User:Triplingual/Bender

Personal
Bender was nicknamed "Chief", a common nickname for baseball players of Native American descent and broadly considered a slur. For a time in his career, when signing autographs, he only signed with "Charles Bender" or "Charley Bender". Biographer Tom Swift writes that Bender "was often portrayed as a caricature and was the subject of myriad cartoons – many exhibits of narrow-mindedness. After he threw one of the most dominating games of the early years of the American League, Bender was depicted wielding a tomahawk and wearing a headdress as though he was a happy warrior."

He also faced discrimination on the field. Swift writes that taunting from the bench was common in Bender's era and that the opposition or the fans often made war whoops or yelled taunts such as "Nig!" or "Back to the reservation!" Bender usually remained calm, sometimes smiling at the insults. After an inning in which he had pitched particularly well, he might yell back, "Foreigners! Foreigners!"

Off the baseball field, Bender was one of several prominent baseball players who enjoyed trap shooting, bowling and golf. He felt that shooting in the offseason helped to train his eye and increase his self-control. He worked in sporting goods at Wanamaker's in Philadelphia during his early playing days. He opened his own store, Bender Sporting Goods, in 1914.

Bender's brother, John C. Bender, also played professional baseball. John Bender was suspended from minor league baseball for three years beginning in 1908 after he stabbed his manager, Win Clark, several times during a fight. John Bender is sometimes erroneously described as having died on a baseball field, but he died at a restaurant in 1911, not long after attempting a professional baseball comeback.