Suffer the little children from overzealous coaches

On a glorious Sunday morning last October, one of those days where there is nowhere else you’d rather be than by the side of a soccer pitch, I was coaching my son Abe’s Under-13 soccer team. With about five minutes gone in the game, one of the opposing strikers broke through. He was bearing down on goal when our sweeper tried and failed to bring him down. As the boy stayed on his feet and had just the keeper to beat, the referee played advantage. His subsequent shot flew narrowly wide and that’s when the opposing coach jumped up.

“Next time he does that to you, you punch him in the face,” he roared at the top of his voice, veins bulging in his neck, eyes popping. It would have been comical if it wasn’t so serious and so normal around here. The coach received a yellow card from the ref and play resumed. No big deal.

A couple of weeks later, we were 2-1 down against one of the better teams in our league. For most of the second half, they battered us. Our keeper made a few good saves. Our defenders and midfielders performed heroics under severe pressure. As the final minute dawned, I was proud of how bravely we’d battled and relieved we were going to escape without a morale-sapping hiding. That was about the moment we lifted the siege. A couple of nifty passes were strung together and, totally against the run of play, we managed to grab an equaliser. The kids were thrilled and so was I.  Inevitably, the opposing coach wasn’t.

He ran onto the field as our boys were celebrating and shouted maniacally at his own team, “Horrible, that’s just horrible. How do you let that happen?” Hands gesticulating wildly, he was roaring this at 12 year olds who, as you can imagine, were already kind of gutted at conceding a late goal and turning what should have been a fully-deserved win into a draw that felt like a defeat. And he just kept at it.

When the final whistle went seconds later, he took his team into a corner of the field and berated them for another ten minutes as their parents watched and listened 20 yards away, none of them at all appalled by the spectacle. These fellows were 12, playing in the lower divisions of the Long Island Junior Soccer League. This is not elite sport. What is wrong with this picture?

I’ve asked that question a lot in recent months. More and more I’ve grown appalled by the behavior I witnessed from men charged with the job of coaching young boys. I’ve seen kids substituted for misplacing passes (surely page one in the “how not to teach the game” manual). I’ve seen a grown man take the ball out of an opposing 12 year old’s grasp on the touchline and kick it away in order to waste time while his team fought to preserve a “crucial” lead.

I’ve seen kids reduced to tears by the harsh comments of their own coaches and, more than once, those children happened to be suffering this abuse at the hands of their own fathers.  Half the time, the antics I’ve witnessed have been so outrageous that I’ve felt like laughing at the absurdity of it all. But, mostly, it just made me sad and disillusioned with the dreadful culture surrounding children’s sport in America.

So, when the autumn season ended prematurely because of SuperStorm Sandy, I made the decision to walk away from coaching soccer.  I’ve worked with kids for the past nine years and I’ve been with this particular squad of players since some of them were seven. I often thought I’d coach them all the way to Under-18s. But I’ve had enough.

I’ve had enough of the referees having to halt the games to ask the hyena parents to stop abusing the opposing kids. I’ve had enough of coming up against clipboard-holding clowns who think this is all way more important than it actually is. I’ve had enough of coaches who spend 95 per cent of every game shouting criticism rather than offering encouragement to their players. I’ve had enough of those who think winning a match involving 12 year olds is more important than giving every kid significant playing time and helping them develop basic skills.

Most of all, I’ve had enough of having to shake hands at the end of matches with opposing coaches I’d much rather punch some sense into. Not the beautiful game.

Suffer the little children from overzealous coaches

On a glorious Sunday morning last October, one of those days where there is nowhere else you’d rather be than by the side of a soccer pitch, I was coaching my son Abe’s Under-13 soccer team. With about five minutes gone in the game, one of the opposing strikers broke through. He was bearing down on goal when our sweeper tried and failed to bring him down. As the boy stayed on his feet and had just the keeper to beat, the referee played advantage. His subsequent shot flew narrowly wide and that’s when the opposing coach jumped up.

“Next time he does that to you, you punch him in the face,” he roared at the top of his voice, veins bulging in his neck, eyes popping. It would have been comical if it wasn’t so serious and so normal around here. The coach received a yellow card from the ref and play resumed. No big deal.

A couple of weeks later, we were 2-1 down against one of the better teams in our league. For most of the second half, they battered us. Our keeper made a few good saves. Our defenders and midfielders performed heroics under severe pressure. As the final minute dawned, I was proud of how bravely we’d battled and relieved we were going to escape without a morale-sapping hiding. That was about the moment we lifted the siege. A couple of nifty passes were strung together and, totally against the run of play, we managed to grab an equaliser. The kids were thrilled and so was I.  Inevitably, the opposing coach wasn’t.

He ran onto the field as our boys were celebrating and shouted maniacally at his own team, “Horrible, that’s just horrible. How do you let that happen?” Hands gesticulating wildly, he was roaring this at 12 year olds who, as you can imagine, were already kind of gutted at conceding a late goal and turning what should have been a fully-deserved win into a draw that felt like a defeat. And he just kept at it.

When the final whistle went seconds later, he took his team into a corner of the field and berated them for another ten minutes as their parents watched and listened 20 yards away, none of them at all appalled by the spectacle. These fellows were 12, playing in the lower divisions of the Long Island Junior Soccer League. This is not elite sport. What is wrong with this picture?

I’ve asked that question a lot in recent months. More and more I’ve grown appalled by the behavior I witnessed from men charged with the job of coaching young boys. I’ve seen kids substituted for misplacing passes (surely page one in the “how not to teach the game” manual). I’ve seen a grown man take the ball out of an opposing 12 year old’s grasp on the touchline and kick it away in order to waste time while his team fought to preserve a “crucial” lead.

I’ve seen kids reduced to tears by the harsh comments of their own coaches and, more than once, those children happened to be suffering this abuse at the hands of their own fathers.  Half the time, the antics I’ve witnessed have been so outrageous that I’ve felt like laughing at the absurdity of it all. But, mostly, it just made me sad and disillusioned with the dreadful culture surrounding children’s sport in America.

So, when the autumn season ended prematurely because of SuperStorm Sandy, I made the decision to walk away from coaching soccer.  I’ve worked with kids for the past nine years and I’ve been with this particular squad of players since some of them were seven. I often thought I’d coach them all the way to Under-18s. But I’ve had enough.

I’ve had enough of the referees having to halt the games to ask the hyena parents to stop abusing the opposing kids. I’ve had enough of coming up against clipboard-holding clowns who think this is all way more important than it actually is. I’ve had enough of coaches who spend 95 per cent of every game shouting criticism rather than offering encouragement to their players. I’ve had enough of those who think winning a match involving 12 year olds is more important than giving every kid significant playing time and helping them develop basic skills.

Most of all, I’ve had enough of having to shake hands at the end of matches with opposing coaches I’d much rather punch some sense into. Not the beautiful game.

Call me the Breezy Point cynic

Just over three months ago, I huddled with my family on the unforgettable Sunday night that Hurricane Sandy blew through New York. We lost power for five days, we watched some of our neighbours have their houses torn in two, and I saw dozens of students whose lives have been turned upside down by the after-effects. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life, teaching me lessons about the relentless power of nature and the mindlessness of our modern obsession with so much triviality. When you’ve seen somebody lose their house, you never look at things quite the same again.

All of the above is why I sat up and took notice when I learned that a delegation from the Gaelic Players Association was in Breezy Point in Queens the other week, assisting with the ongoing attempts to rebuild that shattered community. Their arrival in the borough was timely. Many, especially beyond the tri-state area, have largely forgotten about the victims of Sandy. The Obama administration, which made political capital out of the disaster before the election, and plenty other politicians in Washington, are among those guilty of neglecting to help finish the job.

I saw the photographs of the players with hard hats on their heads, and I was, initially, very proud. I know a lot of them had visited the site of the devastation back in November and had been affected by it.

“The visit by the travelling GAA/GPA All-Stars to this extraordinary Irish-American community was a very moving experience last November,” said Donal Og Cusack on the GPA website. “We were invited out by the local people, to bring the Sam Maguire and help provide a boost to morale. However, when we got there we were taken aback by the extent of the devastation. We were equally inspired by the spirit of the community; there was a real sense of joy in seeing players arrive in the area. It was at that moment we resolved to return and provide some practical support to the reconstruction effort – and helping the local sports programme through our friend and community member Tim Devlin was, we felt, the best way to do that.”

So my first instinct was to look at this project and to think, here we have one more illustration of how the GAA is that bit more aware of its social role than other sports associations in Ireland. How noble of these men to give of their own time to help those who’ve suffered so much. Yet, I have to admit that a part of me was also troubled. That part of me wondered exactly why the GPA were in New York in the middle of winter, trying to assist with the effort to refurbish the Breezy Point Catholic club when they could have been in so many different places closer to home.

Maybe this says more about me than them but I had this nagging feeling their presence in the city may have had as much to do with the GPA’s expressed ambition to court Irish-American commercial interests as it did with true philanthropy. Remember, the reason they were over here in November was to host a dinner where they gave a bizarre award to Donald R. Keough, one-time President of The Coca-Cola Company. This is a country the GPA wants to make hay in. So, are my suspicions of their motives wrongheaded and harsh or an inevitable byproduct of the cynicism we all feel towards so much that happens in society?

The same week the GPA arrived in America, we had David Beckham touching down in Paris. Wasn’t our first instinct when the one-footed, one-paced wonder announced he was donating his Paris Saint Germain salary to charity to harrumph and point out that this charitable decision will do wonders for what is a floundering brand? Didn’t many of us regard it as a rather cynical move designed to win sympathy for a pathetic attempt to keep his playing career on life-support, long after he’s passed his sell-by debate?

While not lumping the honest amateurs of the GPA in with the most egregious example of style over substance in the history of sport, I just can’t help feeling there must be dozens of projects and communities around Ireland that need help right now. How many Irish boys and girls who frequent hurling and football clubs are going home from matches and training and heading to bed hungry at night? According a report last week, one in five school principals in Ireland claim more students than ever are arriving in school hungry.

Now, while it seems to be taboo to nitpick when people are doing something for charity, surely the question needs to be asked. Would the GPA be better served working on the behalf of hungry Irish kids or would the publicity benefits, especially in the American and Irish-American media, be so much less? Not to mention either there are dilapidated community centres and GAA clubs in every county that could do with a team from the GPA arriving in for the weekend to do some frantic refurbishing of the same kind they did so well in Breezy Point.

 

Now even if the GPA’s motives were a lot more high-minded than my low-brow suspicions, and I acknowledge some of the players involved have previously done sterling work on projects in Africa, there was something else really odd about this whole business. At a time when the nation is on its uppers, the Irish government donated $50,000 to help the rebuilding effort in Queens. Now, Breezy Point is not some shantytown in a third world country, it’s a neighbourhood in the hinterland of New York city, in the richest country on the planet.

The GPA are quite entitled to do whatever they want with their time and resources but, why in the name of all that is sensible is Brian Hayes, Minister for State in a nation on its knees, giving any money at all to an American community?

Call me the Breezy Point cynic

Just over three months ago, I huddled with my family on the unforgettable Sunday night that Hurricane Sandy blew through New York. We lost power for five days, we watched some of our neighbours have their houses torn in two, and I saw dozens of students whose lives have been turned upside down by the after-effects. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life, teaching me lessons about the relentless power of nature and the mindlessness of our modern obsession with so much triviality. When you’ve seen somebody lose their house, you never look at things quite the same again.

All of the above is why I sat up and took notice when I learned that a delegation from the Gaelic Players Association was in Breezy Point in Queens the other week, assisting with the ongoing attempts to rebuild that shattered community. Their arrival in the borough was timely. Many, especially beyond the tri-state area, have largely forgotten about the victims of Sandy. The Obama administration, which made political capital out of the disaster before the election, and plenty other politicians in Washington, are among those guilty of neglecting to help finish the job.

I saw the photographs of the players with hard hats on their heads, and I was, initially, very proud. I know a lot of them had visited the site of the devastation back in November and had been affected by it.

“The visit by the travelling GAA/GPA All-Stars to this extraordinary Irish-American community was a very moving experience last November,” said Donal Og Cusack on the GPA website. “We were invited out by the local people, to bring the Sam Maguire and help provide a boost to morale. However, when we got there we were taken aback by the extent of the devastation. We were equally inspired by the spirit of the community; there was a real sense of joy in seeing players arrive in the area. It was at that moment we resolved to return and provide some practical support to the reconstruction effort – and helping the local sports programme through our friend and community member Tim Devlin was, we felt, the best way to do that.”

So my first instinct was to look at this project and to think, here we have one more illustration of how the GAA is that bit more aware of its social role than other sports associations in Ireland. How noble of these men to give of their own time to help those who’ve suffered so much. Yet, I have to admit that a part of me was also troubled. That part of me wondered exactly why the GPA were in New York in the middle of winter, trying to assist with the effort to refurbish the Breezy Point Catholic club when they could have been in so many different places closer to home.

Maybe this says more about me than them but I had this nagging feeling their presence in the city may have had as much to do with the GPA’s expressed ambition to court Irish-American commercial interests as it did with true philanthropy. Remember, the reason they were over here in November was to host a dinner where they gave a bizarre award to Donald R. Keough, one-time President of The Coca-Cola Company. This is a country the GPA wants to make hay in. So, are my suspicions of their motives wrongheaded and harsh or an inevitable byproduct of the cynicism we all feel towards so much that happens in society?

The same week the GPA arrived in America, we had David Beckham touching down in Paris. Wasn’t our first instinct when the one-footed, one-paced wonder announced he was donating his Paris Saint Germain salary to charity to harrumph and point out that this charitable decision will do wonders for what is a floundering brand? Didn’t many of us regard it as a rather cynical move designed to win sympathy for a pathetic attempt to keep his playing career on life-support, long after he’s passed his sell-by debate?

While not lumping the honest amateurs of the GPA in with the most egregious example of style over substance in the history of sport, I just can’t help feeling there must be dozens of projects and communities around Ireland that need help right now. How many Irish boys and girls who frequent hurling and football clubs are going home from matches and training and heading to bed hungry at night? According a report last week, one in five school principals in Ireland claim more students than ever are arriving in school hungry.

Now, while it seems to be taboo to nitpick when people are doing something for charity, surely the question needs to be asked. Would the GPA be better served working on the behalf of hungry Irish kids or would the publicity benefits, especially in the American and Irish-American media, be so much less? Not to mention either there are dilapidated community centres and GAA clubs in every county that could do with a team from the GPA arriving in for the weekend to do some frantic refurbishing of the same kind they did so well in Breezy Point.

 

Now even if the GPA’s motives were a lot more high-minded than my low-brow suspicions, and I acknowledge some of the players involved have previously done sterling work on projects in Africa, there was something else really odd about this whole business. At a time when the nation is on its uppers, the Irish government donated $50,000 to help the rebuilding effort in Queens. Now, Breezy Point is not some shantytown in a third world country, it’s a neighbourhood in the hinterland of New York city, in the richest country on the planet.

The GPA are quite entitled to do whatever they want with their time and resources but, why in the name of all that is sensible is Brian Hayes, Minister for State in a nation on its knees, giving any money at all to an American community?

The last Irishman in baseball

In the fourth inning of the second game of a double-header against the Boston Red Sox in the summer of 1945, the Washington Senators’ coach Ossie Bluege sent in Joe Cleary as a relief pitcher. At 25 years old, just over a decade after he and his family had emigrated from Cork to New York, Cleary was making his debut in the major leagues. Following a stellar career in high school and semi-pro baseball, here was his chance to finally show what he could do at the highest level. By the time he walked off the field nine batters later, he’d earned an unlikely and unfortunate spot in sporting folklore.

 

At the end of any career in professional sport, most people are lucky if they get a footnote in history. Cleary gets three. Not all of them are accolades he might have wanted when he started off his career yet each ensures he will never be forgotten. With his cameo that day at Griffith Stadium, he became the last Irish-born player to tog out in the major leagues, a special honour given Ireland’s significant contribution to the early decades of the sport. His disastrous performance also earned him the highest earned run average (ERA) of any pitcher who ever threw a ball (not a good thing). And he was replaced in his one and only appearance on the biggest stage by a one-legged man leaning heavily on a prosthetic. A detail straight from the “you couldn’t make it up” department.

 

He managed all of this because, suddenly, when he needed it most, Cleary had forgotten how to pitch the baseball. The skill that brought him there, to the highest level and the biggest stage, deserted him. He walked three batters and gave up five base hits, allowing the Red Sox to run up seven runs while he was on the mound. Bluege was so disgusted by the display that he broke all usual protocol and called Cleary ashore merely by signalling from the bench. In baseball, decorum demands the coach walk onto the field, offer some encouragement to his beleaguered player and then take the ball from him after patting him on the back.

 

“Someone threw me the ball and I'm standing on the mound rubbing it up," said Cleary, years later. "I look over at the dugout and I see Bluege waving at me. He's got one leg on the step of the dugout and he's waving at me to come out. I thought, he's got to be kidding. What the hell can he be thinking? No manager takes his pitcher out that way. You go to the mound. You don't embarrass him. So I stood there rubbing the ball and waiting. [First baseman] Joe Kuhel came over and he said he never saw anything like that and he'd been around a long time. He called it bush league. I told Kuhel, 'I'm not leaving.' Finally, the umpire came over and said, 'Son, I think you better go,' so I left."

 

With one-legged Bert Shepherd taking his place, Cleary left in a temper, going after Bluege in the dug-out where team-mates had to step in to prevent them from hitting each other. The next morning, he was unceremoniously dropped from the majors back to the minors. He continued to make a living from the game, knocking around AA and AAA ball from Florida to Alabama but he never made it back to the show again. That one outing was to be the beginning, the middle and the end of the dream. Eventually, he took a job on Wall Street before buying a bar on the West Side of New York city where customers continually ribbed him about his brief stint in the majors.

 

“You know, in the neighborhood bars they kid me," Cleary told author Brent Kelley in “The Pastime is Turbulence”. "I take an awful needlin' about that, that one appearance. The main thing I get kidded about is the earned run average; it's the highest in major league history, you know. But I always say to them, 'I was there.'"

 

That he’d made it there at all was kind of remarkable. Before sailing to New York, he had played only hurling, Gaelic football and soccer back in Cork. When an aunt gifted him baseball equipment and an uncle began taking him to watch the New York Yankees, his imagination was fired. Pretty soon, he became known around the city for his pitching prowess and obvious big league potential. Possessed of a wicked curve ball and blessed with the ability to throw different speeds, he was known too for throwing inside, at a time when brushing batters back off the plate was an accepted part of the game.

 

As a teenage wunderkind, he was so good he helped his family through tough financial times by pitching in the semi-pro leagues even while he was at high school. He circumvented the rules by playing under different names so he could get paid to play.

 

“It was during the Depression and my dad was out of work and a dollar was hard to come by," said Cleary. "When I played for the Puerto Rican Stars, I had to play under the name of Jose Hernandez 'cause I was also pitching for Commerce High. One night at Roosevelt Stadium in New Jersey, I was warming up on the sidelines to pitch against the Union City Reds, and the public address announcer says, 'And pitching for the Puerto Rican Stars, number such-and-such, Jose Hernandez.' Now the Union City manager was standing right next to me on the field. And here I am, red-haired, blue-eyed, you know Irish all over, and he looks at me in disbelief and says, 'Jose Hernandez!'"

 

Joe/Jose Cleary died in June, 2004 in Yonkers, New York. Not the best Irishman to play in the majors but the last.

 

The last Irishman in baseball

In the fourth inning of the second game of a double-header against the Boston Red Sox in the summer of 1945, the Washington Senators’ coach Ossie Bluege sent in Joe Cleary as a relief pitcher. At 25 years old, just over a decade after he and his family had emigrated from Cork to New York, Cleary was making his debut in the major leagues. Following a stellar career in high school and semi-pro baseball, here was his chance to finally show what he could do at the highest level. By the time he walked off the field nine batters later, he’d earned an unlikely and unfortunate spot in sporting folklore.

 

At the end of any career in professional sport, most people are lucky if they get a footnote in history. Cleary gets three. Not all of them are accolades he might have wanted when he started off his career yet each ensures he will never be forgotten. With his cameo that day at Griffith Stadium, he became the last Irish-born player to tog out in the major leagues, a special honour given Ireland’s significant contribution to the early decades of the sport. His disastrous performance also earned him the highest earned run average (ERA) of any pitcher who ever threw a ball (not a good thing). And he was replaced in his one and only appearance on the biggest stage by a one-legged man leaning heavily on a prosthetic. A detail straight from the “you couldn’t make it up” department.

 

He managed all of this because, suddenly, when he needed it most, Cleary had forgotten how to pitch the baseball. The skill that brought him there, to the highest level and the biggest stage, deserted him. He walked three batters and gave up five base hits, allowing the Red Sox to run up seven runs while he was on the mound. Bluege was so disgusted by the display that he broke all usual protocol and called Cleary ashore merely by signalling from the bench. In baseball, decorum demands the coach walk onto the field, offer some encouragement to his beleaguered player and then take the ball from him after patting him on the back.

 

“Someone threw me the ball and I'm standing on the mound rubbing it up," said Cleary, years later. "I look over at the dugout and I see Bluege waving at me. He's got one leg on the step of the dugout and he's waving at me to come out. I thought, he's got to be kidding. What the hell can he be thinking? No manager takes his pitcher out that way. You go to the mound. You don't embarrass him. So I stood there rubbing the ball and waiting. [First baseman] Joe Kuhel came over and he said he never saw anything like that and he'd been around a long time. He called it bush league. I told Kuhel, 'I'm not leaving.' Finally, the umpire came over and said, 'Son, I think you better go,' so I left."

 

With one-legged Bert Shepherd taking his place, Cleary left in a temper, going after Bluege in the dug-out where team-mates had to step in to prevent them from hitting each other. The next morning, he was unceremoniously dropped from the majors back to the minors. He continued to make a living from the game, knocking around AA and AAA ball from Florida to Alabama but he never made it back to the show again. That one outing was to be the beginning, the middle and the end of the dream. Eventually, he took a job on Wall Street before buying a bar on the West Side of New York city where customers continually ribbed him about his brief stint in the majors.

 

“You know, in the neighborhood bars they kid me," Cleary told author Brent Kelley in “The Pastime is Turbulence”. "I take an awful needlin' about that, that one appearance. The main thing I get kidded about is the earned run average; it's the highest in major league history, you know. But I always say to them, 'I was there.'"

 

That he’d made it there at all was kind of remarkable. Before sailing to New York, he had played only hurling, Gaelic football and soccer back in Cork. When an aunt gifted him baseball equipment and an uncle began taking him to watch the New York Yankees, his imagination was fired. Pretty soon, he became known around the city for his pitching prowess and obvious big league potential. Possessed of a wicked curve ball and blessed with the ability to throw different speeds, he was known too for throwing inside, at a time when brushing batters back off the plate was an accepted part of the game.

 

As a teenage wunderkind, he was so good he helped his family through tough financial times by pitching in the semi-pro leagues even while he was at high school. He circumvented the rules by playing under different names so he could get paid to play.

 

“It was during the Depression and my dad was out of work and a dollar was hard to come by," said Cleary. "When I played for the Puerto Rican Stars, I had to play under the name of Jose Hernandez 'cause I was also pitching for Commerce High. One night at Roosevelt Stadium in New Jersey, I was warming up on the sidelines to pitch against the Union City Reds, and the public address announcer says, 'And pitching for the Puerto Rican Stars, number such-and-such, Jose Hernandez.' Now the Union City manager was standing right next to me on the field. And here I am, red-haired, blue-eyed, you know Irish all over, and he looks at me in disbelief and says, 'Jose Hernandez!'"

 

Joe/Jose Cleary died in June, 2004 in Yonkers, New York. Not the best Irishman to play in the majors but the last.

 

The legend of Ned Price - boxer, lawyer, playwright

At a charity benefit for ex-boxers in a theatre in Newark, New Jersey in 1850, the master of ceremonies was struggling to find members of the public willing to get in the ring to spar with a gigantic African-American fighter named Molyneux. There was reluctance because every individual who had already braved the ropes ended up receiving a severe beating. Eventually, a man with an English accent stepped forward. The crowd oohed and aahed in anticipation of what a whipping this poor, unassuming volunteer might receive in this spectacle. They weren’t to know that this diffident character had once been a promising young middleweight back in London

“Don’t worry boy,” whispered the giant. “I won’t hurt you.”

The Englishman didn’t reply. He just smiled.

Two minutes of swift and dramatic combat later, the giant was flat on his back and the crowd were cheering for the unlikely hero, the fistic David who had put down the Goliath. Even though he didn’t know it then, 21 year old Ned Price had just taken the first steps in his professional boxing career….

More than half a century later, Price took ill suddenly at his law offices on Centre Street in Manhattan. As colleagues bundled him into a cab to take him to hospital, he died. When word reached Chinatown of his passing, locals quickly gathered on the street corners in large groups, animatedly discussing the news and weeping openly for the Englishman they loved as “Mleester Plice”.

“How many cases have I tried for you over the past 25 years, Tom?” asked Price of a Chinese friend one time.

“More than 1200,” replied Tom Lee, the unofficial mayor of Chinatown.

“And how many have I lost?” asked Price.

“Not a one,” answered his friend.

Although nobody knows if his win-loss record was really that pristine, there’s no question that the Chinese community in New York went into mourning at his passing.  Little wonder they did. They knew they had lost their own personal “human rights” lawyer, somebody willing to fight their corner in every court in the city, handling cases ranging from petty offences to criminal conspiracy on their behalf.

Between those two landmark events, Price led the most extraordinary life. He was a bricklayer by trade, a bareknuckle boxer by profession, a henchman for politicians in Civil War America, a lawyer immersed in Chinese American affairs, and a playwright whose work sold out theatres on Broadway and all across America. He also wrote one of the first training manuals for fighters, a book extant copies of which change hands for hundreds of dollars today. A forgotten figure in 19^thcentury British sporting history, an Englishman who made a huge impact in America, Price never married and left behind a fortune worth nearly half a million dollars.

Born in Islington, North London in 1829, he began his travels when he accompanied his father George, a Welsh contractor, to northern France where the elder Price had signed on to build a section of the new railroad. There, Ned apprenticed as a bricklayer and also began picking up the various languages spoken by the other workers on the project. By the time, he arrived in America, he was reputedly fluent in French and Italian, linguistic skills that would come in handy in his new country, a place teeming with newly-arrived immigrants.

Following his boxing cameo in Newark, Price began training full-time and was soon getting into the ring with some of the biggest names of the bareknuckle era. However, the fight which would earn him a footnote in boxing history also proved to be his last competitive bout. On May 1^st, 1856, he took on Joe Coburn from Ireland at Spy Pond outside Boston for the middleweight championship of America.

Although some eyewitnesses alleged referee Louis Bleral declared that contest a controversial draw to save himself the large sum he’d wagered on the outcome, all present testified that they received value for money.  Coburn and Price traded punches for, depending on which account you believe, 106 or 160 rounds. The placement of the zero scarcely matters. Either number captures the spirit of the time and the nature of the combat.

After a nearly four-hour epic that would go down in fistic lore, Price was so disgusted by the officiating and what he perceived as obvious corruption that he walked away from the ring. Using his flair for languages, he became an interpreter for the United States Circuit Court in Boston. There, he became embroiled in Democratic politics, and in 1860, he accompanied Benjamin Butler, a prominent Massachusetts legislator, to the Rump Convention where his job was to ensure his man came to no physical harm. He did this successfully and later moved on to Washington where he worked security at a hotel during the Civil War and studied law.

At the end of the war, he was called to the bar and the first client he took on was an African-American. That set the tone for a legal career which took him back to New York and into the service of those in that city whose ethnicity, as much as their criminal activity, often attracted undue attention from law and order. In a turbulent and violent era made famous in the movie “Gangs of New York”, Price was an outsized character whose reputation was that of a man capable of using his mouth or his fists to settle an argument, depending on whether he was inside or outside the courtroom. When either of those options failed to do the job, bribery was another tactic Price and able lieutenants like Tom Lee were liable to use to get defendants off the hook.

His legend as a man not to be trifled with had been amplified by the fact that in 1867, he’d written “The Science of Self-Defence – A Treatise on Sparring and Wrestling”, a book that was, for the longest time, regarded as the definite coaching manual for those interested in wrestling and bare-knuckle boxing. Price began writing the book in 1860 but was interrupted by the outbreak of the war. The lengthy gestation time didn’t harm its marketability any and copies remain in circulation more than a century and a half later.

“But our work is not a treatise on medicine-and we must not frighten our readers, nor must

we commit the worst of offences in this wide-awake age by becoming prosy,” writes Price in the introduction. “Our object, then, in this volume is to give a correct and reliable Manual on the "Art of Self Defense", not founded on 'obsolete' rules of a by-gone age, but on the practical results of our own experience and observation, and we trust, with a clearness and precision that will render it invaluable to the pupil and interesting to the amateur and general reader. We also give such hints on training as will be useful to all persons engaged in sedentary pursuits.”

 

Writing became another major facet of his life.  Through his legal career, he became involved in some of the biggest cases in New York towards the end of the 19^th century. Most famously, he represented James T. Holland, a Texan accused of murdering a man named Tom Davis who had tried to dupe him out of money in 1885. Davis was a sawdust operator, a type of street hustler common to the era who would fool naïve new arrivals in the city into parting with money under false pretenses. When he tried to take $500 from Holland, the Texan shot him dead.

Having got his man acquitted in a sensational case that gripped America, Price, who had also done some acting from to time, turned the material into a play called “In the Tenderloin”, the title referring to the crime-ridden part of New York  where so many of the lawyer’s clientele operated. The work authentically captured the underbelly of the city, at least in part because he hired actual crooks like George Appo, the most legendary pickpocket of the age and a man as infamous as any mobster today, to act in the play.

This work was a smash hit which toured the country afterwards and Price went on to write a dozen more plays. He was among a wave of writers who brought the criminal and seedy underworld of New York onto the hitherto polite stage for the first time, producing works where the bad guys were often portrayed as heroic and admirable figures.  His creativity was helped by the fact he was on first names with the likes of Billy McGlory, Matilda Hermann, and Tom Gould, colourful characters who ran the brothels and the shebeens and the casinos, often in cahoots with the NYPD.

Price also knew corruption from both sides and his involvement in the legendary Tammany Hall political machine offered him one more insight into the city’s diorama. With an eye on the box office, he cast John L. Sullivan, the undisputed champion of the bareknuckle age and the most famous athlete of the time, in two of his major works, “The Man from Boston” and “The True American”.

Although he had never boxed competitively again after the draw with Coburn, that aspect of his life still drew attention more than half a century later. On January 30, 1907, somebody in his law office had unearthed a newspaper clipping referring to his time as one of the most famous fighters in America.

“Fifty years ago, I could whip any man alive,” said Price, tears streaming down his face as he read the report, “and look at me now, I can hardly walk without assistance.”

He died the next day.

The legend of Ned Price - boxer, lawyer, playwright

At a charity benefit for ex-boxers in a theatre in Newark, New Jersey in 1850, the master of ceremonies was struggling to find members of the public willing to get in the ring to spar with a gigantic African-American fighter named Molyneux. There was reluctance because every individual who had already braved the ropes ended up receiving a severe beating. Eventually, a man with an English accent stepped forward. The crowd oohed and aahed in anticipation of what a whipping this poor, unassuming volunteer might receive in this spectacle. They weren’t to know that this diffident character had once been a promising young middleweight back in London

“Don’t worry boy,” whispered the giant. “I won’t hurt you.”

The Englishman didn’t reply. He just smiled.

Two minutes of swift and dramatic combat later, the giant was flat on his back and the crowd were cheering for the unlikely hero, the fistic David who had put down the Goliath. Even though he didn’t know it then, 21 year old Ned Price had just taken the first steps in his professional boxing career….

More than half a century later, Price took ill suddenly at his law offices on Centre Street in Manhattan. As colleagues bundled him into a cab to take him to hospital, he died. When word reached Chinatown of his passing, locals quickly gathered on the street corners in large groups, animatedly discussing the news and weeping openly for the Englishman they loved as “Mleester Plice”.

“How many cases have I tried for you over the past 25 years, Tom?” asked Price of a Chinese friend one time.

“More than 1200,” replied Tom Lee, the unofficial mayor of Chinatown.

“And how many have I lost?” asked Price.

“Not a one,” answered his friend.

Although nobody knows if his win-loss record was really that pristine, there’s no question that the Chinese community in New York went into mourning at his passing.  Little wonder they did. They knew they had lost their own personal “human rights” lawyer, somebody willing to fight their corner in every court in the city, handling cases ranging from petty offences to criminal conspiracy on their behalf.

Between those two landmark events, Price led the most extraordinary life. He was a bricklayer by trade, a bareknuckle boxer by profession, a henchman for politicians in Civil War America, a lawyer immersed in Chinese American affairs, and a playwright whose work sold out theatres on Broadway and all across America. He also wrote one of the first training manuals for fighters, a book extant copies of which change hands for hundreds of dollars today. A forgotten figure in 19^th century British sporting history, an Englishman who made a huge impact in America, Price never married and left behind a fortune worth nearly half a million dollars.

Born in Islington, North London in 1829, he began his travels when he accompanied his father George, a Welsh contractor, to northern France where the elder Price had signed on to build a section of the new railroad. There, Ned apprenticed as a bricklayer and also began picking up the various languages spoken by the other workers on the project. By the time, he arrived in America, he was reputedly fluent in French and Italian, linguistic skills that would come in handy in his new country, a place teeming with newly-arrived immigrants.

Following his boxing cameo in Newark, Price began training full-time and was soon getting into the ring with some of the biggest names of the bareknuckle era. However, the fight which would earn him a footnote in boxing history also proved to be his last competitive bout. On May 1^st, 1856, he took on Joe Coburn from Ireland at Spy Pond outside Boston for the middleweight championship of America.

Although some eyewitnesses alleged referee Louis Bleral declared that contest a controversial draw to save himself the large sum he’d wagered on the outcome, all present testified that they received value for money.  Coburn and Price traded punches for, depending on which account you believe, 106 or 160 rounds. The placement of the zero scarcely matters. Either number captures the spirit of the time and the nature of the combat.

After a nearly four-hour epic that would go down in fistic lore, Price was so disgusted by the officiating and what he perceived as obvious corruption that he walked away from the ring. Using his flair for languages, he became an interpreter for the United States Circuit Court in Boston. There, he became embroiled in Democratic politics, and in 1860, he accompanied Benjamin Butler, a prominent Massachusetts legislator, to the Rump Convention where his job was to ensure his man came to no physical harm. He did this successfully and later moved on to Washington where he worked security at a hotel during the Civil War and studied law.

At the end of the war, he was called to the bar and the first client he took on was an African-American. That set the tone for a legal career which took him back to New York and into the service of those in that city whose ethnicity, as much as their criminal activity, often attracted undue attention from law and order. In a turbulent and violent era made famous in the movie “Gangs of New York”, Price was an outsized character whose reputation was that of a man capable of using his mouth or his fists to settle an argument, depending on whether he was inside or outside the courtroom. When either of those options failed to do the job, bribery was another tactic Price and able lieutenants like Tom Lee were liable to use to get defendants off the hook.

His legend as a man not to be trifled with had been amplified by the fact that in 1867, he’d written “The Science of Self-Defence – A Treatise on Sparring and Wrestling”, a book that was, for the longest time, regarded as the definite coaching manual for those interested in wrestling and bare-knuckle boxing. Price began writing the book in 1860 but was interrupted by the outbreak of the war. The lengthy gestation time didn’t harm its marketability any and copies remain in circulation more than a century and a half later.

“But our work is not a treatise on medicine-and we must not frighten our readers, nor must

we commit the worst of offences in this wide-awake age by becoming prosy,” writes Price in the introduction. “Our object, then, in this volume is to give a correct and reliable Manual on the "Art of Self Defense", not founded on 'obsolete' rules of a by-gone age, but on the practical results of our own experience and observation, and we trust, with a clearness and precision that will render it invaluable to the pupil and interesting to the amateur and general reader. We also give such hints on training as will be useful to all persons engaged in sedentary pursuits.”

 

Writing became another major facet of his life.  Through his legal career, he became involved in some of the biggest cases in New York towards the end of the 19^th century. Most famously, he represented James T. Holland, a Texan accused of murdering a man named Tom Davis who had tried to dupe him out of money in 1885. Davis was a sawdust operator, a type of street hustler common to the era who would fool naïve new arrivals in the city into parting with money under false pretenses. When he tried to take $500 from Holland, the Texan shot him dead.

Having got his man acquitted in a sensational case that gripped America, Price, who had also done some acting from to time, turned the material into a play called “In the Tenderloin”, the title referring to the crime-ridden part of New York  where so many of the lawyer’s clientele operated. The work authentically captured the underbelly of the city, at least in part because he hired actual crooks like George Appo, the most legendary pickpocket of the age and a man as infamous as any mobster today, to act in the play.

This work was a smash hit which toured the country afterwards and Price went on to write a dozen more plays. He was among a wave of writers who brought the criminal and seedy underworld of New York onto the hitherto polite stage for the first time, producing works where the bad guys were often portrayed as heroic and admirable figures.  His creativity was helped by the fact he was on first names with the likes of Billy McGlory, Matilda Hermann, and Tom Gould, colourful characters who ran the brothels and the shebeens and the casinos, often in cahoots with the NYPD.

Price also knew corruption from both sides and his involvement in the legendary Tammany Hall political machine offered him one more insight into the city’s diorama. With an eye on the box office, he cast John L. Sullivan, the undisputed champion of the bareknuckle age and the most famous athlete of the time, in two of his major works, “The Man from Boston” and “The True American”.

Although he had never boxed competitively again after the draw with Coburn, that aspect of his life still drew attention more than half a century later. On January 30, 1907, somebody in his law office had unearthed a newspaper clipping referring to his time as one of the most famous fighters in America.

“Fifty years ago, I could whip any man alive,” said Price, tears streaming down his face as he read the report, “and look at me now, I can hardly walk without assistance.”

He died the next day.

The Apollo of the Box

A gifted skater, boxer and musician, his legion of fans in baseball knew him as either "The Apollo of the Box" or "The Count".  The Sporting News preferred to describe him as an intolerant racist and "a man of the most sordid nature". A canny promoter in Louisville witnessed the effect his good looks had on women and used him to introduce the revolutionary notion of a Ladies Day at the stadium. In the divorce court, his wife admitted to hitting him with a potato roller only after he had already cut her with a knife and smashed a water jug over her head. For a sober individual who never smoke or drank, Tony Mullane cut quite a dash.

At the age of five, his parents Dennis and Elizabeth brought him away from their native Cork to live in the new world, and eight decades later, his death after illness would be marked by obituaries in the New York Times and the Chicago Daily News . Between 1881 and 1894, he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball's major leagues, winning a total of 285 games, a figure that still ranks him among the top 25 players in that position of all time. Last Thursday, however, marked the 120th anniversary of the day Mullane became the first player to pitch both right and left-handed in the same game, a feat so remarkable that only three others have ever managed it.

Although remembered most for his ambidexterity, his turbulent career teemed with incident. Once he realised how good he was, he began demanding a salary commensurate with his talent. A bold request at a time when players were bound to a team until the team decided otherwise by an oppressive device known as the 'reserve clause', the Corkman was the ultimate contract rebel.

After two immense seasons with the St. Louis Browns, he tried to move across town to the St. Louis Maroons for more money. When the Browns' owner sneakily lured him back by stumping up the cash before then forcibly transferring him to a lesser club, Mullane signed for the Cincinnati Reds instead, and suffered a one year suspension from the game for his temerity.

"The flamboyant Mullane scrambled from club to club in pursuit of higher pay, but clearly he was worth it," writes William Curran, in Strikeout: A celebration of the art of pitching. "He should easily have reached 300 career wins had the American Association not suspended him at the height of his career for jumping his contract. All the same, The Count's frequent moves fetched him salaries many times what a good position player commanded in that era. It is suspected that in his best years Tony received under-the-table bonuses as well. Mullane's career illustrates that, even as early as the 1880s, a proven winner could almost write his own contract although few other hurlers seemed bold enough to press their advantage."

At one point, Mullane was drawing down $5,000 a year, more than six times the average wage in the sport. He was worth every penny. Apart from being the most formidable pitcher of the age - his physical strength befitting somebody who spent his teenage years fighting in the bareknuckle boxing rings of Pennsylvania - he could fill in competently at every other position on the field. If that was a truly noteworthy gift in a game where players specialise in one position from an early age, Mullane was a highly unpopular figure among contemporaries. Despite lavish earnings, his lust for more caused him to sit out another half a season late in his career as a protest against league-wide pay cuts. Then there was the matter of his unreconstructed racism.

"Moses Fleetwood Walker was the best catcher I ever worked with, but I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him, I used to pitch anything I wanted without looking for the signals," wrote Mullane of Walker, his former team-mate with the Toledo Blue Stockings. "One day he signalled me for a curve ball and I shot a fast ball at him. He caught it and walked down to me. He said: 'I'll catch you without signals but I won't catch you if you are going to cross me when I give you signals.' And all the rest of the season he caught me and caught anything I threw. I pitched without him knowing what was coming."

Once his pitching power faded, Mullane worked a couple of seasons as a professional baseball umpire before serving as a Chicago policeman until retiring at the age of 65. Even though his obituaries twenty years later contained no mention of his prejudices, they hurt him later. Baseball's Veterans Committee placed him on a list of 200 former players who were considered for entry to the sport's distinguished Hall of Fame back in 2002. His gaudy career statistics made him look like a posthumous shoe-in but the rules expressly state that voters must consider a person's character and integrity as much as their playing ability.

And once they did that, he had no chance.

The Apollo of the Box

A gifted skater, boxer and musician, his legion of fans in baseball knew him as either "The Apollo of the Box" or "The Count".  The Sporting News preferred to describe him as an intolerant racist and "a man of the most sordid nature". A canny promoter in Louisville witnessed the effect his good looks had on women and used him to introduce the revolutionary notion of a Ladies Day at the stadium. In the divorce court, his wife admitted to hitting him with a potato roller only after he had already cut her with a knife and smashed a water jug over her head. For a sober individual who never smoke or drank, Tony Mullane cut quite a dash.

At the age of five, his parents Dennis and Elizabeth brought him away from their native Cork to live in the new world, and eight decades later, his death after illness would be marked by obituaries in the New York Times and the Chicago Daily News . Between 1881 and 1894, he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball's major leagues, winning a total of 285 games, a figure that still ranks him among the top 25 players in that position of all time. Last Thursday, however, marked the 120th anniversary of the day Mullane became the first player to pitch both right and left-handed in the same game, a feat so remarkable that only three others have ever managed it.

Although remembered most for his ambidexterity, his turbulent career teemed with incident. Once he realised how good he was, he began demanding a salary commensurate with his talent. A bold request at a time when players were bound to a team until the team decided otherwise by an oppressive device known as the 'reserve clause', the Corkman was the ultimate contract rebel.

After two immense seasons with the St. Louis Browns, he tried to move across town to the St. Louis Maroons for more money. When the Browns' owner sneakily lured him back by stumping up the cash before then forcibly transferring him to a lesser club, Mullane signed for the Cincinnati Reds instead, and suffered a one year suspension from the game for his temerity.

"The flamboyant Mullane scrambled from club to club in pursuit of higher pay, but clearly he was worth it," writes William Curran, in Strikeout: A celebration of the art of pitching. "He should easily have reached 300 career wins had the American Association not suspended him at the height of his career for jumping his contract. All the same, The Count's frequent moves fetched him salaries many times what a good position player commanded in that era. It is suspected that in his best years Tony received under-the-table bonuses as well. Mullane's career illustrates that, even as early as the 1880s, a proven winner could almost write his own contract although few other hurlers seemed bold enough to press their advantage."

At one point, Mullane was drawing down $5,000 a year, more than six times the average wage in the sport. He was worth every penny. Apart from being the most formidable pitcher of the age - his physical strength befitting somebody who spent his teenage years fighting in the bareknuckle boxing rings of Pennsylvania - he could fill in competently at every other position on the field. If that was a truly noteworthy gift in a game where players specialise in one position from an early age, Mullane was a highly unpopular figure among contemporaries. Despite lavish earnings, his lust for more caused him to sit out another half a season late in his career as a protest against league-wide pay cuts. Then there was the matter of his unreconstructed racism.

"Moses Fleetwood Walker was the best catcher I ever worked with, but I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him, I used to pitch anything I wanted without looking for the signals," wrote Mullane of Walker, his former team-mate with the Toledo Blue Stockings. "One day he signalled me for a curve ball and I shot a fast ball at him. He caught it and walked down to me. He said: 'I'll catch you without signals but I won't catch you if you are going to cross me when I give you signals.' And all the rest of the season he caught me and caught anything I threw. I pitched without him knowing what was coming."

Once his pitching power faded, Mullane worked a couple of seasons as a professional baseball umpire before serving as a Chicago policeman until retiring at the age of 65. Even though his obituaries twenty years later contained no mention of his prejudices, they hurt him later. Baseball's Veterans Committee placed him on a list of 200 former players who were considered for entry to the sport's distinguished Hall of Fame back in 2002. His gaudy career statistics made him look like a posthumous shoe-in but the rules expressly state that voters must consider a person's character and integrity as much as their playing ability.

And once they did that, he had no chance.

The Kerry jockey and the Queen of Music Hall

As the glamorous couple made to disembark from the White Star liner, Olympic, at the pier in New York, an immigration inspector stopped them and posed a straightforward question.

"Is this man your lawful husband?" he asked the lady while pointing at her companion.

"No, he is not my legal husband," she replied with some hesitation.

With that, the pair of them were duly marched back up the gangplank onto the ship and placed in custody. Marie Lloyd was detained for living with a man not her husband. Her travelling companion Bernard Dillon was charged with trying to bring a woman into America for immoral purposes. In October, 1913, the story made international headlines from Manhattan to London because the duo were, after a fashion, the Beckham and Posh Spice of their times. By one account, they responded by quaffing a bottle of champagne up on the promenade deck.

Once the hottest flat jockey in Britain, Dillon was a 24-year-old Kerry man who'd already lived a full life. He learned to ride at his father's stables in Caherina near Tralee where Patsy Dillon had a reputation for unorthodox teaching methods.

To prepare his children for the rigours of the sport, he placed them up on yearlings, then tied their legs together beneath the horse so that every fall yielded a violent trashing and a disincentive to repeat the experience. Whatever the cruelty aspect, it worked. By the time Bernard departed to continue his apprenticeship in England, he was following in the professional footsteps of his older brother, Joe.

For her part, Lloyd was the biggest star of the British music halls and the darling of vaudeville. Specialising in popular songs like 'Don't Dilly Dally' and 'My Old Man Said Follow the Van', she had a repertoire full of what were then perceived to be scandalous double entendres.

She met Dillon for the first time shortly after he rode Lemberg to victory in the 1910 Epsom Derby and the fact she was already married and nearly twice his age didn't stand in the way of their unlikely romance.

Rather scandalously, they soon shacked up together and, coincidence or not, Dillon had lost his license within the year. He'd been repeatedly warned about his fondness for betting by The Jockey Club and no amount of celebrity associations could save him from a ban. Indeed, his off-the-course activities may even have contributed to the authorities deciding to take away his livelihood.

Just five years after arriving in racing's big time with a triumph in the 1906 1,000 Guineas, his competitive career was all but over. Still, his stint in the limelight was really only beginning. Lloyd was a star of such wattage that her wage for the controversial trip to America where they fell foul of the moral turpitude laws was an estimated $1,500 per week. By the time she hooked up with Dillon, she'd been performing for more than a quarter of a century and was arguably the most famous entertainer in Britain. Just like her partner, however, the association didn't do her much good either. In 1912, she was mysteriously not invited to the Royal Command Performance. This slur was attributed to both her "immorality" and her pro-workers stance during an earlier Music Hall strike.

This then is the tumultuous background against which the star-crossed lovers headed off to America in the autumn of 1913. After the initial showdown at the quayside and a threat to have them immediately deported, the immigration officials eventually agreed to allow them into the country under certain conditions. Each had to pay bail of $300 and to give an undertaking to stay in separate accommodation for the duration of their trip. Before the tour ended, they were man and wife. Her second husband had died back in England and the nuptials took place at the British Consulate in Portland, Oregon in February, 1914.

This was no happy ending however. Within months, the world was at war and Dillon was serving in the British Army's Machine Gun Corps' transport depot in Grantham. By then an alcoholic, his partying tended to interfere with his military duty. When this happened, Lloyd would arrive at the facility to berate the officers involved for having the temerity to discipline her husband. Despite that capacity for outward expressions of devotion, the marriage also began to flounder. She grew as fond as he was of the bottle and together they squandered such a fortune that, eventually, her sisters had to give her the use of a house to live in.

The couple separated in 1920 by which time Dillon had become an abusive wife-beater who was also arrested and bound to the peace for assaulting his father-in-law. Two years after that, Lloyd died from exhaustion and 100,000 people lined the streets of London for her funeral, and their last chance to applaud the Queen of the Music Hall. TS Eliot even wrote a famous, poignant essay lamenting her passing.

There was no such public mourning or literary encomiums for her husband. At the time of his death in 1941, Dillon was working as the night porter at South Africa House in Trafalgar Square in London. Today's running of the 1,000 Guineas marks the 100th anniversary of his second triumph in that race aboard Electra. As fitting a time as any to remember a life less ordinary.

 

(originally published in The Sunday Tribune, May 3, 2009)