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Money Pitcher: Chief Bender and the Tragedy of Indian Assimilation (Keystone Books) Hardcover – March 2, 2006

by William C. Kashatus (Author)

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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.

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Editorial Reviews

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“I thoroughly enjoyed Money Pitcher. Kashatus tells Bender’s story through lively, accessible writing. He refuses to get bogged down in statistics, but at the same time gives baseball fans all the sports trivia they’ll want. And by exploring not just the height of Bender’s fame, but also his early years and post-majors career, Kashatus draws out some very important—and counterintuitive—conclusions.”

—Philip Deloria, University of Michigan

“Chief Bender’s extraordinary life took him from White Earth to the Hall of Fame. That much we knew. Now comes Bill Kashatus to tell us the rest. This extraordinary book puts us alongside Bender on his troubled and triumphant journey through America’s shameful treatment of its native people.”

—Dave Kindred, Sporting News

“In many ways, American Indian players were the first pioneers to integrate major league baseball. And of these integrators, Charles Albert Bender was among the first and certainly the greatest, a cornerstone of the Philadelphia Athletics’ championship teams. Money Pitcher, Bill Kashatus’s well-written and well-researched biography, tells Bender’s story at length, from his early days on the White Earth Reservation, to his glory days as a World Series hero, to his last days as a Philadelphia pitching coach. This is a great life story, sensitively told by Kashatus.”

—Jeff Powers-Beck, author of The American Indian Integration of Baseball

“William Kashatus has been telling interesting baseball stories for some years now and . . . he does what he does best: put it all in perspective.”

—Dan Smith, Blue Ridge Business Journal

“Like Kashatus’ recent book about Richie Allen and the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, the Bender book has to do with a lot more than baseball.”

—Dan Smith, Blue Ridge Business Journal

“Money Pitcher is a book that is definitely a must-read for anyone interested in Native Americans during the Progressive Era and in Pennsylvania’s sports history.”

—Karen Guenther, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography

“Money Pitcher is a pleasurable read. It will appeal to both sports fans and those with a general interest in Native American history. He consistently provides the reader with an understanding of the times that Bender lived through and the struggles he endured. I recommend this book for purchase by tribal libraries.”

—James Thull, Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education (TCJ)

About the Author

William C. Kashatus is a professional historian who earned a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. A regular contributor to the Philadelphia Daily News, he is the author of several books, including September Swoon: Richie Allen, the '64 Phillies, and Racial Integration (Penn State, 2004), the winner of the 2005 Dave Moore Award presented by Elysian Fields Quarterly.

Series: Keystone Books
Hardcover: 216 pages
Publisher: Penn State University Press; 1 edition (March 2, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0271028629
ISBN-13: 978-0271028620
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 1 customer review
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,807,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1372 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National > Native American
- #2520 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Sports & Outdoors > Baseball
- #8686 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Baseball

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Winslow Bunny

Excellent Book About An Underrated Pitcher

January 18, 2009

Format: Hardcover

Charles Albert Bender, beter known as "Chief" Bender, was a premier pitcher for the Philadelphia A's in the early 1900s. Possessing a fine fastball, curve, plenty of control, concentration and observation, he won 212 games in the major leagues and earned a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The other half of the story is that he was born on a reservation in Crow Wing County, Minnesota, to a white father and half-Anishinaabe (Chippewa) mother. They later moved to the White Earth Indian reservation in northeast Minnesota, until Charles was sent off to the East to go to school. At this time, the U.S. government's program of assimilation of Native American children into the white world was in full swing, and set off Bender's nearly life-long struggle of an Indian living, working and trying to succeed in a white world. A hundred years ago, those who "looked different" - were from a different ethnic origin - were subjected to racism, slights and insults as a matter of course in everyday life. But Bender succeeded in the white world, though at a terrible price to his health. The author of this book, William Kashatus, has done an excellent job in researching the life of Charles Bender; there are places where the information is sketchy, but due only to a lack of data, such as Bender's early life. The one area that the author has left me in doubt is in his claim that the 1914 World Series may have been "thrown" by some members of the A's, among them Bender. His case did not convince me sufficiently that this happened; the information semmed mostly circumstantial and even that doesn't jibe with Bender's nature. In reading this book, one may get a feel of what the times were like then, in America, for the American Indian being assimilated in society and for the heroic Bender, who endured so much during his time and performed with grace, skill and determination to be known for talents as a pitcher, not just as a Native American trying to get along in white American society.

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