Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

Talk:Chief Bender


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'he faced discrimination throughout his career, not least of which was the stereotyped nickname ("Chief")' -- Is there a cite for this? My grandfather played baseball in the 1930's, had no Native American heritage that I know of, and was nicknamed 'Chief'. He took it as a sign of respect. 159.169.242.3 (talk) 22:05, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I would say the nickname (which, after all, is the given name for this biographical article) probably was the least of the discrimination that Bender faced. Lot's of sports figures in the first half of the twentieth century had nicknames based on their heritage and "Chief" would hardly be an especially demeaning one. Allie Reynolds who pitched a few decades later was known as "Superchief" without, apparently, suffering any great resentment over it. Badmintonhist (talk) 15:49, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chief has been the go-to nickname for pretty much every native american player in baseball history.

Whenever Bender would be confronted by racist white fans doing war whoops or whatever, he'd call them foreigners. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.10.69.15 (talk) 11:09, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]