“Chief” Bender was the son of a German immigrant father and a Chippewa mother. He grew up on the White Earth reservation, and was sent to a church-run school in Philadelphia when he was eight years of age. After being returned to his mother, he fled the reservation at age 13 to attend the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.

He accepted his Indian identity, stoically doffing his cap to cheers for "The Chief," but signed autographs "Charley Bender." In fact, his Native American status made him an intriguing baseball player in his day, especially among young boys who, in the 1910s, were still playing “Cowboys and Indians” with relish. Considering the racial prejudice of the time, it is remarkable that Bender was voted into the Hall of Fame.

Bender is often compared to Lou Sockalexsis, another Native American (from Maine), a Penobscot, whose alcohol addiction led to his death in 1913. Compared to Sockalexsis, Bender was considered a model player. Bender’s career ended with the Phillies in 1917, but he later managed in the minors and coached in the majors. He reportedly had a solid family life in Philadelphia, based on values adopted while living on a Quaker farm during his school- boy summers.

Bender was known for his clutch performances, and owns a 6-4 postseason record, twice facing the renowned Christy Mathewson, and beating him once. His mental toughness gave him the edge against opposing batters. It is thought that he may have been the first pitcher to develop a ‘slider’. He also earned a reputation as an expert stealer of opponents’ signs from the coaching box.

The following excerpt from Tom Swift’s fine book, Bender’s Burden, gives us an insider’s look at the racial struggles of one of the truly unique American baseball players:

They called him Chief. Of course. Nearly every man of Native descent who stepped onto a ball field during the first half of the century was called Chief. The moniker, some have likened it to calling a black man “boy,” was a tidy way for whites to place a race of people under their thumb. As scholar Jeffrey Powers-Beck said, the tag was a means to “appropriate” Bender in the “manner of the cigar-store Indian or the Wild West how Indian.” Historian John P. Rossi called the epithet “a perfect reflection of the naïveté and racism of the age.” Bender resented the constant bigotry. “I do not want my name to be presented to the public as an Indian, but as a pitcher,” he said almost a decade before. The newspapermen didn’t listen.

There was scarcely a time when Bender was written about when his race was not prominently mentioned. Bender didn’t win games. He scalped opponents. Bender wasn’t a talented pitcher with an impressive repertoire. He pitched in his best Indian way. Bender wasn’t a player with guile. He was Mack’s wily redskin. The prejudiced descriptions were almost unyielding. Consider a lead sentence following Bender’s effort in Game 4 of the 1911 World Series: “Charles Albert Bender, a child of the forest, pitched the Athletics to victory …” After Bender’s sterling performance in the 1905 World Series, Sporting Life writer Charles Zuber said that “Bender, according to reports, is a typical representative of his race, being just sufficiently below the white man’s standard to be coddled into doing anything that his manager might suggest, and to the proper exercise of this influence on the part of manager Connie Mack much of the Indian’s success as a twirler is due. Like the Negro on the stage, who … will work himself to death if you jolly him, the Indian can be ‘conned’ into taking up any sort of burden.”

Bender was often portrayed as a caricature and was the subject of myriad cartoons–many exhibits of narrow-mindedness. After he threw one of the most dominating games of the early years of the American League, Bender was depicted wielding a tomahawk and wearing a headdress as though he was a happy warrior. Other examples made him appear as a predator. During his rookie season, as the Athletics were traveling by train en route to St. Louis, Bender’s wallet was apparently stolen. The wallet contained one hundred dollars, no chunk of change for a nineteen-year-old in 1903. Although he was the victim, newspaper cartoonist Charles Nelan portrayed Bender, then a somber young Ojibwe man trying to fit in, as a redskin on the warpath. With white passengers looking on in horror, as though Bender might soon take their heads, he was depicted on all fours–looking for his “wampum belt” in an incident writer Charles Dryden said “entailed no end of trouble” as “all hands were routed from sweet dreams”–with facial features so distorted he looked something less than human. Never mind that Bender likely had more education than the average person who held the very newspaper in which such coverage appeared.

The incident was indicative. The press assumed Indians were stony and oblivious. The press thought the taunts and slurs had no effect on Bender. The press was wrong. Baseball players of the time represented an ethnic mishmash, but the game was as racist as the public that supported it. African Americans, of course, were banned.

American Indians were allowed on the field, but they were expected to withstand racially charged ridicule as part of day’s work. Bench jockeying was as much a part of the era as the sacrifice bunt, and the banter was not sanitized for political correctness. Back to the reservation! Grab heap much wampum! Nig! Often when Bender pitched, baseball fans wore out their lungs with renditions of Indian battle cries and war whoops. He often looked at such displays with a still face. Sometimes, as the mockery continued, he grinned. Or, after a particularly effective inning, he would make a half-circle coming out of the box and yell, “Foreigners! Foreigners!” But some incidents could not be finessed with wit. In 1907 the Athletics were playing in Washington, and the swarthy Bender walked into a café run by an intolerant owner. Dressed well, he quietly asked for a beverage. The proprietor, standing near, remarked softly, “Screw, dig–you ought to know better.”

Bender looked surprised. “I ordered a seltzer lemonade.” “Get out now. Go quietly. You’re not allowed.” Bender was confused. He repeated his order. “If you insist on trouble, all right.” The proprietor gave a signal. Two waiters rushed over and then a bartender joined them. By the time the owner was done ranting several others had crowded around. Five minutes later Bender was tossed onto Pennsylvania Avenue, his clothes messed up. He brushed himself and walked away.

Many other whites saw Indians as exotic novelties, and Bender was their noble savage. It became en vogue to nickname teams the Braves or Indians. The club Bender was about to face was one example. As Powers-Beck pointed out, teams all over the country began calling themselves Indians and recruiting American Indian players as gate attractions. In describing such teams’ fortunes the press had easy, colorful verbs, and readers gobbled them by the spoonful.

Children who loved to “play Indian” often approached Bender when he was in public and greeted him mimicking “war whoops and rain dances.” Bender didn’t become angry with them, but supposedly he always signed his name on their baseballs and bats as Charles or Charley. Over time he acknowledged the nickname was indelibly linked to his baseball fame. He was called Chief so often–and so often with affection–that he allowed the name to be etched into his tombstone. Marie, his wife, too, identified herself as “Mrs. Chief Bender.” But whether on the field doing his job … in his home reading a newspaper … on his way to the market … at nearly every point at which Charles Bender engaged the world he was viewed through a lens filtered by prejudice.