"Like many heroes," Rice writes, "Sockalexis experienced dramatic triumphs, widespread adulation, and finally a wrenching fall from grace."
In the book, Rice asserts that Sockalexis was the first Native American to play major league baseball; was the object of racist abuse not dissimilar to that of Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's "color barrier" in 1947; and that Sockalexis is the inspiration for the Cleveland Indians nickname.
Advertisement
Rice's quest is far from over. The Orono journalist, author, historian, and teacher is still fighting for the Sockalexis legacy, against those who haven't given the Indian Island native his due. He's fighting for recognition for Sockalexis from the Baseball Hall of Fame, from the Cleveland Indians, from national media outlets, even Maine institutions. He's also written a book about Andrew Sockalexis, second cousin to Louis and fourth-place finisher in the 1912 Olympic marathon.
Rice is a man of passion, who fulfilled his life dreams of running a marathon (27 in all, including eight Boston Marathons) and publishing a book. When he spoke to Bangor Metro about Sockalexis, his voice rang with his strong emotional connection to the Penobscot legend.
How did Sockalexis become a cause for you?
I'm the son of the controller for Penobscot Shoe Company, right across the river from Indian Island. My dad's a huge baseball fan. He snuck me into the Bangor farm leagues when I was only seven years old. You were supposed to be eight. I knew about Sockalexis as a small boy, as a legendary figure. My next connection is many years later, when I'm back in the Bangor area and about to run Boston for the first time. But the book hasn't happened yet. I came across two newspaper articles about Sock, and they're meaningful to me: First, the two stories are contradictory. Second, no one's written a book about this guy. So, I figure I'll combine my love of baseball with journalism. Everybody who knew Sock is going to be long dead, and I know I'm going to have to use old newspaper accounts to piece this thing together.
How much of a struggle was that?
I start in the 1980s, and I'm not done until 1998. I lived at Fogler Library, all through the late '80s and early '90s, all summer. Just hammering away, maybe finding a sentence today, maybe finding a couple, maybe finding nothing.
You were looking through microfiche?
Yes. Old broadsheet newspapers, blown up as best I could, just going page after page after page. These were big pages full of gray type, and I had to search in quadrants-boom, boom, boom, boom. Next page. But I could look at one and find the name Sockalexis. If it was on that page, I was going to see it. And to this day, I can't tell you why. Then, it's going to take another five years to find a publisher. That was pretty frustrating, particularly after I crossed that finish line [of completing the book].
How did Louis end up playing baseball in Cleveland after growing up on an American Indian reservation near Old Town?
He was born in 1871, the same year professional baseball started. The sport was growing in popularity, but the leagues in the 1880s and 1890s were very fragile. Professional baseball was a blue-collar pursuit, played by ruffians and there's no money in it, but it's popular with kids. Sock picked it up like most other kids of the time, but he was so skilled at it, so quickly, that there's a whole series of these opportunities . . . Ultimately it leads to schooling [at Holy Cross, in Worcester, Mass.]; it leads to playing for teams that would get paid during the summer. Eventually, it leads him to Cleveland, and the major leagues.
Legend has it that his father, a tribal governor, didn't approve of baseball as a career choice, so he supposedly canoed down the Penobscot all the way to Washington DC to find Grover Cleveland and get the president to help him prevent Louis from leaving the reservation. What did you find out about that?
That story was a huge issue, a big battle with my publisher. The editor said, "There's no way this happened. Why are you persisting in it?" I couldn't answer the question, but something kept nagging at me to fight for it. The Penobscots are a culture of people who paddled and rowed great distances. To this day, Penobscots go up to the great wilds of Canada and go off to the wilderness for weeks at a time. They do the 100-mile sacred run from Indian Island up to Katahdin. I couldn't dismiss the story, and then I wrote the sentence which I'm proudest of in the whole book: It basically says I couldn't prove it, and I spent a long time trying, but to dismiss the story as an outright myth is to think, in my mind, with a white man's sensibilities, with our modern media. This could well have happened without anybody writing about it.
How good was Sockalexis?
We're looking at a five-tool athlete. He could hit with power. He could hit for average. He was the third-leading hitter after the first three months of his rookie season. On the bases, Tom Brown, who was the leading base stealer at the time, said it's just a matter of time before Sock would be better [than he]. Then, in the field, anything he could get to he could catch, and then he'd throw it a ridiculous distance with accuracy. That's a five-tool baseball player, and there have only been a handful of those: Mickey Mantle, when he could still run. Willie Mays. Roberto Clemente.
It sounds like his most amazing skill was throwing.
Everyone wanted to see him throw a baseball. He had several documented throws of well over 400 feet, including one close to 416 feet, measured by some Harvard professors. People loved to watch him throw. At the old Bangor fair, even when he was a very young man, there was talk about how he used to put on throwing exhibitions for the crowds there. It happened at Holy Cross. It happened in Cleveland. Sock did things that even the people he was playing against were in awe of. I liken it to Ted Williams taking batting practice and the other players stopping just to watch.
You just want Louis to get the recognition he deserves. Is that the motivation?
I feel like I've got his secret and I want the rest of Maine to know about it. We have a man who was an incredible athlete, and we should be proud of that. Now, we let a town in Pennsylvania claim the first Indian baseball player. [The player, James Madison Toy, is also accepted as first by the Baseball Hall of Fame, to Rice's chagrin.] I'm working hard on this, and if there's any documentation that [Toy] was Native American, I'm going to find it. So far, it doesn't exist.
You're also looking for a publisher for a book about Andrew Sockalexis, Louis' second cousin, who was also a world-class athlete. Tell me about him.
I want very much to get Andrew into print. Here's an Olympic marathoner who's also a Penobscot Indian. He was second in the Boston Marathon twice, and fourth in the Olympic marathon. I know it will take its place right next to Louis in libraries and school libraries. I want people to read about him. It's a wonderful tale of an interesting time.
You've got several efforts under way to gain recognition for Andrew Sockalexis, even beyond the book. Tell me about what you're up to.
I've been going all over New England and beyond, speaking to schoolchildren and groups who want to hear more about him. I don't accept any fees or expenses for speaking, and I'd like to use any money I can take in to refurbish Andrew's gravestone, which is about 50 feet from Louis'. Holy Cross paid for Louis' gravestone back in the '30s, and I'd like to make something like that happen for Andrew.
Tell me about your [June 2005] speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I'm battling with them. The hall has a time line for Hispanic players, covering the first ones and the ones that followed. It has a time line for African American players, even for women in baseball. There should be a time line, and recognition, of the American Indian players, and it should start with Sockalexis. I like to point to the Jackie Robinson analogy, but they don't seem willing to listen or to look at my book closely. It was acceptable at that time to spit at Louis, to war whoop at him, throw things at him. He's up against an amazing amount of hatred and racial hatred, and he's performing at a skill level that's so remarkable. That's where I take issue with the hall. They want to marginalize him. A lot of people do, in part because he played in only 94 games.
What did happen after that first season?
Drinking is a horrible problem. He got hurt on the Fourth of July [that first season], and he probably had a hard time dealing with the drinking problem with the days off, not playing. They invited him back for the 1898 season, but he's never the same. In fact, Sock drinks himself out of three or four different places. Most writers just label him as a hopeless drunk and that's it. My book offers evidence that there was redemption, on the field and off.
Did that redemption come after he returned to Indian Island?
Yes. He comes back, and he coaches youth baseball. He ends up being the person who takes the canoe back and forth because there's no bridge to the island. He plays baseball for semipro teams right up until 1919. Most importantly, I think, he was an umpire, which could be a nightmare in that era. There was only one for the whole field, and the players cheated like crazy. He has the respect of the players around here, and the idea of a drunk umpiring a baseball game is unfathomable.
You're also working to get the state legislature to recognize Louis. How's that going?
I'm very optimistic. I've talked to a legislative leader, and helped create a resolution for Louis. It would include his right to be considered the first American Indian baseball player, and recognize his Jackie Robinson-like experience, 50 years before Jackie Robinson.
I'm also working to get Sports Illustrated to apologize for leaving Louis and Andrew off their [2003] list of Maine's 50 greatest athletes. I'd love to lead a boycott of the magazine. When I go through this list, Joanie [1984 Olympic marathon gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson is No. 1] is the only name there that ever achieved the kind of attention, national attention, that [the cousins] did.
I'm also excited about the possibility of a statue recognizing Louis. I was speaking to the Bangor Rotary Club, saying that we have a statue of Paul Bunyan, a mythic, fictional figure, but not one of a real person, a mythic man who did amazing things. Now, I understand some members of the city council are looking into it. That would be wonderful. There should be much more recognition of this man, in this area.
Editor's note: Since this interview, Ed Rice has received a copy of James Madison Toy's 1919 death certificate, supplying more evidence to his case that Louis Sockalexis is indeed baseball's first American Indian: It states Toy's race as "white."
