60 Feet, 6 Inches and Other Distances from Home: The Baseball Life of Mose Yellowhorse

by Fuller, Todd

• ISBN13: 9780930100766
• ISBN10: 093010076X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-01
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist

Summary

"Mose YellowHorse's 1920 fastball traveled "in the neighborhood of ninety-five miles an hour," and Todd Fuller's bio of YellowHorse is a similarly powerhouse affair. Avid and loving in the tribute it pays to this too-neglected American original, but willing to distinguish Mose the myth from the everyday Mose the man, this deeply researched and widely encompassing journey through baseball, politics, poetry, prose, stats, tribal life, and comic strip shenanigans is surely Fuller's equivalent of having all the bases loaded."-Albert Goldbarth Mose YellowHorse (1898a__1964), a Skidi Pawnee, played professional baseball for nearly a decade, most notably with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1921 and '22. Aside from his baseball achievements, YellowHorse, as a boy, traveled with and performed in Pawnee Bill's Wild West show, later served in the Army during World War I, and also appeared as a character in Chester Gould's Dick Tracy comic strip. After his death, he earned induction into both the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame and the American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame. His baseball glove remains on permanent display at the Baeball Hall of Fame and Museum. Using a structural pattern based on an old-time Pawnee Indian storytelling session, many voices and perspectives collaborate to form a multi-faceted recreation of Mose YellowHorse's life. Poetry, oral histories (from tribal elders), critical essays, letters, cartoons, photographs, and newspaper accounts are all included as a way of focusing on cross-cultural tensions. Todd Fuller teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Drake University. In 1999 he completed his Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Native American literatures from Oklahoma State University, where he researched this book for eight years, with the help of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. The author is donating half of his royalties to establish the Mose YellowHorse Higher Education Endowment.

Table of Contents

First Meetings and Introductions	13	(18)
Some Numbers	31	(33)
Memorizing Oklahoma: A Chant (in 1992) that Includes the Word First	32	(2)
A Nonlinear Chronology	34	(5)
Considering Contexts: A Moment of Pawnee	39	(6)
A Dancing Red Spine, and Other Convergences	45	(19)
Some Beginnings	64	(24)
Of All Things Winter	65	(2)
How to Read a Population Table	67	(3)
Wild West Shows & Other Histories	70	(2)
The Way Mose YellowHorse Learned How to Throw Along Black Bear Creek in Pawnee, Oklahoma, Before He Discovered the Meaning of a Fastball or Whistling	72	(2)
Something Pastoral (in 1917)	74	(3)
Stitches and Hills: (Minor League) Baseball and Pawnee, Oklahoma	77	(5)
The Big Time Begins	82	(4)
Rising Through the Ranks: From the Minors to Major Leagues-Conducting Drafts	86	(2)
Some Show	88	(23)
The Meaning of P, or What It Means to Wear #50 (for the Pittsburgh Pirates)	89	(3)
1921 & Other Numbers	92	(3)
Eight to Five	95	(7)
An Interview with Babe Adams	102
A Bean for the (Georgia) Peach: The Detroit Incident	97	(8)
A Bean for the Peach: Counting Coup	105	(3)
Picking Moments	108	(2)
Ruth Versus YellowHorse	110	(1)
Some Trouble	111	(23)
Business Is Business	112	(1)
How Many Ways an Arm Dies	113	(6)
Cartoons and Other Fantasies	119	(12)
Throat	131	(3)
Throat, or the Demise of a Former Major Leaguer	134	(1)
Some Tributes	134	(18)
Ironies Named 1947	135	(4)
Baseball Gloves and Reconciliations	139	(1)
The Softening of Hard Feelings over Thirty-five Years	140	(2)
Hunting, for YellowHorse	142	(5)
A Curveball Story	147	(1)
Ghost Dancing in January: A Transcript and Character Profile	148	(4)
Some Conclusions	152	(8)
1964: The Day 'They Demolished the Polo Grounds, or Riding off into the Sunset (on April 10)	153	(1)
Obits and Other Fibs	154	(3)
Truth Is	157	(1)
Posthumous Fastballs, Threats, and Chants	158	(2)
Afterword: An Open Letter: To the Baseball Hall of Fame Veterans' Committee	160	(3)
Bibliography	163	(2)
Publication Credits	165	(2)
About the Author	167