Sweet Wilma

First American woman to win three gold medals in the Olympics, born 1940 in St. Bethlehem, Tennessee; died of brain cancer, November 12, 1994 in Nashville, Tennessee.  

From the unlikeliest of beginnings, Wilma Rudolph became one of the most admired women of the 20th century.  Her father was a porter and her mother was a housekeeper 6 days a week in a Southern town which was still gripped by Jim Crow.  She was born prematurely, weighing just 4-1/2 pounds, the sixteenth of her father's nineteen children (11 of them were stepbrothers and sisters).  The doctors didn't give her much of a chance of survival, but she lived through several bouts of illness in her first 3 years.  When she was 4, she contracted double pneumonia, scarlet fever and polio, and the prognosis was grim; soon the muscles in her left leg and foot weakened to the point where she couldn't use them, and the doctors at the nearest hospital for blacks, 50 miles away from her hometown, said she'd never walk.  For 2 years, Wilma's mother took her by bus to Nashville for physical therapy, bought her special shoes and put her leg in metal braces.  Gradually she walked, but haltingly.  When she was 11, she shocked her entire family by throwing away the braces during a church service and walking down the aisle.  In short order she found she could also run, and she seemed to be a pretty good with a basketball, shooting hoops through the peach basket her brother had set up in their yard.  At 13, she made the girls' basketball team at Clarksville High School and averaged 32.1 points per game, a state record.  Her coach encouraged her to run, and she enjoyed an undefeated record before qualifying for U.S. Olympic track team in 1956.  

In the Olympics at Melbourne, the 16-year old Rudolph won a bronze medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay.  She entered Tennessee State University in 1957 to work with the famed coach of the Tigerbelle track team, Ed Temple.  (For his part, Temple said his only contribution to Rudolph's greatness was that he reduced her intake of junk food.)  She was sidelined with injuries over much of the next several years, and a tonsillectomy threatened to take her out of the 1960 Olympics.  She managed to recover, however, setting a world record for the 200-meter dash during the Olympic trials.  When she arrived in Rome, the foreign press was captivated by her charming smile, her graceful 5'-11" frame and her deceptively easy, long strides, calling her "La Perle Noire" (the "black pearl") or "La Gazzella Nera" (the "black gazelle"); indeed, even the American press made itself look a little silly by celebrating her beauty, after years of neglecting women athletes, especially African-American ones.  By the end of the games, she had won the 100-meter dash by three yards with a time of 11 seconds; easily beat the field in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.2 seconds; and, running the anchor leg of the 4 x 100-meter relay, she led the team to a world-record 44.4 second race despite a sloppy final pass of the baton, becoming the first American woman to win three gold medals at the Olympics.  

After an audience with Pope John XXIII, she returned to Tennessee, where she was honored with the first ever racially-integrated parade in her hometown of Clarksville.  Through it all, Rudolph radiated a sweetness which reflected the gratitude she felt for being given the chance to succeed, becoming one of the most beloved sports figures ever.  After the Olympics she finished college; set a new world record in the 100-meter dash (11.2); and won the Sullivan Trophy as America's best amateur athlete (1961), becoming only the third woman to do so up to that time.  She later had 4 children, wrote a best-selling autobiography (later filmed as Wilma, starring Cicely Tyson), modeled extensively, and worked tirelessly to support underprivileged athletes.  

"She was always in my corner.  If I had a problem, I could call her at home.  It was like talking to someone you knew for a lifetime." -- Jackie Joyner-Kersee. 

Local Notes #3

• On Friday, the 28th, we had an opportunity to see two entertaining bands on the "Downstairs Live" stage at the World Cafe in Philadelphia: Golem and Toubab Krewe. (Muchas gracias to Krewe kora-and-12-string-kamelengoni player Justin Perkins for the tickets!) The opening act, Golem, is an irrepressibly lively five-piece klezmer band, led by Annette Ezekiel on vocals and accordion. "This is not your father's klezmer band," according to a review in Jewish Weekly, posted on the band's website, "[u]nless, of course, your father was Sid Vicious." The band's repertoire is a spun-out and recoiled mélange of Jewish, Gypsy and Slavic folk songs, collected and reworked by Ezekiel and her cohorts somewhere between Lower East Side bagel shops and summers in Eastern Europe. Ezekiel and fiddler Alicia Jo Rabins (decked out in shimmering, bright red mini-tunics and long leather boots for Friday's performance), tromboing-boinger Curtis Hasselbring, drummer Tim Monaghan and upright bassist Taylor Bergren-Chrisman put some furious, crazy and intense musicianship on display, while muttering vocalist Aaron Diskin adds some Yiddish burlesque flavor to the whole affair. Toubab Krewe -- an Asheville, North Carolina-based fusion instrumental jam outfit, blending West African sounds (learned while studying with masters in Mali, Guinea and the Ivory Coast) with various facets of Southern-tinged rock 'n roll -- took the stage around 10pm, and they were worth the wait. On many of their tightly-meshed numbers, while Perkins bangs and plucks away on electrified West African gourd-harps (creating a sound that swings from steel-string axe-work to the effect of a light breeze on backporch chimes), percussionist Luke Quaranta, who plies a collection of traditional West African percussion instruments, and drummer Teal Brown, engage in some startling, fascinating cross-talk; and guitarist Drew Heller and bassist David Pransky (an ex-mandolinist) provide a supple, silky bed of electronic sound. Heller and Brown deserve special mention; Heller's guitar is surely accessible to uninitiated American rock audiences, but it straddles the soldered core of the group's sound by introducing us to the lightning, flat-pick sound of West African masters such as Zani Diabate, and Heller's own teacher Lamine Soumano. Brown may sit at the back of the group, but he is, in a sense, the Krewe's ringmaster, leading the band with a wide, white grin in some cliff-hanging tempo shifts while flashing in and out of straight-ahead rock drumming and West African rhythms. As the World Cafe's David Dye says, "Toubab Krewe are where Ali Farka Toure and Led Zeppelin meet." Check out their eponymous 2005 release when you get the chance -- regrettably, it is hard to find.

• In sporting news ... the "Augustinian Shoot-Out" -- a four-day high school basketball tournament comprised of squads from nine elite North American Augustinian high schools -- came to a successful conclusion on Sunday the 30th. Participating in the tournament, which was held at St. Augustine College Preparatory School in Richland, New Jersey, were the hosts, the Prep Hermits; the Saints of St. Augustine High School in San Diego, California; the Friars of Malvern Prep in Malvern, Pennsylvania; the Wildcats of Villanova Prep in Ojai, California; the Mustangs of St. Rita of Cascia in Chicago, Illinois; the Celtics of Providence Catholic in New Lenox, Illinois; the Commandos of Cascia Hall in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and the Knights of St. Thomas of Villanova College in King City, Ontario, Canada. We were on hand to see the Prep Hermits' JV squad, featuring our own Ryan O., beat the Varsity squad from Ontario on Friday morning, 63-35. As St. Augustine himself sayeth, "The argument is at an end."

Ice Queen

Sonja Henie was born on this day in 1912 in Kristiana, Norway.

The blonde, blue-eyed ingénue who dominated and changed the style of international figure skating competition also turned out to be a cunning marketeer, a trait she may have inherited from her father, a leading Norwegian furrier who owned the first automobile in Oslo. Sonja Henie learned to ski almost as soon as she could walk, but by 5 she was immersed in studying dance with Love Krohn, teacher of the great ballerina Anna Pavlova. With Pavlova as her role model-by-proxy, she began to skate at age 6, taking her first Norwegian championship at age 10.

As a tiny 12 year old, Henie competed in her first Olympics in 1924 at Chamonix, placing 8th; but 2 years later she was challenging the 1924 gold medallist, Herma Planck-Szabo of Austria, placing a close 2nd to her in the 1926 world championships. On her way up the international rankings, she also drew raves for her short skirts, which better emphasized her graceful leg work, as opposed to the long skirts worn by her competitors. In 1927, Henie unseated Planck-Szabo in a controversial competition in which 3 out of 5 judges were Norwegian. Her breakthrough world championship in 1927 would, however, prove to be the first of an entire decade of uninterrupted major victories.

That year she also tentatively began her film career, appearing in a Norwegian film, Seven Days for Elizabeth. In 1928, she stretched the confines of figure skating as a sport by introducing dance routines into freeskating, and won her first of 3 Olympic gold medals at St. Moritz. By the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid, her international competitors, British pre-teen Cecilia Colledge notable among them, were imitating her costumes, dance style and spinning repertoire, but Henie was still the unanimous choice for the gold medal.

In 1936, Henie announced that she would retire from amateur skating following the Olympics and the subsequent world championship to be held the following week, and although she succeeded in winning the gold and the world championship, this time she received stiff competition from Colledge. She obviously knew when to quit (ending her career with 14 national championships, 8 European championships and 10 world championships in addition to the Olympic gold medals), and how to proceed on her next career choice: within a year, Henie was in Hollywood with a contract from 20th Century-Fox, and her first American musical, One in a Million, became a huge hit.

Henie was not much of an actress (and "her accent was as thick as her ankles," as Schickel observed), but her skating numbers and her sunny persona served her well in a number of light musicals, including Thin Ice (1937), Happy Landing (1938) and Sun Valley Serenade (1941, with Glenn Miller); in 1938, she was ranked as the 3rd most popular box office attraction, after Clark Gable and Shirley Temple.

By the mid-1940s, however, fans were growing tired of her movies, so she took the big dollars she earned in Hollywood and poured them into her Hollywood Ice Revue traveling show (of which she was the star), exhibiting her typical combination of drive and perfectionism in assuring the quality of her productions. After two American marriages, she married her Norwegian childhood sweetheart, a shipowner, at 44. When she died of leukemia at 57 (in an airplane en route from Paris to Oslo), she was worth over $47 million.

Like Adding 20 Horsepower

"Cale Yarborough is the best driver the sport has ever seen. When you strap Cale into the car, it's like adding 20 horsepower." -- Junior Johnson.

NASCAR champion Cale Yarborough was born William Caleb Yarborough on this day in 1939 in Sardis, South Carolina.

Yarborough stole his way into his first professional stock car race, at Darlington Raceway near his home town of Sardis, at the age of 18, slipping behind the wheel of a Pontiac slated to be driven by a friend and finishing near last after engine troubles. After that day in 1957, Yarborough struggled along unsuccessfully with turkey farming for awhile and later found work as a grease monkey at Holman-Moody in Charlotte, North Carolina, the shop where Ford racing cars were created.

Finally, in 1965, Yarborough got his chance behind the wheel, and began one of the most celebrated NASCAR careers ever -- one which would include three consecutive national championships (1976, 1977 and 1978), five Southern 500 wins at his hometown course of Darlington Raceway, and 83 victories in 559 starts. He is at the top of the all-time list for the percentage of time in which he led races during his career (16%), and attributes much of his success to his ability to adapt to even the roughest riding cars -- he criticizes drivers who need everything to be perfect in order to win. Yarborough viewed his pre-race qualifying runs as crucial to his success, and his competitive intensity in this area earned him 70 pole positions (3rd on the all-time list).

Outside of racing, the 5' 7", 170-lb. Yarborough has led a daredevil's lifestyle which reflected the spirit of his driving: riding alligators, grappling water moccasins, skydiving and bear wrestling, Yarborough once landed an airplane without any prior experience and has been struck by lightning twice. From 1986 to 2000, he was a racing team owner; he last took the wheel himself in 1988 and was inducted into the International Motorpsorts Hall of Fame in 1993.

Fastest

Craig Breedlove was born on this day in 1937 in Los Angeles.

After years of drag racing and building vehicles, on August 5, 1963 Breedlove set the "unlimited" land speed record in his Spirit of America, a jet-powered, 3-wheeled drag racer with a giant stabilizing tail of Breedlove's own design, at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, with a speed of 407.447 mph. The previous record land speed was set by John Cobb in a non-jet-powered 4-wheel vehicle in 1947; Breedlove's record was classed in a different category by the Federation Internationale de L'Automobile, FIA, although the "unlimited" class became the dominant field of play after Breedlove's achievement.

After seeing 2 drivers beat his 1963 record (Tom Green and Art Arfons), Breedlove returned to Bonneville on October 13, 1964 to reclaim the land speed record with a speed of 468.719 mph, and raised the bar a few days later with a speed of 526.277 mph. He and Arfons traded the record back and forth throughout October and November 1965, culminating in Breedlove's 600.601 mph performance on November 15, 1965. His last land speed record stood for 5 years until it was beaten by Gary Gabelich in 1970.

Breedlove's achievement remains extraordinary, however: he managed to raise the land speed record by more than 200 mph in 2 years, and was the first driver to beat the 400, 500 and 600 mph marks on wheels.

Ride the Biggest Waves

Big wave surfer Mark Foo was born on this day in 1958 in Singapore.

The self-described "living legend of surfing," Mark Foo was probably the most adept promoter of surfing during the 1980s and early 1990s. His credo: ride the biggest waves, and make sure people see you doing it. He would routinely alert the sport's best known photographers of his plans -- where he would be surfing, what they could expect to see -- and soon he was the best known surfer in the world, appearing in magazines and on TV surfing giant Hawaiian waves, particularly around the surfing mecca of Waimea Bay. In doing so, Foo also changed the style of big wave surfing, moving the sport away from the straight-line, no-nonsense fashion which was its hallmark since the 1950s toward flashy, dazzling maneuvers, leaving an indelible mark on younger surfers. Foo took big risks for the sake of publicity: in 1985 at Waimea, after several other surfers began getting into trouble amid unrelenting 30-foot waves, Foo waived off a helicopter rescue to surf, for an instant, a 50-foot wave -- long enough to have his picture taken, looking as though he were about to be consumed by a whale -- before his board broke in half.

On December 1994, reports of 50 and 60-foot waves hitting the craggy unfamiliar coast at Maverick's near San Francisco drew Foo and his rival Ken Bradshaw to California. Upon arriving, they were disappointed to find merely average waves, but they set out to surf nonetheless. With a 100 onlookers on the beach, Foo stole a routine 15-foot wave from Bradshaw, only to fall almost immediately as the wave's course shifted unpredictably. After an hour, people began to notice that Foo had not surfaced. Surfer Mike Parsons, who had himself nearly drowned at about the same time, spotted Foo's body floating near the surface while riding one of the media boats. Foo was pulled from the water, but all attempts to revive him failed. It was surmised that Foo was knocked unconscious by his board and that his leash caught on some rocks near the bottom of the surf.

Although Foo had often said that dying in a 50-foot wave would be a "glamorous" way to go, no one ever suspected he would die on a routine wipeout in California, albeit amid dangerous rock hazards. He was the first big-wave surfer to die riding since 1943. 700 people attended Foo's memorial service at Waimea, where 150 men and women paddled their surfboards into the bay and released Foo's ashes.

Barney Oldfield

Auto racer Barney Oldfield was born Berna Eli Oldfield on this day in 1878 in Wauseon, Ohio.

Oldfield served as Henry Ford’s proxy on the racing circuit, driving Ford’s 999 sports car in 1902 in races around the country (beating, among others, Ford's rival Alexander Winton). Winton hired him away from Ford and sent him on tour in his Winton Bullet, in which Oldfield became the first driver to achieve the speed of a mile-per-minute (at Indianapolis on June 15, 1903). In 1910 he set another record, hitting 131.724 mph in a 200-horsepower Blintzen Benz, in a match race against African-American heavyweight boxing champ Jack Johnson, who had boasted he could beat any professional driver. For racing an African-American, the American Automobile Association suspended Oldfield and banned him from AAA-sanctioned meets.

He was a bit past his prime, although still probably the most famous racer in the U.S., when he starred in a Mack Sennett adventure-comedy short, Barney Oldfield's Race for Life (1913), in which he raced a train to get to Mabel Normand and untie her from the tracks.

Oldfield died on October 4, 1946 in Beverly Hills, California. He never finished higher than fifth in the Indianapolis 500.

The Family Ski Vacation

I have to admit that before I got married, I had no concept of what a family ski vacation was all about. I never had one when I was a kid. Other kids did that kind of thing, not me; and for all I knew it involved yodeling and lederhosen and big St. Bernard hospice dogs with kegs of brandy tied around their necks.

My wife, on the other hand, more or less grew up skiing, Every year, the family ski vacation, with Uncle John, Aunt Patty and the cousins and their kids, is penciled-in on next year’s calendar before they even start lighting the 4th of July fireworks. It’s serious stuff with these folks. My wife's father ran a ski resort, her brother used to work in a ski shop, and my wife herself spent some time as a ski instructor.

Last year, I managed to join the ski vacation without actually doing any skiing – but that was a gimme, and I could expect no such gift under the tree this year. We arrived at the house generously rented for us by my wife’s Aunt and Uncle on Saturday, and it quickly became clear that El Niño didn’t really want us to ski, at least not right away. It was 58° F when we arrived, and the slopes were brown-green. Perfect for a nice hike, something more my speed. We took advantage of the time, trudging up and down Mt. Minsi and then enjoying a wine and cheese tailgate party.

By Tuesday night, however, temperatures were falling and the wife and I found ourselves drifting off to sleep to the sonorous rumble of snow machines. On Wednesday morning, it was like waking up to Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, and the kids could barely be bothered with something so mundane as breakfast.

No excuses now. There was officially nothing standing between me and the slopes.

DAY 1: With a mish-mash of borrowed skiwear, I fought my way through the rental shop and soon found myself walking around in a pair of rented ski boots. It was a most unnatural experience, and the posture it put me in made me feel more like J. Fred Muggs than Jean-Claude Killy.

Mercifully, at the first resort we went to, the lodge was at the top of the slope, meaning that I would not have to take my inaugural ski lift ride until after going down the slope for the first time. And, of course, under my wife’s instruction, it took me about an hour to make it down that first time. While my wife was telling me to bend my knees and, rather inscrutably, to “spread the peanut butter, then spread the jam,” little Cousin Jack, in his bright orange and black ski jacket, and his stylish sister Erin flew past me every ten minutes or so, possibly wondering where my wife could have found such a klutzy husband.

I became intimate with the snow on more than one occasion, and by the end of my first run I wondered to myself why I couldn’t just throw away the skis and just use the poles. They seemed so much more practical at that point. “Buck up, Ron,” laughed Aunt Patty, floating past on her brand new Silver Perla Elans. “Everyone skis in this family -- better get used to it!”

Getting on the lift was a piece of cake, but getting off required a better understanding of gliding on skis than I had mustered up to that moment. By the end of our quick tangle at the top, my wife was nursing a nice purple bump on her shin. But, then, of course, love means never having to say you’re sorry when you jab a ski into your wife’s shin. Right?

I made two more “runs” that day, if you want to call them that. “Flailing, Meandering Topples” might be a better descriptive term for them.

DAY 2: I went to ski school, taking a private lesson from Inga. Within minutes, Inga -- barking instructions at me in some sort of Alpine accent I couldn’t otherwise identify -- had me waddling behind her along the flattish surfaces like a dutiful duckling. There was no question that the previous day under my wife’s tutelage was anything but a waste of time – all I really needed was to get that first day out of the way.

Inga’s best advice came from watching me come off the lift several times and giving me a few pointers on how to avoid slicing the other skiers. These turned out to be invaluable, although I continued the practice of warning people about me before jumping on the lifts with them, giving them the option of going alone for the benefit of the public at large.

By the end of the lesson, I realized I had experienced a moment of conversion, in which I suddenly saw the poles as pointless and the skis as being the best thing going. I rode the lift a few times without Inga, tentatively skidded down the bunny slope a few times without Inga, my poles completely off the ground, and called it a day … the end of a good day.

DAY 3: I arrived at the mountain with everyone else, but I chose to ski alone for much of the day, consigning myself to the bunny slope while the rest of the family went on the higher lifts -- to practice making turns and avoiding the sullen snowboarders who collected themselves like manatees at the summit.

Late in the day, though, the bunny slope was basically acquired by our family. We took it over. While almost a dozen of us skied together, another few family spectators waited at the bottom of each run, cheering us all on. Even the youngest, our two-year old cousin, got into the act. While gliding down the slope between my wife’s legs, he paused for a moment to point out the summer waterslide that stood, snow-covered, at one side of the bunny slope. “Can we go on that one next?,” he asks, standing firmly in his starter skis, half way down the mountain.

All I can say is, this kid gets it. This is what the family ski vacation is all about. It’s about spending time with your family in circumstances of all-out reckless abandon. It’s listening to your Dad say, “Faster, faster,” and not “Stop that, you’re gonna get hurt.” Authority is abdicated, and everyone is intoxicated by the thought of it.

What I’ve come to discover is that skiing, among other family sports, is a uniquely spiritual endeavor. It involves Balance – not the Aristotelian-Augustinian ideal of moderation, but that other kind of balance, the kind promoted by that other noted philosopher, the late Karl Wallenda; it involves a good dose of Looking out for the Other Guy – if only, in this case, to avoid getting hit by the other guy; and it involves Faith. Faith in Newtonian physics, in the properties of white powder and ice, and ultimately, in the Lord Almighty. As in, "Lord Almighty, I hope I don't take a header."

Next year, I'm bringing the brandy kegs. No dogs allowed.

The Greatest

"You think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned? Wait 'til I kick Foreman's behind!" -- Muhammad Ali, 1974.

Brash. Stylish. Principled. Proud. These are just some of the words which come to mind when you think of Muhammad Ali. Not just a boxing champ, he was a media sensation who brought an audience back to boxing that had slipped away during the sport’s dark years -- a period in which the Kefauver Commission had explored boxing’s connections with organized crime and rendered the whole enterprise suspect. After bringing the fans back, he stood up for his race and religious principles, suffered greatly for his courage, and fought his way back to the top as only a man of Ali’s enormous self-confidence ("I am the greatest!" was his mantra) and larger-than-life stage presence could have done.

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. on this day in 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky, he exploded onto the boxing scene by winning the light-heavyweight gold medal at the Olympics in Rome in 1960; and in an act of defiance after returning to the U.S. and being refused service in a Southern diner, he threw his gold medal into the Ohio River. "My holiday as a White Hope was over. I felt a new, secret strength," Ali later recalled. His frustration with American race relations was a constant theme during his career, and by the force of his personality he somehow managed to rise to stardom without having to play by all the "Jim Crow" rules which other African-Americans had to follow. Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, Sammy Davis, Jr. -- these near contemporaries would all have to play by white men’s rules to some degree, being polite and subservient by word and deed, even if their impact would be felt in their ability to beat whites at their own contests.

A group of white businessmen in Kentucky sponsored young Cassius Clay’s professional career, wisely letting him become the charismatic politician/star he was born to be as they saw to his training and conditioning. Even in the ring he was unconventional, dancing around with his arms dangling, and he wasn’t given much of a chance against the scowling champ Sonny Liston in February 1964, but he beat him in 7 rounds to become the undisputed heavyweight champion. In his rematch with Liston later that year, Clay dropped Liston in the first round, then stood over him in one of the most unforgettable tableaux of 20th century sports, shouting "Get up, you bum!" through his mouthpiece.

During that first year of his first title, Clay converted to the Nation of Islam through the influence of Malcolm X, shed his "slave name" and became known as "Muhammad Ali" -- a gesture which unnerved white fans. After the Liston fights, Ali successfully defended his title 8 times, until in 1967 he was threatened with a jail sentence for refusing to enter U.S. military service in Vietnam on religious grounds, and his title was stripped from him by the World Boxing Association. Jack Johnson, similarly, had his title yanked from him behind the scenes after being convicted under the Mann Act in an episode that also had the unmistakable stench of racism. True, Ali was succeeded by another African-American, Joe Frazier, but Frazier was not an avid purveyor of "black power"; to white America at that time, Frazier was safer.

In 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Ali’s conviction, and Ali returned to boxing, losing to Frazier in his first attempt to regain the title in 1971. By 1974, when the towering new champ George Foreman agreed to face him in Zaire, fight fans feared for Ali’s life; but with a combination of pre-bout mind games and sheer stamina in the ring (employing the now famous "rope-a-dope" defense), Ali outlasted Foreman’s brutal punches and knocked him out in the 8th round to regain the title. After 10 more defenses (including the classic "Thrilla in Manilla" against Frazier in 1975), Ali somewhat jadedly fought another Olympic gold medal winner, Leon Spinks, and lost on points in February 1978 -- only to steal the WBA title back 7 months later.

He then promptly retired, his body failing to live up to the expectations of his always ready mouth. Driven by financial difficulties, he fought once more for the title against Larry Holmes in 1980 at the age of 38, and once more again in a disastrous non-title bout the following year, before Parkinson’s Disease made it impossible for him to fight and slowed his speech to a silence out of which not even Howard Cosell could coax him. His overall record, which seems like a mere meaningless footnote: 56 wins (37 knockouts) and 5 losses.

Everyone, it seems, has a story about meeting Muhammad Ali -- which means that he's probably personally touched more lives than almost any other living human being I can think of. I've met him twice -- once at a trade convention in New Orleans, and again at a Parkinson's benefit. He instantly commands a room, and he bears his role as living icon with powerful dignity, and with an unfailingly wry sense of humor.

Dame in the Water

Reviewing the career of champion swimmer Eleanor Holm, it strikes one that if hard-drinking, hard-partying baseball great Mickey Mantle had the stamina of Miss Holm, he might have had a longer career, and would have been, indisputably, the greatest baseball player ever. Heck, Eleanor Holm trained on "champagne and cigarettes" (to use her own words), and was one of the finest backstrokers ever, living to age 90. Too bad Mickey was such a lightweight!

Eleanor Holm was born on this day in 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of a fireman. By the time Holm was 14, she was already competing in the Olympics, finishing 5th in the 1928 100-meter backstroke. By 1932, despite taking a career detour as a Ziegfeld Follies dancer at age 16, Holm was indisputably the best backstroker in the world, setting new world records at every distance between 1929 and 1932. She won the 1932 Olympic gold medal in the 100-meters, setting a new world record in Los Angeles which bested the previous standard by almost three seconds.

Her performance in Los Angeles, combined with her trim good looks and vivacity led to her signing a $500 per week contract with Warner Brothers to appear in films. She soon quarreled with the Warners, however, since they wanted her to swim on film, which would have jeopardized her amateur status, so she quit. In 1933 she married bandleader Art Jarrett and traveled with him as the band's singer, burning the candle at both ends while remaining undefeated in numerous swim competitions and establishing new world records in the 100- and 200-meters.

On her way to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics, she partied round the clock with sportswriters aboard the S.S. Manhattan, drinking with the likes of writer Charles MacArthur, smoking and gambling. When U.S. Olympic czar Avery Brundage learned of her behavior, he banned Holm from competing in Berlin, accusing her of being drunk and disorderly. While she admitted drinking heavily, she pointed out that she won a couple of hundred dollars shooting craps, which someone who was intoxicated wouldn't be able to do. Brundage didn't find the argument very amusing (despite receiving a petition signed by more than half of the U.S. Olympic team members to let her back in), and Holm found herself in Berlin, banned for life from amateur competition, but nevertheless enjoying a white-hot celebrity glow. Goering, for one, was captivated by her, and gave her a sterling silver swastika (which she later had reset with a Star of David in the middle).

In 1937, Holm returned to Hollywood to star in Tarzan's Revenge with Olympic decathlete Glenn Morris, and after divorcing Jarrett married show business promoter Billy Rose, starring in his 1939 New York World's Fair Aquacade. She divorced Rose in 1954 (the saga was labeled the "War of the Roses" by the tabloids), and settled in Miami Beach working as an interior decorator. She entered the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1966 and was one of the first six women to be selected for induction in the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. She died on January 31, 2004 in Miami.

Run, Dorando, Run

Dorando Pietri was born on this day in 1885 in Mandrio, Italy.

Pietri was a candy-maker who took up cycle racing in 1904. The following year he switched to running and won his first Italian marathon title.

Though he did not finish in the 1906 Olympic marathon in Athens, he was a sentimental favorite as the 1908 Olympic marathon began at Windsor Castle in England. A half-mile from the Olympic Stadium at Shepard's Bush where the 26-mile race was to end, Pietri overtook South African Charles Heffron, and was the first to enter the packed Stadium. The fast pace of the race had taken its toll on Pietri, however -- he appeared dazed and began running around the Stadium track in the wrong direction. After only a few yards, he collapsed. Zealous British officials, then feuding with the American team and noting that American Johnny Hayes had also passed Heffron and would win if Pietri failed to finish, leaped to their feet, picked up Pietri and, after Pietri collapsed several more times, virtually dragged him around the Stadium track in the right direction and declared Pietri the winner. The Americans lodged a protest, resulting in Pietri's disqualification and Hayes being declared the winner.

Nevertheless, Pietri's valiant struggle at the end of a hard fought race captivated the public imagination. The following day, Queen Alexandra, who had been present at the finish, presented Pietri with a special gold cup. In the U.S., he became the latest hero in the cult of the underdog. Irving Berlin wrote a song about him, and Pietri was invited to appear on the New York vaudeville stage (on a bill featuring boxer Jack Johnson and cartoonist Rube Goldberg), where the story of the Olympic marathon was told by a professional lecturer as Pietri stood awkwardly by, not knowing a word of English.

Meanwhile, Pietri turned professional, beating Hayes twice in marathons held in New York; he even beat two opponents on horseback on his way to winning 50 of 69 professional marathons. Eventually, Pietri retired to Italy where he drove a taxi and received a pension from the government to scout for new marathon runners. He died on February 7, 1942 in San Remo, Italy.

Italy Wins, and Legends Roam Pittsburgh

On a penalty kick shoot-out, no less. Having witnessed first-hand the focus and attention of the French fans on the Champions League final in Paris in May, when there was no French honor at stake, I can only imagine what the scene must have looked like oustide those bistros on Rue St. Andre des Arts during the match. Afterwards, however, instead of triumphant football crowds marching down the Champs-Elysees, I'm sure there were more than a few mourners clutching their half-empty wine bottles and banging their heads against lamposts, moaning the name "Zinedine Zidane." Say it ain't so, Zinedine.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh kicked off its All-Star Baseball celebration yesterday with a high-scoring minor league "Futures" All-Star game, pitting American-born minor league stars vs. "foreigners"; the U.S. won, 8-5. Excellent performances were turned in by game MVP-winner Billy Butler, a leftfielder from the Wichita Wranglers in the Royals' system, who hit a two-run homer; and Curacao's Wladimir Balentien (currently playing for San Antonio in the Mariners' system), the DH for the "World" team who hit a homer and two doubles. Having been there to see it, I must confess that another player, Cameron Maybin of West Michigan (a Tigers' farm club) looks like he might be the real deal, going 2-for-3 and grabbing five shots to centerfield. Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins managed the World club in the Futures game, while Hall of Famer Gary Carter managed the U.S. club.

It was a lot of fun seeing all the old-timers milling around PNC Park on Sunday evening, even if it was a little surreal watching them play softball in the "Legends and Celebrity" game with the likes of Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, Dean Cain, Franco Harris (who can't hit a softball for beans, although he proved he could lay down a decent bunt), Rob Reiner and Danny Masterson from That 70s Show.

Ozzie Smith and Ernie Banks were as gracious as always -- it's second nature to those guys to be able to convey how grateful they are to the fans and how wonderful it was to come to such a beautiful ballpark. Other fellows we've missed seeing on the diamond for some time and who participated in Sunday night's charade included Goose Gossage, playing a surprisingly limber first base; chatty Fred Lynn; Tommy John, whose history with his namesake surgery did not prohibit him from pitching for the Americans at age 63; John Kruk; Rollie Fingers; Daves Winfield and Parker; Bill Madlock; Bill Mazeroski (pictured), who received a heart-felt standing ovation from the hometown crowd; and Andre Dawson, who looks like he could still play if he really wanted to.

If anyone is counting, the Nationals beat the Americans 7-5 on the strength of Winfield's pitching and his 300-foot homer to left; Gary Carter was named the game's MVP.

The Diving Venus

"There is nothing more democratic than swimming. Swimming, like running, is a sport that requires in its most basic mode no equipment other than one’s body." – Annette Kellerman.

Swimmer and silent film actress Annette Kellerman, known as the "Diving Venus," was born on this day in 1888 in Sydney, Australia. She apparently occupies a number of obscure but important niches in pop culture history: by legend, she was the first woman to attempt to swim the English channel; the first to perform underwater ballet, the forerunner to today's synchronized swimming; the first to brave North American shores in a one-piece swimsuit; and, as a pioneering athlete turned film star, the first celebrity to appear nude on screen.

Born with weak legs and requiring braces to walk, Kellerman began swimming at an early age as therapy. She moved with her family to England when she was 14, where her down-and-out father Frederick Kellerman promoted her swimming prowess shamelessly. After a series of local exhibitions, Mr. Kellerman announced to the press that his little Annette would swim 26 miles down the Thames from Putney to Blackwall, training on a diet of bread and milk. The teenaged Annette succeeded mightily, and thereafter earned a small fortune by performing other swimming feats, but failed twice to become the first woman to swim across the English Channel (a feat finally accomplished by Gertrude Ederle in 1926).

In 1907 she moved to the U.S., performing water ballet to packed houses at the New York Hippodrome and doing high diving stunts at Chicago's White City amusement park in the dead of winter. While visiting Boston's Revere Beach in 1907, Annette appeared before the assembled press in a tight-fitting boy's one-piece racing swimsuit -- demure by today's standards, amply covering both bottom and top, but scandalous by the standards of the day, which required a woman to wear skirts, bloomers and stockings when cavorting in the surf. The police arrested her on the spot (some would cynically say it was just another publicity stunt) and hauled her away.

Kellerman, however, was not so easily turned away: when she discovered that it was not the tightness that violated the law but the amount of flesh shown in the outdoors, Kellerman returned to Revere Beach wearing a modified version of her original one-piece, showing off her curvaceous figure (she was actually 5'-4" weighing 140 lbs; perhaps more chutzpah than cheesecake, although a gawking Harvard professor stammered that Kellerman was "the most beautifully formed woman of modern times") in her tight, scoop-necked, sleeveless black leotard and tights while still not showing more skin than the law allowed. The woman’s one-piece bathing suit was born -- or at least a standard which allowed a woman to wear tight-fitting garb. For Kellerman, it was a matter of sport, not fashion: "I can’t swim," she declared, "wearing more stuff than you can hang on a clothesline."

Her overnight celebrity caused Hollywood to take note, and Kellerman's swimsuit was shown off in a couple of quick newsreels in 1909. Kellerman made her bona fide film debut later that year, and starred in 8 features, including Neptune's Daughter (1914, directed by Herbert Brenon). Her most notorious appearance, however, was in Brenon's Daughter of the Gods (1916; produced by William Fox), by reputation a bit of overripe nonsense as cinema (it is now lost), but enormously popular on the strength of Kellerman's "startling nude scenes," including a bit of nude swimming (confirmed in surviving production stills) -- 78 years before another uninhibited Australian, Elle Macpherson, would cause barely a ripple by appearing nude for long glorious stretches of the film Sirens (1994). At any rate, Daughter of the Gods made a fortune for Fox and Brenon.

In 1918, Kellerman wrote a book, Physical Beauty and How to Keep It, in which she offered diet tips. Her film career ended in the 1920s, but Kellerman's tale was revived when Esther Williams portrayed her in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952). Kellerman died on November 5, 1975 in Southport, Australia.

Mosconi

"The point is once you get the table, you don't ever want to give it back. You can destroy a man in this game if he has to sit on the sidelines while you run 100 balls at a time." -- Willie Mosconi.

Mosconi was born on this day in 1913 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Around my grandfather's house, Willie Mosconi was something of an icon. My grandfather graduated from boxing to billiards as a youth, and when he was old enough and wealthy enough, he realized a dream when he built a detached playroom dominated by a big beautiful pool table. A copy of Mosconi's Winning Pocket Billiards was always on hand nearby.

One doesn't normally think of the 1940s and 50s as a period in which a professional sport was completely dominated by a single performer -- except maybe, in the case of rodeo and billiards. While Jim Shoulders was roping rodeo world titles like they were gimpy goats, dapper and diminutive Willie Mosconi racked up 15 world billiards championships between 1940 and 1957. With his gentlemanly, meticulous air, Mosconi also managed to cultivate a better image for billiards, lifting it out of the seedy urban tavern and making it an acceptable activity for one's grandfather's playroom. Shoulders didn't quite get that far with rodeo.

The son of a ranked bantamweight boxer, Mosconi learned his craft as a child and embarked on a hectic exhibition tour at the age of 20, facing billiards legend Ralph Greenleaf in 107 matches and remarkably winning 50 of them. In one famous 8 p.m. Times Square match, Mosconi ran 125 straight balls against Greenleaf in less than a half an hour, finishing in time to take his seat for the 8:30 p.m. opening curtain of Anne Nichols' play Abie's Irish Rose a few blocks away. While at the peak of his powers, Mosconi set a world record by running 526 balls consecutively.

Always a great promoter of family billiards, Mosconi was disgusted by the back-alley behavior of billiards player Minnesota Fats Wanderone, and finally got a chance to embarrass him in a few 1978 televised exhibition matches in which Mosconi beat Minnesota handily. Ironically, Mosconi had served as technical advisor on the 1961 film The Hustler, upon which Wanderone built his own reputation.

He died on September 16, 1993 in Haddon Heights, New Jersey.

Babe

"It may be another 50 or 75 years before such a performer as Mildred Didrikson Zaharias again enters the lists. For even if some yet unborn games queen matches her talent, versatility, skill, patience and will to practice, along with her flaming competitive spirit . . . there still remains the little matter of courage and character, and in these departments the Babe must be listed with the champions of all times." -- Paul Gallico.

Babe Didrikson Zaharias was born Mildred Ella Didrikson on this date in 1913 in Port Arthur, Texas. Widely considered to be the greatest female athlete of the first half of the 20th century, Didrikson excelled at running, throwing the javelin, high-jumping, basketball, swimming, diving, figure skating, golf, tennis -- and she even played a mean harmonica.

While still in high school, the Employers Casualty Insurance Company of Dallas hired her as a typist (85 wpm) and as a basketball player for the Company team. While men's teams typically scored 25 points per game during those days, Didrikson averaged 42 points per game by herself, leading the Company to the 1930 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) women's championship.

Then the Company started a track team -- with Didrikson as the only member -- and despite her lack of experience, Didrikson was acknowledged as the best woman track athlete in the country by 1932, her annus mirabilis. At the AAU National track meet in 1932, the one-woman Didrikson team scored 30 points to win the championship, taking first place in the 80-meter hurdles, the baseball throw, long jump, shot put and javelin; the next best team, the Illinois Women's Athletic Club, scored only 22 points.

At the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, Didrikson showed herself to be the best in the world, winning gold medals and setting world records in the 80-meter hurdles (11.7 seconds) and javelin throw (143"-4'). She would have tied for a third gold in the high jump, but settled for a silver for the fact that her head preceded her torso in the jump, an illegal technique then but commonplace today; U.S. teammate Jean Shiley took the gold.

Without a commercial outlet for her talents, Didrikson hit the vaudeville stage, telling jokes, tumbling, throwing the shot put and, yes, playing the harmonica, and picked up extra money barnstorming with the men's "House of David" baseball team. She married wrestler/sports promoter George Zaharias in 1938, and attempted to reinstate her amateur status so she could compete in women's golf and tennis tournaments.

In 1946, she was permitted to play in amateur golf competitions; and during 1946 and 1947 she won 17 consecutive golf tournaments, including the U.S. Amateur and the British Amateur (becoming the first American woman to do so). In 1948, the Lady's Professional Golf Association (LPGA) virtually formed around Didrikson's drawing power, and she won the U.S. Women's Open in 1948, 1950 and, against all odds while fighting colon cancer, in 1954. She died of cancer on September 27, 1956 in Galveston, Texas.

Heidi Bowl

Novelist and children's writer Johanna Spyri was born Johanna Louise Heusser on this day in 1829 in Hirzel, Switzerland. She died on July 7, 1901 in Zurich.

Although Heidi (1880-1, in 2 parts), is considered to be one of Switzerland's best loved pieces of literature, her appeal has lost some its luster over the years. A TV adaptation of Heidi starring Maximilian Schell became the infamous focal point of a network TV gaffe on November 17, 1968 when, with 50 seconds to go in a football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets, NBC cut away from the game to its previously scheduled broadcast of Heidi; in less than 48 seconds, the Raiders came back from a 3-point deficit, scoring 2 touchdowns to beat the Jets 43-32. While Heidi crawled across a mountainside to reach her grandfather, an NBC message crawled beneath her across the screen announcing the result of the game. Outraged fans deluged the NBC switchboard with complaints, causing the NFL to include a "whole game" clause in future TV contracts.

The "Heidi Bowl" aside, a more recent film interpretation of Heidi by Markus Imboden (2001) depicts Heidi as an alienated modern latchkey kid, sending text messages and emails back and forth to her pal Peter and his friends at a Berlin cybercafe. Future Heidis will no doubt have all the web-enabled tools necessary to determine the final score of any NFL game.

Barcelona Wins!

Spending a few days in London reminds us that football enthusiasm is a somewhat class-based activity. While the morning news programs tout the upcoming Champions League match between Arsenal of London and FC Barcelona at Stade de France in Paris, conversations with friends and business colleagues around Westminster yield vague shrugging when the topic turns to footie.

On our way to Waterloo Station yesterday, however, our driver Salim is enthusiastic, warning us that Barcelona, with its star player Ronaldinho, will win 5-nil. Now it seems like hundreds of Arsenal fans are boarding the Eurostar with us, and when we arrive at Gare du Nord, we hear boisterous Arsenal songs breaking out and see crowds of yellow-jerseyed young men buffeting about the station. Few stand in line with us for the taxis, which suggests to me that the Metro was probably a yellow blur. Our driver in Paris asks us if we're for Barcelona or Arsenal. "We're for peace," I say. "Me, too," he says. "Especially in my taxi."

That evening, as we stroll down Rue St. Andre des Arts following a rustic supper on Ile St-Louis, it begins to rain a bit, but that does little to dampen the excitement of football fans who spill out onto the street, craning for a better view of the match-in-progress on bistro TV screens.

Moments later, we are back in our 7th floor room on Boulevard Raspaill, and the rain has gotten harder. My wife is fast asleep and I'm nursing my surprise attack of Paris hay fever with a couple of shots of Cuervo. I'm watching the match on TV as Barcelona gamely scores twice during the thunderstorm to take the lead 2-1, and eventually the win.

The streets of Paris are quiet this evening on the edge of the 6th and 7th Arrondissements. No celebrating football crowds gather on the Champs-Elysees, either -- that, apparently, is only reserved for when Paris beats Marseilles.

Breaking the Four Minute Mile

"I tried to establish this now or never attitude because I knew that unless I was successful in attaining this attitude or mental stance, I would perhaps hurt my chance by letting myself fall prey to the mental reaction so common to athletes -- that is, thinking that there would always be a next time or deciding, perhaps, that this is not the day, when things become difficult and muscles begin to ache from the strain . . . I ran with complete abandon and thought it must be NOW!" -- Roger Bannister, born on this day in 1929 in Harrow, Middlesex, England.

As a student at Exeter and Merton College, Oxford University in 1947, Bannister became involved with the Oxford University Athletic Club and won the mile in the Varsity Match against Cambridge in 4:30.8. Later that year he was invited as an alternate to participate with the British track team in the 1948 Olympics, but he declined, citing his inexperience. To him, it seemed to be a natural response, but at the time his earnest decision received considerable attention in the press.

He continued to coach himself while attending medical school, and landed a spot on the 1952 team to compete in the 1500-meter race. Always well-conditioned, Bannister concentrated much of his training on mental preparedness. At the Helsinki Olympics, Bannister was a 50-50 favorite to win, but Olympic officials changed the schedule at the last minute to add a semi-final round to the two-round sequence, upsetting Bannister's carefully planned regimen. The gold medal went to Josy Barthel, and Bannister came in 4th.

It was a lesson he wouldn't forget. In the two years after the Olympics, other runners such as Gunder Hagg and Arne Andersson were approaching what Bannister called the "Everest" of racing -- breaking the 4-minute mile. He was determined to beat them there. After concentrated mental and physical training, Bannister decided, quite literally, that it was now or never.

On May 6, 1954 at a meet in Oxford's Iffley Road track, Bannister enlisted racemates Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway to pace him through the mile race, scheduled for 6:00 in the evening. At 5:15, it rained briefly, and gusty winds followed. Bannister knew these were horrible conditions for breaking the 4-minute barrier, but that he would never be more mentally-prepared for the moment. The wind died down slightly as the runners lined up at the start, and after a false start, Bannister effortlessly slipped in behind Brasher who had taken the early lead. Despite Bannister's pleas for Brasher to pick up the pace, Brasher kept his head and brought them around the first lap in 57.5 seconds. Just before the 2-1/2 lap mark, Bannister shouted "Chris!," instructing Chris Chataway to take the lead and the brutal pace from Brasher.

With 230 yards left on the final lap, Bannister went into high gear, taking the lead from Chataway and breaking the tape 45 yards ahead of him. He collapsed, almost unconscious.

Track announcer Norris McWhirter (of Guinness Book of Records fame) made the announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event number nine, the one mile. First, number forty-one, R.G. Bannister of the Amateur Athletic Association and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, with a time which is a new meeting and track record and which, subject to ratification, will be a new English native, British National, British All-Comers', European, British Empire and World's Record. The time is THREE . . ." -- and with that, the crowd drowned out the fact that Bannister had broken the 4-minute mile by 6/10 of a second.

On June 21, 1954, Australian John Landy shattered Bannister's record with a time of 3:57.9, and the world sporting press looked for a match between Landy and Bannister. On August 7, both Bannister and Landy broke the 4-minute mile in a race billed as the "Mile of the Century" at Vancouver, British Columbia, with Bannister edging out Landy, 3:58.8 to 3:59.6. Bannister retired from racing soon afterwards, became a physician, received the knighthood, and led the British "Sport for All" fitness movement.

The Postman Comes in 4th

Felix Carvajal de Soto, Olympic marathoner, was apparently born on this day in 1875 in Cuba.

Felix Carvajal's tale, quirky though it may be, is one that perfectly captures the amateur ideal of the modern Olympics, of the joy of competition for competition's sake. A 5'-tall postman from Havana, Carvajal was a local phenom as a footracer, and when he got it in his head to enter the marathon in the 1904 Olympics, he raised his money for the trip to St. Louis by staging races and socking away the winnings. He got as far as New Orleans, however, when he lost his purse in a crap game, so he had to hitchhike the rest of the way, getting to St. Louis just in time to show up on the starting line in street shoes, long pants, a long-sleeved shirt and a beret. Discus thrower Martin Sheridan took pity on the Cuban and held up the starting gun long enough to cut Carvajal's pants off at the knees.

In 90 degree heat, Carvajal bipped along the 26-mile, 385-yard course without apparent stress or strain, stopping occasionally to practice his English with bystanders, as some of the pre-race favorites collapsed and took sick. To quench his thirst, he raided an orchard for some green apples -- which turned out to be his only mistake. The apples apparently gave him stomach cramps, which caused him to lose a little ground as American Thomas Hicks suffered his way to a first place finish -- but only after being administered strychnine and brandy by his handlers, a little bit of doping not yet considered illegal.

Carvajal -- in street shoes, with stomach cramps, and in 90-degree heat -- finished fourth and disappeared into obscurity, a lone longshot competitor from a distant land who enjoyed a heroic moment in the Olympic sun.

Fred Herbert, and Fairy Dust on the Diamond

If you say you know baseball, I won't hold it against you if you've never heard of Fred Herbert.

Nevertheless, in 17 innings as a pitcher for the New York Giants in 1915, he fared pretty well:

An ERA of 1.06 in 17 innings? Well, it's not the final word on whether Fred Herbert was a good major league pitcher, but it certainly shows he had some good stuff. It would seem to be somewhat of a rare thing for a pitcher to pitch that well in the majors for two games and then disappear.

Fred Herbert was actually born Herbert Frederick Kemman in La Grange Park, Illinois on this day in 1887. Although the Kemmans were serious farmers, young Herbert and his brothers loved baseball, and even went so far as to form a semi-pro team that played its home games on a makeshift diamond out in the pasture on the Kemman farm.

Herbert went to the University of Illinois, where he lettered as a right-handed pitcher for the Illini under coach George Huff, before joining the Ottawa Senators minor league club. At the moment of his entry into professional ball, Herbert changed his name to "Fred Herbert" – perhaps, like many other serious young men of his day, he was a little sheepish about being known as a ballplayer.

He ended up in the International League with Toronto, where he pitched a no-hitter against the Baltimore club. Although he was drafted by Brooklyn – the NL club then known as the "Robins," after their hapless manager Wilbert Robinson – he ended up with John McGraw’s New York Giants in September 1915, after some amount of trouble.

At the moment when Fred Herbert was breaking in, major league baseball had briefly fractured into three leagues – the cooperating National and American Leagues, and a third, rogue league known as the Federal League. James Gilmore started the Federal League in 1913 with the idea that it would rival the National and American Leagues, enabling a fresh new band of industrialist-club owners to exploit the advertising power of baseball and to reap easy profits. While NL and AL owners were trying to hold the line against higher player salaries, the Federal League owners were waving lucrative contracts in front of major league talent, with the result that such luminaries as Three Finger Brown, Eddie Plank, Chief Bender, Joe Tinker, Hal Chase and even Walter Johnson were seduced into jumping from the other majors and joining the Federal League.

This, of course, caused a bit of a talent drain, and the New York Giants were struggling mightily in the stretch run of the 1915 season, battling with the Cubs for last place. With his pride on the line, McGraw was throwing everyone he could out there to win. It appears that McGraw first tried to obtain Herbert from Toronto in August by trading away his floundering southpaw hurler, future Hall of Famer Rube Marquard, straight-up for Herbert. Marquard refused to report to the minors, however, later signing with the Robins and having a superior 1916 season. On the second try, on September 20, McGraw signed Herbert for cash, along with Toronto catcher Bradley Kocher.

Herbert was given his first major league start just 4 days later, on September 24, against the Cardinals in St. Louis. He pitched a complete game, beating the Cards 5-3 and allowing only 6 hits – although the Giants were lucky to avoid forfeiting the game in the 5th inning, when infielder Fred Brainerd refused to leave after being thrown out by umpire "Lord" Byron for "loud talking" (i.e. disagreeing with one of Byron’s calls) until Byron threatened to award the game to the Cards. Meanwhile, Herbert had even singled and scored the final Giants run in the 4th inning. The headlines proclaimed "Giants’ Recruit Hurler Beats Cardinals."

On four days' rest, McGraw started Herbert again, this time against the Robins at the Polo Grounds. Although he pitched well for 8 innings, giving up only 2 runs on 6 hits (including an inopportune triple by Robins rightfielder Casey Stengel), Herbert's good work would not win the day. The Robins beat the Giants 2-1, and Herbert's loss unfortunately clinched last place for the Giants. McGraw and the club were rewarded with a sarcastic editorial in the New York Times about the Giants being the "reverse champions," and on the next day, Giants' owner Harry Hempstead had to cancel a game due to poor attendance.

At the end of the 1915 season, the Federal League was collapsing in a snarl of lawsuits, and NL, AL and FL owners got together and worked out a settlement that resulted in the disbanding of the Federal League. In January 1916, there was talk that McGraw was looking at keeping Herbert on board, but with Jeff Tesreau, Ferdie Schupp and the great Christy Mathewson on his roster, plus the signing of three ex-Federal Leaguers for the mammoth sum of $50,000, McGraw released Herbert to Toronto on January 31. Mathewson would unfortunately injure himself before the Spring was over, and later in the year he was dealt by McGraw to the Reds.

Herbert, however, was long gone by then. During the 1916 season, he sidled up to the unfortunately-named Beloit Fairies (which played in and out of the outlaw Midwest League), and became a star of the club's pitching staff – this time under his own name, Herb Kemman. In his debut with the club, he won both ends of a double-header.
As a Fairy, Kemman would pitch alongside another footnote hurler from the Deadball Era, George "Zip" Zabel, a former Kansas chemist who would get his name into the sports history books for two notable items – first, as a reliever with the Cubs, he set a major league record for the longest relief appearance, taking over after 2 outs in the first inning and beating Jeff Pfeffer 4-3 at the end of 18-1/3 innings of pitching; and secondly, as the referee whose questionable officiating is blamed for giving the Green Bay Packers its first-ever loss as a semi-pro gridiron squad, against (you guessed it) the Beloit Fairies football squad on November 19, 1923. After losing to the Fairies, the Packers joined the NFL.

After Kemman retired from the Fairies baseball club, he stayed on in Beloit, and managed to cut quite a swath there. In 1926, the Beloit Daily News sponsored its first-ever city bowling tournament. Herb Kemman, bowling for (yep) the Beloit Fairies bowling team, took the title, knocking down 4,599 pins to 4,423 by the nearest competitor. Kemman went on to win the Beloit Daily News tournament again in 1929, and once more in 1948 at the age of 61.

Kemman served as mayor of Beloit for a time, and was later inducted into Beloit's Sports Hall of Fame -- along with a number of other Fairies, one would assume. Presumably he retired to Florida, passing there on May 29, 1963.
So what's the deal with the "Beloit Fairies" and all that fairy dust on the diamond? It's simple, really -- Fairbanks-Morse, a Beloit engine manufacturer, was an enthusiastic supporter of local semi-pro sports teams, and "Fairies" was just short for "Fairbanks-Morse." Kemman, in fact, worked there for a number of years as a foreman while also playing on the company teams.