New York Giants, and Philadelphia Athletics as
a coach or scout. At 61 he began
pitching batting practice to the Athletics and years later served as the A’s de
facto pitching coach.
Over a 16-year major-league career, Bender won 212
games and posted a .625 winning percentage.
He pitched to avoid the bats of the American League hitters, and every
time he did, he stared into the face of racism.
Though he often showed a calm, levelheaded demeanor, he was seldom
portrayed in newspapers, cartoons, or words on the street without references –
many of them demeaning, few of them subtle – to his race. Through this period of his American Indian
heritage, Bender resented the bigotry and the moniker he and nearly every other
Indian ballplayer received. “I may not name to be presented to the public as an Indian, but as a pitcher,” he told
Sporting Life in 1905.[9] The
writers didn’t listen. Though his
manager called him Albert, prevailing stereotypes rarely were absent from
baseball coverage and bench jockeying. Bender
didn’t publicly protest, but he signed his autograph as “Charles” or some
derivative. Eventually, he was called
“Chief” so often (and so often with affection) that he allowed the name to be
etched into his tombstone. But the tacit
racism never went away. Even decades
after his retirement, Bender’s obituary in The Sporting News carried the
headline, “Chief Bender Answers Call to Happy Hunting Grounds.”[10]
As noted in Chief Bender’s Burden, as a way to
keep his mind occupied, Bender engaged in an inordinate number of sports and
hobbies outside of baseball, and he was exceptional at many of them. He was often referred to as one of the top
trap shooters (he shot live birds and clay pigeons) in the country. He loved to hunt and fish and was an
outstanding golfer. Bender’s favorite
hobbies were gardening, playing billiards, and painting oil landscapes. He occasionally served as a consultant to
people in the diamond and textiles trades.
He had a long post-major-league career in retail, selling, among other
things, sporting goods and men’s clothing.
Bender’s life partner was Marie (Clement) Bender, whom
he married in 1904. The couple’s
marriage, which lasted nearly 50 years, did not produce any children. In 1953, Bender became the first
Minnesota-born player enshrined in the Hall of Fame, and he stayed only one
until Dave Winfield joined him in 2001.
On May 22, 1954, the year following the vote, Bender died a few weeks
shy of his 71st birthday and a few weeks before his induction
ceremony. He had previously suffered a
heart attack and was receiving treatment for prostate cancer. Bender is buried in Hillside Cemetery in
Roslyn, Pennsylvania.
A version of this biography appeared in SABR’s “Minnesotans in Baseball,” edited by Stew Thornley (Nodin, 2009).
Sources
Portions of this biography are drawn from the author’s book Chief Bender’s Burden (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008).
Research conducted by Robert Tholkes, written in an excellent article called “Chief Bender: The Early Years,” published in the 1983 edition of the Baseball Research Journal of the Society for American Baseball Research, was the solid foundation upon which I conducted further exploration about the rough details of Bender’s first years, his family, and life at White Earth. Beverly Hermes supplied added genealogical research aid. The Charles Albert Bender file at the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bemidji, Minnesota, was useful. Facts about the Bender family were also found in the federal Indian census and the U.S. census.
Paulette Fairbanks Molin’s article, “Training the Hand, the Head, and the Heart: Indian Education at Hampton Institute,” published in the fall 1988 issue of Minnesota History, revealed facts about the Bender family.
Articles in a multiple-part series about Bender’s life published in The Sporting News, December 24-31, 1942, were used for information about Bender’s childhood, including the story of how Bender and his brother ran away.
Notes
1. The Connie Mack quote that if he could pick
one pitcher for a big game, “Albert would be
my man,” has been included in nearly every
biographical profile ever written about Bender,
including David Pietrusza, Matthew Silverman,
and Michael Gershman, editors, Baseball:
The Biographic Encyclopedia (Total Sports,
2000), 80. Mack made the statement often in
his later years.
2. Melissa L. Meyer, The White Earth Tragedy:
Ethnicity and Dispossession at a Minnesota
Anishinaabe Reservation, 1889-1920 (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1994).
3. Tom Swift, Chief Bender’s Burden (Lincoln:
the University of Nebraska Press, 2008).
4. There is no one agreed-upon inventor of the
slider. One source among several sources
consulted on this topic was The Neyer/James
Guide to Pitchers A Historical Compendium of
Pitching, Pitchers, and Pitches by Rob Neyer
and Bill James (Fireside, 2004). E-mail
correspondence with Bill James was also useful.
5. “Big Chief Bender,” Baseball, Vol. 7, August
1911: 64.
6. Billy Evans, “Chief Bender Discusses Pitchers
and Pitching; Control Greatest Asset,” Atlanta
Constitution, December 28, 1913: 5. There is
no one agreed upon the inventor of the slider.
One source among several sources consulted
on this topic was The Neyer James Guide to
Pitchers: A Historical Compendium of Pitching,
Pitchers, and Pitches by Rob Neyer and Bill
James (Fireside, 2004). E-mail correspondence
with Bill James was also useful.
7. Grantland Rice wrote about Bender in several
columns during and after Bender’s major-
league career, including a column that
appeared in the September 2, 1915, Boston
Daily Globe.
8. Regarding Bender’s alcohol use, Connie Mack
discussed problems he had with Bender and a
a teammate in the March 6, 1950, New York
Times Bender’s drinking habits in the 1912
season were discussed most prominently in the
Philadelphia North American’s coverage that
year, from September 12 on. Other useful
information was found in an article under the
headline “The Fallen Stars of 1912 Season”
in the September 21, 1912, Philadelphia
Evening Telegraph. One of Bender’s contracts,
according to his salary history card at the
National Baseball Hall of Fame (thanks to
Gabriel Schechter for supplying a copy),
said that he must “[refrain] from intoxicating
liquors.”
9. Francis C. Richter, “Philadelphia News,”
Sporting Life, August 5, 1905: 25.
10. “Chief Bender Answers Call to Happy Hunting
Grounds,” The Sporting News, June 2, 1954: 32.
* Full Name: Charles Albert Bender
* Born: May 5, 1884, at Crow Wing County, MN (USA)
* Died: May 22, 1954, at Philadelphia, PA (USA)
