A BIke Thief Who Changed The World? Or: How A Stolen Schwinn Gave Birth To "The Greatest".

Sixty dollars was a rather princely sum--especially for a 12-year old boy's bicycle--sixty-two years ago.

But even if not for its price tag, its disappearance would leave its owner devastated.  Especially given that the boy had just gotten the brand-new Schwinn as an early Christmas gift, and it was in his favorite color--red.

Said boy went, with his buddy, into Columbia Auditorium in Louisville, KY---according to some accounts, for the free popcorn inside.  When they returned, they had two more cartons of popcorn, but two fewer bikes, between them.

Enraged, the boy reported the crime to a policeman, one Sergeant Joe Martin.  In recounting his loss, the boy vowed to "whup" the perp.

Sergeant Martin's life experience and wisdom came into play.  He advised the boy bereft of bike to learn how to fight before confronting a bicycle thief.

Sergeant Martin was something of a Renaissance man.  While off-duty, he was, among other things, a boxing trainer.

By now, you may have figured out where this story is going.  The 12-year-old boy was known as Cassius Clay.

Yes, that Cassius Clay.  The one who would, a half-dozen years later, win the gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics.  And, three and a half years later, a heavily-favored named Sonny Liston--who looked like someone you wouldn't even want to meet in a seminary, let alone in a dark alley-- would not answer the bell after the seventh round. The handsome, brash Clay thus became the second- youngest heavyweight champion in history:  a distinction he would hold for more than two decades, until Mike Tyson defeated  Trevor Berbick.

Shortly after defeating Liston, Clay converted to Islam under the tutelage of Malcolm X.  He would follow his mentor in renouncing his "slave name" and become Cassius X,  and, not long after, adopt the name by which we mourn him today:  Muhammad Ali.

Malcolm X photographs Muhammad Ali from behind a soda fountain counter in Miami shortly after Ali (then Cassius Clay) defeated Sonny Liston for the World Heavyweight Title.

What I know about boxing can fill this sentence. All right, I take that back:  I grew up hearing a lot about it, and even watching fights--which, in those days, were on regular network TV, in prime time no less.  You see, my grandfather loved boxing.  And his brother-in-law--my great-uncle, on my father's side--was a prizefighter in his youth. I was told he was an early Gold Gloves champion as a bantamweight or welterweight (he was indeed diminutive), although I have not been able to verify this.

Both my grandfather and my great-uncle acknowledged Ali's greatness as a fighter, though both continued to refer to him as Cassius Clay.  My grandfather did so for the reasons you might expect of a white man of his place and time, but my great-uncle actually knew Clay, somewhat, before he became Ali.  He always said Clay/Ali was indeed "the greatest"--of this generation, he added--but nobody was, or would be a better heavyweight fighter than Joe Louis.   (And, he once said, nobody was a better man than Jackie Robinson.)

Whatever.  Ali was certainly the greatest fighter I ever saw, for what that's worth.  But more to the point, if I had children, I would tell them to look to him as one of their role models. (Kids should not have only one role model.)  He stood for what he believed in, even when it cost him--in his case, nearly four years in the prime of his career. Imagine what that career would have been like had he not been banned from fighting during those years because he refused to fight in the Vietnam War!

And, let's face it, the man had a personality that transcended everything he did, whether as an athlete or a human-rights activist.  He was often accused of "showboating".  I don't think that's fair or true.  Rather, I think he was born to be in the spotlight, and he couldn't have done anything to change it.  Some years ago, I recall a photographer or news producer--I forget which, and I forget whom--saying something to the effect that it was impossible to take a bad picture of Ali.  

It wasn't just his looks, though few young men were ever looked better. Even the word "charismatic" almost trivalizes the qualities he had.  Whatever word or words do him justice, he was born to be a beacon or a lightning rod.  And he was both.  If that's not a full life--one that ended just after midnight this morning--I don't now what is.

As for whoever stole 12-year-old Clay/Ali's bike all of those years ago:  He or she might well be the only bike thief (or one of the few bike thieves) who changed the world for the better.  

Wow!  I never thought I'd say anything like that.  

R.I.P. Muhammad Ali

Susan B.Anthony, Muhammad Ali And Flight:370

 Today is International Women’s Day.

Whatever your gender identity or your anatomical configuration, if you are a cyclist, you should recognize the importance of women in cycling and, well, the world.  For one thing, we are the majority of humanity.  For another, there have been many great female cyclists, most of whom have ridden without recognition and support. A few, including Beryl Burton, have even beaten men’s records.

But perhaps the most important reason of all is that anyone who cares about gender equality needs to recognize the role the bicycle has played in the long journey toward that goal. After all, Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle did more to liberate women than anything else. (That is why oppressive regimes like the Taliban forbid or discourage women and girls from riding them.) Bikes provided, and continue to provide, independent mobility. They also released women from the constraints of corsets and hoop skirts which, I believe, helped to relax dress standards—and thus make cycling easier—for everyone.

Today also happens to be the anniversary of two events that occurred during my lifetime.  One is one the greatest aviation mysteries of all time:  the disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 ten years ago. Such an incident would have caused consternation in any time, but have become much rarer over time.

While that tragedy may not seem to have much in common with bicycles or bicycling, the other event is somewhat more related.  On this date in 1971,”the fight of the century” took place between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. Joe won that bout, but Ali would win two rematches.

To this day, I can’t recall another sporting event-and very few events of any kind-that were preceded by as much anticipation and hype. I’m no boxing expert, but I doubt that there has ever been a title match between two opponents so equally matched in talent and skill but so different in style. Also, Ali had been stripped of his titles—and his boxing licenses—for three years because of his refusal to register for the military draft that could have forced him to serve in the Vietnam War.

So why is “The Fight” worthy of mention on this blog?  Well, as I mentioned in a previous post, a boy named Cassius Clay might never have grown up to become Muhammad Ali, “The Greatest,” had his bicycle not been stolen. In recounting his loss to á police sergeant, he vowed to “whup” the thief.  The sergeant, who just happened to train boxers on the side, admonished young Clay that he should learn how to fight first.

So..did you ever expect to see Susan B. Anthony and Muhammad Ali mentioned in the same post—much less one that includes Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

King James' Promise To Kids In His Hometown

Just after he died, I wrote about the role Muhammad Ali's bicycle played in his life. More precisely, losing his bike launched him on his path to becoming "The Greatest".  When he went to the police station to report his bicycle stolen, he exclaimed that he would "whup" the thief.  The sergeant who took his report, who just happened to be a boxing trainer on the side, suggested that the young Ali--then known as Cassius Clay--should learn how to fight before taking on bicycle thieves.

Fortunately for LeBron James, he didn't have to lose his bicycle to become "The Greatest", as he has been proclaimed, in his sport.  In fact, his bicycle got him to safe places after school in a tough Akron, Ohio neighborhood.  Among those safe places were community centers--and, yes, basketball courts.  The exercise he got along the way certainly helped keep him in condition to play basketball.

Although he continues to cycle, by choice, in those days he rode because his poor family didn't have a car.  He recognizes that some kids today are in situations similar to the one in which he grew up.

That is why he teamed up with the school board in his hometown to start the I Promise School for at-risk kids, whether their struggles are at home, in school or elsewhere.  The school offers a variety of services to meet the students' needs.  It also gives each kid a bike and helmet, as well as instruction in bike safety.  In addition, I Promise School has made arrangements with two local bike shops for repairs and maintenance.

Maybe one of those kids will grow up to be "The Greatest"--whether in a sport, or in some other  endeavor.

It Didn't Stop Them. It Won't Stop Him.

In the 1980s, two celebrities--Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox--used their own struggles with Parkinson's Disease to raise awareness of the affliction.  Moreover, they helped people to realize that Parkinson's wasn't an "old people's disease"--Ali's diagnosis came in his early 40s and Fox's before he turned 30--and that people can live more or less normal lives after a diagnosis and treatment. 

Somehow I don't think Brue Closser's life is more or less normal--or less of anything.  

The 78-year-old resident of Marquette County, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, has been cycling since the 1970s.  There has been one ride on his "bucket list," he says, and it will commence on 5 May.  On that day, he plans to get on his bike in Yorktown, Virginia and pedal to Astoria, Oregon--in other words, across the United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.

I give "props" to anyone who undertakes such a ride. But the journey Closser has planned is especially notable for two other reasons.  One is that he is riding from east to west:  the opposite direction from that taken by most transcontinental cyclists.  The reason for that is that while there are local and daily variations, the prevailing wind is from west to east.  (That's why a flight from New York to Paris is about an hour shorter than one in the other direction.)  But, perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of his trip will be that when he completes it, he will be, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest cyclist to complete such a trip.

But the record isn't the reason he's taking the trip, he says.  "I learned a long time ago, don't put off your dreams, because I think I can do it this year, but who knows what next year will bring."  

Whatever it brings, I doubt Parkinson's Disease will stop him.

Black Cyclone Coming

There are a number of athletes I admire for their accomplishments in their sports.  But there is a much smaller number whom I respect equally, or even more, as human beings.  They include Jackie Robinson, Billie Jean King, Muhammad Ali, Colin Kaerpernick, Simone Biles--and Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor.

Some day, I'm sure, a documentary or biopic will be made about Ms. Biles.  Films have already been made from the triumphs and struggles of Robinson and Ali.  Five years ago, "Battle of the Sexes" focused on King's 1973 match--which she won--against Bobby Riggs.  While it was a good film, I think it also helped to reinforce the tendency to think of Ms. King only in terms of that, and not on, not only of the way she dominated her game as Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams would later on, but also of her advocacy for women and LGBTQ folks. 

But, to my knowledge, Major Taylor hasn't received cinematic canonization.  One reason for that may be that there isn't anybody alive who saw him ride or can even remember how he dominated bike racing to the same degree as the other athletes I've mentioned towered over their sports.  Thus, most people who aren't familiar with the history of cycling or African Americans don't realize that he was the first African American champion of any sport half a century before Robinson set foot on a Major League baseball field.

Clement Virgo (l) and "Major" Taylor

It seems that situation is about to change.  Canadian director Clement Virgo, who also helmed feature films "Rude" and "Lie With Me" as well as the six-part miniseries "The Book of Negroes," has been tapped to direct "Black Cyclone."  The title comes from one of the more flattering nicknames given to Taylor. (As a black man in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, he also was called names that I, someone who isn't exactly profanity-adverse, won't repeat.)  John Howard, a three-time Olympic and four-time U.S. Road Champion cyclist (who also set a land speed record that stood for a decade) will serve as a consultant on the project.

Production is set to begin next year.   

What I Thought About When I Didn't Have The Energy To Do Anything But Ride

While out for a ride, I stopped in a deli in Rockaway Beach.  A woman who, I would guess, has lived in the neighborhood for most, if not all, of her life chatted with the man behind the counter.  

"I don't understand how one person could go into a nightclub and just start shooting," the man said.

"I don't know what this world is coming to," the woman intoned.

"He's from Afghanistan, so right away they assume it's terrorism.  He said he hates gay people!", the man exclaimed.

The woman made the sign of the cross.  "They are God's children.  Didn't he understand that?"

It was one of those conversations I was tempted to jump into, but didn't.  I really couldn't have said anything that could have elucidated or even contradicted anything they were saying.  But I also had a perhaps-less-noble reason:  I was on a bike ride and that was all I wanted to do, besides buy a bottle of water and a bag of nuts in the deli.

I was riding, not only because it was a gorgeous day, but also because, after hearing the news about the shootings in an Orlando night club, I didn't have the energy to do anything else.  Perhaps that seems counterintuitive, but it was how I felt.  I didn't have whatever I needed to talk to anybody or to even locate, let alone process, my feelings about that tragedy--or the cyclists who were run down in Michigan or Muhammad Ali's last years, or about a few things in my own life.  The only energy that remained in me was the kind that propels me to ride.  Although it is mainly physical, it is not entirely so.

While continuing on my ride, I thought about those two people.  The man--whom I guessed to be younger than me, but not much, and from somewhere in Central or South America--seemed, in what he said, trying to cling on to some certainty because another he'd held was no longer valid or tenable.  The woman, who is probably a decade or older than I am and, from her looks, of Irish or some other northern European ancestry, seemed shocked because she thought she'd seen it all, but now she realizes there's something even more unfathomable.

When I stopped at Jacob Riis Park and stared into the ocean, I realized that they had both misunderstood something that I, until that moment, also misconstrued.  It's not a matter of what the world is coming to, as that woman lamented.  It's what people are doing in the face of such uncertainty.  Which relates to something the man said:  The shooter, Omar Mateen, may well have hated gay people and, as some authorities have said, been "self-radicalized".  But there are many young men like him who don't like gays or some other group of people or another whom they perceive as a threat or simply different, and who adopt extreme ideologies--whether political, religious or otherwise--because their experiences lead them to believe that what they have been taught are lies, or simply didn't prepare them for life.  Perhaps he sees the dream his parents had when they emigrated to this country as an illusion, or worse.  

Now, what I am saying about Mr. Mateen's mental processes is, of course, speculation, as I have never spoken with him and he is dead now.  But I have heard others in situations like his express similar feelings and, in my youth, I had times when I felt that nothing I'd ever learned, nothing I'd ever heard, could help me to achieve any sort of satisfying personal or professional life--or that those things were even possible.  Lots of young people have such thoughts and feelings.  Some find outlets for them; others turn their anger and anxiety on themselves.  At various times in my life, I did both.  But something--we'll probably never know exactly what--causes pepole like Mr. Mateen to tip into destruction of others, and themselves.

What's terribly ironic is that, in a way, he took out his frustration in exactly the way Donald Trump and his supporters are: by blaming people who are different from themselves, people they probably never meet in their everyday lives:  people they cannot understand.  They can only see such people as threats.  The difference, of course, is that Trump has the money and other resources to spark the resentments of those who feel that the world has passed them by and that those aliens, those icky gay men, are "taking over."  All Omar Mateen had was a gun.

His ex-wife has been talking.  He beat her, she says.  That makes perfect sense.  I have been in an abusive relationship, so I know that abusers abuse because they feel threatened--or they simply need for someone else to subordinate him or her self.  He was 29 years old and, I would guess, saw the future as a tunnel without light at the end of it.  He wanted to be a cop, but had been working as a security guard for nearly a decade.  That must have been frustrating, to say the least.

(I must add, too, that he was in Florida.  Law enforcement officials here in New York say that the majority of illegal guns on our streets are purchased in the Sunshine State and brought back along I-95.  It makes sense that in Florida, one can buy a gun in a Wal-Mart as easily as one can buy a fishing reel.)

Anyway...whatever his motivations, the world is moving on.  It will still be here, even if all of the nuclear weapons in the world are detonated and all of the ice caps melt.  But the question is whether or not it will be a planet humans, or other life forms as we know them, can inhabit.

I thought about that question as I was detoured away from the path I was riding on the Brooklyn side of Gateway National Park.

Look at the right side.  Then look at the left.  Then show this to someone who doesn't believe climate change has anything to do with burning stuff.

There'd been a brush fire along the shore of Jamaica Bay.  Flatbush Avenue, which the trail parallels, was closed to vehicular traffic.  We, cyclists, were diverted across the avenue onto the Greenway that skirts the South Shore of Brooklyn to the Canarsie Pier.  

Then I rode back home--into the wind, all the way, on Tosca, my fixed gear.  She was lively, but after a while, I wasn't.  But she got me home.   There were more reports of the massacre on the radio.  No news, except that a hospital spokesperson admitted that some of the 53 wounded would join the 50 who died in the Pulse nightclub.  

Happy Ramadan, Passover, Good Friday—And Jackie Robinson Day

 Today I am invoking the Howard Cosell Rule. Today’s post, therefore, will not relate to my rides or bikes, and may not be connected to much else in the cycling world.  But what I’m about to mention is just too important to ignore. 

The athlete I’m about to mention has something in common with Simone Biles, Colin Kaepernick, Billie Jean King, Muhammad Ali and “Major Taylor.  Like them, he was a pioneer, not only in his sport, but in the struggle to be recognized and understood as full-fledged human beings.  In other words, they (have) had as much impact away from the field, court or track as they had on it.

On this date 75 years ago, a second baseman took his position at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field.  At 28 years old, he was older than most rookies. But that wasn’t because he was a “late bloomer.” Rather, his debut in Major League Baseball was delayed by his World War II military service, where he experienced the very thing that kept him from playing for the Dodgers earlier than he did.

When he was drafted into the Army, he applied for Officers’ Candidate School, for which he was qualified.  His application was delayed for several months.  When he was finally accepted, he led soldiers who, like him, were racially segregated from other soldiers as they fought for the freedom of people in faraway countries.

What this man had in common with the other athletes I mentioned, with the exception of Billie Jean King, is that he was Black.  So, upon returning to the United States, he played a year for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues and another for the Montréal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top minor-league team.

When Jackie Robinson took to the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on 15 April 1947, he was the first known Black major-league player* since Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884.  Robinson’s debut also came half a century after “Major” Taylor, the record-setting cyclist, became the first Black world champion in any sport. 

Consider this:  When Robinson played his first game as a Dodger, the United States armed forces had yet to integrate.  Yes, you read that right:  Black soldiers could still be sent to fight for freedoms they couldn’t enjoy themselves.  And, a year later, Strom Thurmond would run for President on a platform of “Segregation Forever!”

All right, this post does relate to cycling in at least one way:  In spite of his accomplishments on and off the field, Jackie Robinson, like Taylor before him, had to endure insults, indignities and even death threats. And, in a sort of parallel, Robinson had to go to other leagues, as Taylor had to go to other countries , for professional opportunities commensurate with their talents and work ethic.

So, if Jackie Robinson doesn’t deserve a mention on this or any other forum, I don’t know who does.

*—For all of the respect I have for Jackie Robinson, I am willing to entertain the notion that he wasn’t the first Black major league player since Walker.  It’s entirely possible that some Black player who “passed” as White—including, it’s been rumored, Babe Ruth—could have played in the major leagues.  

2016: It Never Ends

Now it is time to say "goodbye" to 2016.

A lot of people I know are glad to see this year end.  One reason is, of course, the Presidential election here in the US.   The day after the election, at the college in which I teach, a mournful, even funereal haze seemed to envelop the hallways and the surrounding neighborhood--which happens to be part of the poorest (of 435) Congressional District in the United States.  The atmosphere brought to mind the accounts I've read of the 1952 "Killer Fog" in London:  Students and faculty members, as well as people I saw shuffling along the Grand Concourse and 149th Street, seemed to have had the energy even to gasp for air sucked out of them.

But even Trump supporters (yes, I know a few of those!) seem happy to see this year end.  For one thing there were the deaths of great and merely famous people.  I haven't made a count, it does seem that more have left us during the past twelve months than in other years I can recall. Some, as sad as they were, weren't so surprising:  I'm thinking, for example of Elie Wiesel, who was an old (if still vibrant) man and Muhammad Ali, who had been deteriorating for decades.  But others, like Prince, George Michael and Carrie Fisher, took most of us by surprise.  Then there were the no-less-tragic deaths of people of whom we never would have heard save for the ways they died.  I am thinking, in particular, of Melissa Ann Fevig-Hughes, Suzanne Joan Sippel, Debra Bradley, Tony Nelson and Larry Paulik, all out for a late-day ride in Michigan when they were mowed down by an SUV driver who was charged with murder.

Also, even though many voted for Trump based on empty slogans and other rhetoric, misperceptions about what (if anything!) he actually represents or simply plain, flat-out lies they believed, they (at least the ones I know) are no less angry or disillusioned than they were before the election.  What I find interesting, and almost amusing, is that they sometimes talk about the "liberal" media lying to them about crime, immigration and other issues--and tell me (and probably others) that the "liberal" media disseminated lies and misinformation that, in fact, came from the lips of Trump or his troupe during the campaign.

Anyway, the election has come and gone.  So have some celebrated people.  But there was still much for which I am grateful and happy.  My work life has gone well.  I have been writing (apart from this blog!) and my students and I are moving forward (I believe) in my "day job".  As for my love life...Well, let's say I've had a semblance of it, without really trying.  I don't think I've met (or will meet) someone with whom I will spend the rest of my life.  But then again, I haven't been looking for anyone like that.

This year, though, has brought me reunions with a couple of old friends and the beginning of a reconciliation with an estranged relative.  And it--like the past couple of years--has brought me into contact with people, mainly through this blog, in other parts of the world.  Perhaps we will meet some day.

If we do, it might be on a bike ride.  Cycling, of course, has been one of the constants in my life for decades.  This year was no exception.  I did some rides I've done dozens, or even hundreds, of times before, and saw, heard, felt and thought what I couldn't have--or couldn't have even conceived--when I first started riding. I also did a couple of new rides I hope to do again and, of course, took a trip to Paris, where I spent many happy hours pedaling through valleys flanged by gray and beige stone building facades, and along pathways that cut through parks and line the canals.

Riding has been, this year and in others, not merely a means of escape or even transportation, although it has served those purposes.  It has, I now realize, taken on another interesting role in my life.  When I first became a dedicated cyclist, as a teenager in the 1970s, it was a kind of rebellion:  Other kids abandoned their Schwinn Varsities and Continentals, Raleigh Records and Grind Prixes and Peugeot U08s the moment they got their drivers' licences.  I continued to ride.  Then, in college, a lot of my fellow students rode their bikes to class or for errands, but not for any other purpose.  So, even though I wasn't consciously rebelling, I was seen as if I were--or, at least, as some sort of misfit (which I was, though in other ways).  

After college came a series of jobs and moves (including one to Paris).  I continued to ride, and the wind and vistas--whether of wide boulevards or narrow alleys, or of industrial soot turning to suburban sprawl and, finally, to orchards and fields of horses--or of seeing the ocean spreading itself before me after a couple of hours of pedaling--have all imprinted themselves on my consciousness.  In fact, I feel as if they are part of my body, intermingled with every ion and neuron in me.

In brief, my cycling started off as a kind of rebellion--conscious or not--but has become the very thing that has kept me from feeling alienated from the world around me and, most important, myself.  If I've learned nothing else this year, I feel that lesson--along with my riding, blogging, writing and experiences with people--have made this year worthwhile, even rewarding, amidst all of the pain and confusion in the world around me.

Like A Champion

 (Snark alert)

Why is road bike racing not more popular?

I don't blame Lance Armstrong being stripped of his titles or the sport's other doping scandals. I blame Miguel Indurain.

As much as I respect him as a cyclist, he had to be one of the least charismatic athletic champions of my lifetime.  When he won a stage or a race, it was just another good day at the office, and he went home to rest up--so he could win again.  He didn't celebrate, boast or even "talk up" his achievements.  In other words, he was the antithesis of, say, Muhammad Ali or Reggie Jackson or Brandi Chastain.

When he was on the podium, Miguel Indurain--who turned 58 yesterday-- should have been more like this guy:

The World's Fastest Man: A Century Before Usain Bolt

I haven't owned a television in about six years.  I do, however, listen to a fair amount of radio, mainly the local public and independent stations.

One program to which I listen pretty regularly is "Fresh Air," which is something like a radio version of 60 Minutes dedicated to the arts or contemporary issues.  A couple of nights ago, "Fresh Air" featured Dave Davies (no, not the Kinks' guitarist) interviewing journalist Michael Kranish, whose latest book just came out.

The World's Fastest Man:  The Extraordinary Life of Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero documents, not only Major Taylor's athletic exploits, but his contributions to the cause of civil rights.  He was, arguably, as dominant in cycling of his era as Eddy Mercx or Bernard Hinault were in theirs, and towered over his sport the way Michael Jordan, Martina Navratilova and Wayne Gretzky did in their primes.  But, perhaps even more important, he was as unflinching in the face of discrimination as Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali were more than half a century later.



I haven't yet read the book, but I plan to. One reason is that, from what I gather in the interview, Kranish's book shows how bicycle racing was the most popular sport in America and much of Europe and Australia during Taylor's time.  Also, he seems to cover in greater detail the discrimination he faced, not only from restaurants and hotels that refused him service, but also from other racers who sometimes even tried to injure him before or during races.  Finally, during the interview, Kranish mentions business ventured that failed--including one from which a white competitor stole his idea after no bank would finance him.

You can listen to the interview here:

Marianne Martin Finally Gets Her Due--Somewhat

 It's one thing to call a baseball player "the Black Babe Ruth."  One player wore that moniker.  But some called "the Bambino" "the White* Josh Gibson."

Gibson died at age 35, three months before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier.*  Yet he wasn't enshrined in the sport's Hall of Fame until a quarter-century after his passing.

Five years ago,  Rogatien Vachon was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame--more than three decades after he played his last game in the National Hockey League.  When he retired, he was among the sport's top five or ten in several categories for his position.  He spent the bulk of his career with the Los Angeles Kings, where he became the franchise's first superstar. But, as great as he was, he was overshadowed by other goalies like Ken Dryden, who played for the dynastic Montreal Canadiens teams, and Ed Giacomin, who spent his career with the New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings.

So why am I mentioning them on this blog?

Well, a parallel just played out in the world of cycling.  On 6 November, Marianne Martin will accept her induction to the US Bicycling Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs.  She actually was inducted last year but, due to the pandemic, her ceremony was postponed.  

Her enshrinement comes three decades after she retired from competition and nearly four after her most notable achievement on two wheels.  That her induction was so late in coming is also a sad commentary on the state of competitive cycling.

Marianne Martin and Laurent Fignon, winners of the women's and men's Tour de France, 1984

In 1984, she won the inaugural edition of the women's Tour de France.  The race, 18 days long, ran in tandem with  (though on shorter courses than, with the same climbs and peaks as) the men's version.  Six editions of the women's Tour were held, the last coming in 1989, the year Greg LeMond came back from a near-fatal hunting accident to win the men's Tour for the second time.

LeMond got his induction, well-deserved as it was, five years after his last race.  Martin's honor took a quarter-century longer to come her way.  Still, she doesn't express anger or resentment. "Half my friends don't even know that I was a cyclist.  It's not something I carry out in front of me," says Martin, who is a photographer.  While she says that cycling was something she did, not who she was, it's hard not to compare her post-cycling life and reputation with that of LeMond who, in turn, is less famous than the disgraced Lance Armstrong.

*--The only athletes I respect as much as human beings as I respect Jackie Robinson are Billie Jean King, Muhammad Ali, Colin Kaepernick and Simon Biles. That said, I will not refute (or confirm) the rumors that Jackie wasn't the first Black Major League Baseball player, as others--including Babe himself--were rumored to be Black.  Also, it wouldn't surprise me if some light-skinned Black players moved north (where all of the MLB teams were, and Jim Crow laws weren't) and passed themselves off as white.  

The Ezzard Charles of the Cycling World

Although I watched it only in bits and pieces, and on television screens more than 5000 km from the action, something about this year's Tour de France made me woozy with deja vu, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Breakfast of Champions.

In watching a few clips, again, I realized that it was the weather:  Almost every stage seemed overcast or rainy.  And they looked cold for summer.  From what I'm hearing, they were.


Such were the conditions of the 1980 Tour.  In fact, much of Europe seemed not to have a summer that year.  I know:  I was there.  That was when I did my first bike tour outside the US.  And it was the first time I saw the final stage of the Tour, along the Champs-Elysees.

That allowed me to witness the greatest performance of the cycling world's Ezzard Charles. 

Ezzard Charles is probably the greatest boxer you've never heard of.  I heard of him from a great-uncle of mine who was a prizefighter; I would later learn that no less than Muhammad Ali and Rocky Marciano considered him among the greatest boxers of all-time, and that The Ring magazine rated him among the top fifteen.

His counterpart in cycling, whose victory I witnessed in 1980, was none other than Joop Zoetemelk. 

 

If you've never heard of, or forgotten, him, I wouldn't be surprised.  Any time I've mentioned him, even to those who know a thing or two about the history of cycling and are, shall we say, of a certain age, I was met with furrowed brows.

His palmares includes, in addition to the 1980 Tour win, six second-place finishes in the great race.  He also won the Vuelta a Espana in 1979 and numerous one-day races.   

His almost preternaturally fair skin led to the joke that he never tanned because he was always riding in the shadow  of Eddy Mercx and, later, Bernard Hinault.  In fact, his detractors claimed that he won the 1980 Tour only because Hinault had to withdraw--while wearing the yellow jersey---midway through the race because the chilly, damp weather aggravated a knee injury.  

As much as I have always loved Hinault, I must say that such a criticism of Zoetemelk is unfair.  At least, I cannot concur with his detractors after seeing what I saw of him:  He rode with as much determination as power and technique.  And those who saw far more of him--his contemporaries in the peloton--always spoke of him in respectful, and even reverential, tones

Aside from being an "eternal second" (the label the European media also gave to Raymond Poulidor), I think there is another reason why Zoetemelk is not as well-remembered as Mercx or Hinault:  He was not a flashy or even a particularly stylish rider.  Marco Pantani, who had exactly as many Tour wins as Zoetemelk, is revered because "Il Parata" rode with a panache that bordered on hubris. (Also, he died only a few years after his Tour victory.) Zoetemelk, on the other hand,was often called "the perfect teammate", as much as a taunt as a compliment.

I think he would have done very well in, if not won, this year's Tour. And it wouldn't have been a result of Chris Froome and Alberto Contador withdrawing.

Where Is His Rival?

I'm now waiting for a rival.

That sounds like something Muhammad Ali could have said at the peak of his career.  Or, perhaps, Eddy Mercx, Bernard Hinault or Martina Navritilova.  I think we could also add Serena Williams, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky to the list of athletes who were in a class by themselves when they were at the top of their game.

The man who uttered it, though, may have had even more of a right to make such a claim. In February 2012, he rode 24.250 kilometers (15.1 miles) in an hour, on a track.  That might not seem remarkable, much less like a record of any sort, until you realize that the ride was accomplished by a man who had turned 100 a few months earlier.

Robert Marchand thus set a record for track cyclists 100 years or older.  Two years later, he bested that mark with 26.927 kilometers (16.73 miles) in an hour.

If he was looking for a rival then, he would have an even more difficult time finding one on 4 January 2017. That day, an hour of pedaling the Velodrome National, just outside of Paris, added up to 22.547 kilometers (14.01 miles).  That would set one-hour track record for the 105-and-over age group, a category created specifically for him.

Now tell me, who is going to rival that?

What's really interesting about Robert Marchand's feats, though, is that he isn't a "career" cyclist.  He had racing aspirations in his youth, but a coach advised him to give them up because, he said, his size (1.52 meters, or 5 feet and 52 kilograms, or 115 pounds) would hold him back.

Robert Marchand was born in the northern French city of Amiens on 26 November 1911.  After decades of working in Venezuela and Canada, he returned to France in the 1960s.  At age 68, he dedicated himself to his youthful passion of cycling.

Before setting his track his track records, he took some long-distance rides, including a trek from Paris to Moscow in 1992.  

In addition to the track records I previously mentioned, he also holds the record for someone over the age of 100 riding 100 kilometers.  When he turned 106, his doctors advised him to stop training for records.  But he continued to ride, at least 20 minutes every day.  In February 2018, he completed a 4000 meter race in the same stadium where he set his over-105 record.  And he celebrated his 107th birthday with a 20 kilometer ride.  

He finally transitioned to indoor riding, due to hearing loss, after he turned 108.  He continued, however, to ride every day until a week before his death on Saturday, age 109.

Even if he hadn't set records for his age group, I think one would have to look very, very long and very, very far to find a rival for Robert Marchand.  

Chancing Upon A Champion

Funny, how I can ride through an area I know well--or, at least I thought I knew well--and chance upon something I'd never seen before.

New York City's grid pattern seems utterly incongruous in places like Bayside, where North Shore coastline zigs and zags.  (In fact, it seems incongruous that it is, even if only officially, part of New York City.) The nearest subway stop is about seven kilometers away; only a couple of bus lines  along Bell and Northern Boulevards  (the neighborhood's two main throughfares) and a Long Island Rail Road stop just off Northern connect this neighborhood with the rest of the city.

"Neighborhood" seems like a misnomer, as Bayside feels more like what would be described as a "leafy suburb".   If you go there, you're not going for the night life; you are going there to raise your family or, as I did today, for a bike ride along the North Shore.

With its straight-arrow streets and its well-defined, well-ordered yards and other spaces, it's hard to believe that I've actually missed something on previous rides. But today, I turned down a street I'd never ridden before--Corbett Lane--and this caught my eye.

So now I know how the street got its name: James Corbett, the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion from 1892 until 1897.   He won the title by knocking out the "unbeatable" John L. Sullivan and, many historians of the sport argue, changed prizefighting from mere brawling to an art form because of his scientific training and fighting techniques.  He defeated Sullivan by wearing him down with feints and jabs before delivering the knockout blow.  Muhammad Ali, among others, would win titles in the same way.

But he also changed boxing by simply making it more palatable to many who abhorred it.  (Because it was so widely denounced, boxing was illegal in most states, which made it difficult to schedule bouts.)  "Gentleman Jim" was a beloved figure both in and out of the ring because of his manners, clothing and movie-star looks.  In fact, once his boxing career ended, he made more money from acting, on stage and films, than he ever did in the ring.  



In a way, I'm not surprised that he lived in this house:  It is attractive but not ostentatious, though I had to chuckle when I saw this in front:

Tosca, my Mercian fixie, somehow looks more appropriate.  At least she doesn't flinch from a history lesson! 

It was a short but sweet ride, if you'll indulge me a cliche, even if it looked as if I was riding straight into winter on my way home:

A 400-Year Debt

My birthday is 4 July:  US Independence Day.  So, what I am about to say may seem treasonous, or even sacrilegious, to some.

The most important, if not the singular defining, event of US history did not happen on 4 July 1776.  Rather, it occurred 400 years ago on this date.

On 20 August 1619, the White Lion (you can't make this stuff up!) landed in Point Comfort, near present-day Hampton, Virginia.  Of the White Lion's commander, one Captain John Jope, colonist John Rolfe wrote, "He brought not any thing but 20.  And odd Negroes, which the Governor and Cape Merchant bought for victuals."

The details that would have fleshed out Rolfe's clinical description are lost to history.  Did he mean that  twenty-some-odd black people disembarked from the vessel?  What sort of "victuals" were exchanged for the captive human beings?  Peanuts?  Corn?  Barley?

What is not in doubt is that the dark-skinned arrivals from Africa were the first documented black slaves in America.  This does not mean, of course, that they were the first black slaves in the so-called New World:   Columbus reportedly brought slaves on his second voyage, and some historians argue that there were Africans--who may or may not have been slaves--on this side of the Atlantic even before Columbus' arrival.  But the arrival of black slaves on the White Lion is the first documented importation of African slaves to the soil of what would become the United States.  Moreover, it is the first documented sale of slaves.

The White Lion was not the first ship in which those slaves would be imprisoned on their way from the West Coast of Africa to the East Coast of North America. They started their terrible journey on the San Juan Bautista (really), bound for the Spanish colony of Vera Cruz on the coast of what would become Mexico.

But just a couple of days before the San Juan Bautista would have reached port (Transatlantic journeys in those days typically took about two months), it was attacked by pirates looking for Spanish gold.  Some of those pirates were on the White Lion; the others sailed on the Treasurer, which would arrive in Virginia a few days later.

As James Baldwin has pointed out, African-Americans are the only race of people (save for Native Americans) to be conceived in America.  And, at the time he was writing his seminal essays, the United States was the only nation besides South Africa that had a legal definition for black people--and used it to subjugate them.

I believe, as some black historians and writers believe, that the arrival of slaves (even if they weren't the first) on this date 400 years ago marks the real beginning of American (or at least US) history.  For one thing, it marked the beginning of European subjugation of a land and its people, which would not have been possible (at least under the conditions that prevailed) without the forced labor of black people.  The wealth of this country was built, literally, on the backs of Africans, even in those parts of the country where there weren't plantations and slavery ended before the Emancipation Proclamation.

What is commonly forgotten is that during our Civil War, there were large pro-Confederate contagions in some northern cities.  In fact, New York, which then consisted only of the island of Manhattan, was a bastion of Dixie sentiment, as many of the city's bankers and merchants had ties to the cotton- and tobacco-growing industries of the South.  (In contrast, Brooklyn, which was then an independent city and didn't have the same ties to plantation owners--and where freed and runaway slaves settled in Weeksville and other communities--was staunchly pro-Union.) 

So, no matter where one was at the time of the Civil War--or long afterward--its economy was, in some way or another, a product of slavery.  Everyone in this country is a beneficiary, in some way or another.  I include myself:  My grandparents, as poor as they were, still had more rights in this country than any African (or Native American) had the day they arrived in a port built, at least in part, by the labor of those people who had no freedom--and the profits of those who traded them, or traded with plantation owners, merchants and others whose prosperity built by them.

Of course, it wasn't just our economy that "benefited" from slavery.  The terrible experiences endured by slaves--and their children who were "freed"--were the raw material of some of the greatest art this country has produced.  I am talking, of course, about works by writers like Baldwin and Toni Morrison, but also jazz--the only truly American musical genre besides country and western--which has influenced all of the music, everywhere in the world, that's come along since.

And, finally, it's hard not to think that the "generational trauma" and prejudice experienced by the descendants of slaves motivated some of the greatest athletes this country has turned out.  Forget about "some of":  I am willing to say that the four greatest athletes to come from the United States are Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams, Jackie Robinson and, of course, "Major" Taylor, the incomparable cyclist who became the first African-American champion in any sport.  

The country in which I was born and have spent most of my life owes, I believe,  much more to what took place on this date 400 years ago than most people realize--or I was taught in school.

(In my next post, I'll return to matters more directly about cycling--my own and in general!)