Charles Bender Marquee Hall of Fame 1953

He grew up on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, Ojibwe, and was sent east to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Philadelphia had him in the majors two weeks before his nineteenth birthday, in April 1903, and he won 17 games. He gave the Athletics twelve straight seasons and won at least 15 games in nine of them.

Crowds met him with war whoops and the newspapers called him Chief, a name hung on nearly every Native player. He disliked it and signed himself Charley, and he answered hecklers by calling them foreigners. He pitched through all of it: 23-5 in 1910, a no-hitter against Cleveland that May, 17-3 in 1914.

The Federal League took him in 1915 and he went 4-16, by far his worst year. Two seasons with the Phillies followed, and a final appearance for the White Sox in 1925 at forty-one. He twice led the American League in what are now saves, and completed 255 of his starts. The Hall of Fame elected him in 1953; he died the following spring.