Charley Bender and Other Wednesday Morning Highlights

by Scott Hall

Regular listeners know that Charles Bender is one of my favorite characters in baseball history. He was born in Crow Wing County, spent his early years on the White Earth Reservation, and went on to be a star pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics from 1903 to 1914. In 1953, Bender became the first Native American in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Now MN author, Tom Swift, has a new biography of Bender. Swift is on the Morning Show Wednesday. His book, "Chief Benden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star", is about how Bender quietly survived - sometimes thrived and often struggled - in the non-Indian world of boarding schools and professional baseball, and endured the hardships of poverty and the grinding racism of his day.

Not since Larwrence Ritter's 1966 book, "The Glory of Their Times", has there been a better book about baseball at the turn of the century (the 20th century that is).

Also, Wednesday is Cow Appreciation Day. We'll appreciate cows on the local food beat tomorrow. Maggie talks to James Frenzel. He raises grass-fed Red-Angus beef cows on his 400 acre Golden Willow Farm near Kelliher...

And Don Boese with another installment of The Mighty Five. Don tell s the story and plays the music of the five 19th century Russian composers that created the foundation of Russian Classical music. Tomorrow it's Alexander Borodin (right), part 2...