Minnesota Author To Sign Copies of Award-Winning Book

Tom Swift, author of Chief Bender’s Burden, will sign copies of his award-winning book at at the Barnes and Noble in Apple Valley.

The Chicago Sun-Times called Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star a “gem.” The book won the 2009 Seymour Medal, which honors the best book of baseball history published during the preceding calendar year. “For a Minnesota baseball fan,” writes Nick Coleman in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “[Chief Bender’s Burden] is must reading.”

The book tells the true story of Charles Albert Bender, the first Minnesota-born man inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the most accomplished American Indian baseball player of all time. Using a trademark delivery, an assortment of pitches that may have included the game’s first slider, and an unflappable demeanor, Bender earned a reputation as baseball’s foremost clutch pitcher while performing in front of boisterous World Series crowds.

But the book is about more than baseball, as “Chief” Bender’s storied career unfolded in the face of immeasurable prejudice. Chief Bender’s Burden is also a portrait of greatness of character maintained despite incredible pressure — of how a celebrated man thrived while carrying an untold weight on his shoulders.

Don Shelby, speaking on WCCO Radio, described the book as a work of “unbelievable storytelling.”

Says the Sun-Times: “A wonderful and impressively thorough new biography … Swift’s mission is to reassert Bender as an important figure in the history of the game, both as a player and a groundbreaking figure. His book does well in both ways.”

Swift, an award-winning author and award-winning journalist, lives with his wife in Northfield. 

Source: Acacia Gentrup