Major Taylor

by Conrad Kerber

  Finally, race promoters and track owners would face similar questions. Like manufacturers, some promoters wanted nothing to do with black athletes; after all, it hadn’t worked in baseball and was beginning to unwind in horse racing. But to any promoters who had seen or read about the six-day race, the racial question should have already been answered. Fans by the tens of thousands showed up to watch an event many writers claimed was being starred by a black man. But that event was held in New York. How would he be received in less friendly cities like those in the West or South?

  For the time being at least, the desire for profit overcame possible prejudice. Taylor received an invitation to compete in the upcoming six-day race in Chicago. Since there were already rumblings of Brady becoming Taylor’s manager, the offer likely came from Brady’s group who controlled the Chicago Coliseum. But if Brady had already pondered being Taylor’s manager, it would have to wait. Shortly after the six-day race, he lost his first wife unexpectedly to Bright’s disease. Brady was grief-stricken. It would be months before he and Taylor would cross paths.

  Meanwhile, Taylor analyzed the Chicago offer. He mulled over it, then probably threw it in the garbage along with the sensationalized article claiming he had died of exhaustion at the six-day race. His stunning victory over Bald in the half-mile handicap race had defined his future. His strong suit was short-distance races.

  There would be no return to the six-day grind.

  With all the attention surrounding him, the world seemed to be spinning under Taylor’s powerful legs, slowly fixing the eyes and ears of the nation’s sporting public on him. He would handle this newfound celebrity with an unusual amount of poise for someone his age, answering inquiries in a respectful, albeit laconic fashion. “He is fairly modest,” commented one writer, “rather conservative, and not overly proud nor stuck up.”

  But in a world of finite resources, any attention given to one athlete had to mean taking away from others. For many years, the racing world had its heroes—dominant white men who had enjoyed considerable attention and wealth. These men had worked their way up the ladder slowly, earning their way to the top. Any novice trying to steal their spotlight was bound to meet with stiff resistance, especially a “lucky little black lad,” as some claimed Taylor was after Bald purportedly slipped on resin during their half-mile race.

  The six-day race had kicked off Taylor’s professional career, but that was a sideshow to the main event. The outdoor racing season had arrived; the train stood waiting.

  Chapter 8

  BLACK AND WHITE, DARKNESS AND LIGHT

  In the spring of 1897, Taylor began the near daily travel routine that would be his life for much of the next fourteen years. It was a rootless existence that would see him logging tens of thousands of miles by rail, chugging up and down the eastern half of the country, pausing in one city after another. Taylor’s goal, and that of all professional cyclists, was to win the American Sprint Championship. This championship was granted to the rider with the most points when the race season ended in the fall. Riders earned points, simply speaking, by winning races during the season. Riders earned the highest number of points by crossing the line first, followed by fewer points for second and third. The total points varied from one race to the next, but were usually 4-3-1 (a year later, in 1898, it would be 6-4-3-2-1). Events that were part of the national circuit provided riders more total points—and usually higher purses—than nonsanctioned events.

  Though there were championship trophies for differing disciplines—the half-mile, two-mile, five-mile, and the overall—the most important championship was the one-mile. Thus Taylor’s greatest strength, and indeed his main goal throughout his career, would coincide with the event that held the public’s greatest interest.

  As winter snow gave way to spring flowers, one big question loomed over Taylor. Despite his success in his first professional race, or because of it, many reporters believed that the long grind of the six-day race would “kill” his sprint. It seems to have been a common belief at the time; even his own trainers subscribed to it. Taylor set out to disprove this theory.

  It didn’t take long. In late May, he won the one-mile open at the popular Charles River Track in Boston. At the Manhattan Beach Track in early June, he won the quarter-mile race in a tight finish and was cheered wildly by the crowd. “The colored boy,” imparted one track writer, “is already making a stir.”

  But Taylor’s promising new career was sadly interrupted that June when he received word of his mother’s passing from heart disease. Though his wanderlust had kept him on the move since childhood, a strong bond had nonetheless formed between him and Saphronia. He spoke of her often, kept her abreast of his whereabouts, and sent his race winnings to her whenever he could. Beginning with his earliest days on the farm, she had, in her unique and loving way, instilled in him a strong work ethic and had taught him to be kind and considerate to others. She was responsible for his amiable and modest manners—invaluable traits that helped deflect racism and were recognized and admired by everyone he met. Her lasting legacy would forever live on in him and would soon be shared with the world. Returning to Indianapolis on a June day, Taylor joined his mourning family at her burial. Already behind his rivals, he returned to the track with a heavy heart.

  July arrived and on Taylor went to a packed house at a Providence, Rhode Island, track where he picked up a win in the one-mile open and placed second in the half-mile. Afterward, a reporter traveling with the circuit suggested the peloton put to bed any hopes they may have had about Taylor’s sprint being “killed.”

  Weeks later in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Taylor took first place and set a long-standing track record for the one-mile. In front of six thousand fans in Reading, Pennsylvania, Taylor defeated Eddie Bald, the reigning American champion, in a heated head-to-head duel, once again causing a stir with sportswriters. “His coming out will cause a ripple of surprise,” wrote one reporter. The following day at Wilkes-Barre, before a record crowd, Taylor humiliated Nat Butler, one of three famous Butler brothers, in the one-mile open race, and placed second in the half-mile. “Taylor is one of the pluckiest little fellows of his race that ever came before the public,” announced the Brooklyn Eagle. “There is no more grueling contest in modern athletics than a first-class bicycle race, and a man who shows such pluck in the terrific fight down the stretch with the acknowledged champions of the sport as Taylor has done is entitled to the admiration at least of all true sportsmen.”

  A few months into the racing season, Taylor’s presence on the nation’s tracks was already having an impact on the sport. Wherever he raced, large crowds were gathering. Though Bald still held a sizable lead in the points column, the battle between him and Taylor, who hadn’t competed in as many races because of his mother’s death, was drawing great fan interest. They were fast becoming the sports story of the year as bike racing was enjoying explosive growth. According to several sources, attendance at nearly every other sporting event including baseball, horse racing, tennis, and even yachting had been adversely affected. One very detailed report, issued at the end of 1897, stated that bicycle racing had become the most popular form of entertainment in the United States. Eight million spectators spent $3.6 million to watch 2,912 bicycle races. Promoters, led by Brady’s group, took in $1 million. In July alone, one million paying customers had passed through the turnstiles at the nation’s tracks. Thousands more massed at countless road races.

  As the 1897 season pushed into August, attendance would continue to surge and Taylor would be part of it. An important event was coming up, the most significant of his young career. Since 1880, the highlight of the racing season had been the annual convention of the League of American Wheelmen (LAW). With fans pouring in from all over the country, cities clamored to host the event, using it to showcase their cities and often sparing little expense. Boasting over four hundred miles of paved roads, Philadelphia was selected for the eighteenth annual meet scheduled for August 7 and 8.

>   From the minute they were granted the honors that winter, Philadelphia had been busy. To accommodate what race organizers believed would be enormous crowds, tens of thousands of dollars were spent extending and widening roads. An army of extra personnel had been hired to install extra ticket booths, concession stands, and a new three-lap to the mile wood track made of special pine painted olive green. Grandstand seating was increased from twelve thousand to over twenty-five thousand. In the months leading up to the event, the nation’s papers detailed every aspect of the upcoming races. Next to the World’s Fair, the annual LAW convention was considered the greatest “get” for a city—the Super Bowl of sporting events at the time.

  The outlay of the Philadelphia Wheelmen and Brady’s company, which managed the track, did not go to waste. The clanging bells of rolling cyclers began arriving at six o’clock on the morning of August 7 and did not let up until the next day. Special bicycle excursion trains, League of American Wheelmen boats, ferries, and steam and trolley lines disgorged around fifty thousand fans near Willow Grove Track. Thousands more on “century rides” pedaled in from Baltimore, Boston, New York, New Orleans, and as far away as the West Coast and Mexico. It was the largest crowd for any sporting event in American history.*

  Every railroad company flowing into Philadelphia had been strong-armed by the LAW into adding extra railcars to house thousands of bicycles free of charge. Every railroad depot, road approach, and waterway teemed with LAW staff members handing out souvenirs, medallions, and programs as fans thronged into the city. Large delegations chugged into town by special Pullman cars from Saratoga, Indianapolis, and Omaha, each armed with reasons why their city should be awarded the coveted prize the following year. Indiana even went so far as to send Supreme Court justices, along with Taylor’s former employer Harry Hearsey, to plead its case.

  By race time, Philadelphia and surrounding suburbs had become an endless undulating stream of rims and spokes and humanity festooned in knickerbockers, golf stockings, badges, and other cycling paraphernalia. Once in town, the fans found Philly decked out in all its grandeur. Every club, saloon, and hotel in the vicinity was “filled to the roof” with visitors and had been adorned with bunting in the respective colors of the visiting wheelmen. Unable to find lodging anywhere in the city, visiting salesmen had to turn around and find other cities in which to sell their goods. Several trainers had to sleep on tables and desks in overfilled hostelries. Presses broke down printing programs and papers. “The League of American Wheelmen” shouted the New York Times, “owned the town.”

  Because they could earn many times the usual points for winning at the annual convention, nearly all the top riders were present: Champion Bald, Tom Cooper, the famous Butler brothers, Arthur Gardiner, Earl Kiser, William Becker, Walter Sanger, Fred Loughead, Jay Newhouse—some four hundred from all over the nation.

  To whittle down the field to a manageable number of the best riders, a series of preliminary heats—like qualifying heats for the Indianapolis 500—were run off. Taylor won or placed high enough in each of them to qualify for the finals, a noteworthy achievement in its own right. The race handicappers, however, still viewed him as an underdog. With Bald leading in the overall standings and Taylor still a beginner, they placed Taylor as limitman, giving him a thirty-five-yard head start as they had at Madison Square Garden.

  In the final of the one-mile race, only the strongest riders in the nation remained. Taylor, “his skin covered in perspiration and shining like polished ebony,” looked up from the starting line at the mass of noisy humanity and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The grandstand and surrounding area looked as though it was one continuous spectator. Many visiting reporters couldn’t believe that a black man was actually allowed to race. “The most startling feature of the meet,” wrote the Baltimore Sun, “was the fact that a colored man competed with white men.”

  The pistol crackled in the riders’ ears. Taylor preserved his thirty-five-yard lead out of the gate and still led as the entire field veered around the backstretch. Somewhere near the last furlong, Taylor saw three riders closing on him through the corner of his eye. He could barely make out their faces; it was three of the most dominant riders in the country—Bald, Loughhead, and Cooper—all whittling away at his lead. Taylor quickly spun his head forward and gave it all he had for the final stretch. Soon the three powerhouses caught up to him. For a moment, they all bunched together in a furious forward thrust. The quartet of riders, matched pedal stroke for pedal stroke, blazed down the homestretch at a tremendous clip. Behind them, one by one, the rest of the field dissolved.

  Up in the grandstand, the immense throng roared, shaking the wooden rafters. Screaming through a megaphone at the top of his lungs, the race announcer’s voice gave way.

  For Taylor, though he was in the final scrum of riders, all was not right. Watching near the paddock area, his aquiline nose protruding out over the railing, Birdie Munger must have noticed Taylor’s rookie mistake. When competing against a field of this caliber, there was no room for error. Within yards of the finish line, in the most important race of his young career, Taylor, having spent himself too soon, faltered!

  He was close, but he wasn’t there yet. Crossing the line a whisker’s length in front of him rolled Fred Loughhead, Eddie Bald, and Tom Cooper. Taylor finished in fourth place. The crowd settled back into their seats.

  Even though he lost in the finals, Taylor’s trip to Philly had to have been gratifying. He had qualified for the finals in a major national meet and had fallen within a length of winning. With more than half a season left, a solid finish could still challenge Bald for overall honors. His every move was closely followed by an admiring press and public. “Little Taylor the colored boy,” wrote one reporter, “is surprising the whole country with his game riding.”

  It was time to celebrate. In the evening, it was “Wheelmen’s Night” and Philadelphia exploded into several gigantic bashes. The Belmonts had offered their Fairmont Park mansion for a mammoth lawn fete and bicycle-costumed dance party. Their sprawling yard and every avenue adjoining the mansion was jammed with over ten thousand elegantly dressed women and their escorts. All over town, bands blared, cigars were lit—100,000 at one party alone—and mass quantities of alcohol consumed, keeping the local magistrates busy for weeks to come. “Yes, the wheelmen owned the town,” quipped the Philadelphia Press, and “some of them seem to think they own the earth.”

  Taylor surely watched the festivities, including balloon chariots rising skyward while men in parachutes mounted on illuminated bicycles descended onto the track from thousands of feet up. Later, fireworks rose from the track synchronized to Walter Damrosch’s New York Symphony Orchestra.

  While Taylor had much to celebrate, some men were secretly gathering, plodding, discussing ways to extinguish the spotlight that was beginning to shine on him.

  Dark clouds were already gathering in the distance.

  The war between horsemen and wheelmen continued as the summer of 1897 rolled on. For centuries, before the arrival of the steel steed in the 1870s, horsemen singularly ruled the land. In the beginning, when the two sportsmen shared the same tracks, horsemen didn’t feel too threatened, thus a fairly amicable relationship formed. But once the crowds for the bike races rivaled or sometimes exceeded the horse races, the reinsmen began hatching elaborate methods of extracting revenge. By 1897, many of the bike tracks were wooden or concrete velodromes built specifically for bike racing, but a few towns still had the shared dirt or grass tracks.

  On August 20, the horsemen—relegated to late morning status—were scheduled to race before the wheelmen at the Rigby Park Track in Portland, Maine, an exceptionally fast horse track. A couple thousand fans massed to watch the little bay horse, Gazette, blow out the field. As previously agreed, the horsemen were then responsible for smoothing out the track and cleaning up any mess their beasts left behind. But following their races, the horsemen saw a huge crowd swelling for the bike races, including t
he governors of every New England state. Their anger began building. They first took their resentment out on Lee Richardson, an exceedingly popular wheelman specializing in trick riding. When Richardson was in mid-exhibition, they wittingly charged out onto the track on their horses, throwing him off balance and causing him to abandon his act early. “Horses and bicycles don’t jibe very well,” cussed one reporter. But Richardson, a real ladies’ favorite, got the ultimate masculine payback; women hovered around for hours, batting their eyelashes and snapping photos of him, all but ignoring the jockeys. “The graceful young rider has captured the hearts of the fairer sex,” raved an envious Portland Evening Express writer.

  The two warring factions came face-to-face. The horsemen apparently had angry dogs on their sides, including a little fox terrier who rode on the backs of some horses and a host of choleric bulldogs who growled at anyone who invaded their airspace. Teeth-chattering snarls, raised fists, and bitter words followed—the type that could only come from the mouths of young jockeys whose masculinity had been challenged. Reporters, hankering to see a good, old-fashioned horseman-versus-wheelman duel, bent their ear to it. “The horsemen did not take kindly to the bicycle boys,” one man wrote, “and some of the remarks that the jockeys and the pool sellers [bookmakers] passed to the riders were disgraceful.” But the horsemen, clearly overmatched by the larger wheelmen, decided to use brains in lieu of brawn. They quickly gathered their belongings, loaded up their prized horses, and hightailed it out of town—sans the track cleanup.

  Soon afterward, Taylor arrived by boat with several riders. When they lined up at the starting line, they couldn’t help but notice a few things. First, they saw a record crowd of twenty thousand raucous fans—more than one-half the entire population of Portland, Maine—occupying every seat in the grandstand. Then, they saw a track that looked like it had been used to reenact the Battle of Antietam, everywhere pocked with the hoofprints of large animals. When the traveling cycling journalists who shipped into town with the peloton saw the god-awful state of affairs, they too began carping on behalf of the riders. The track at Rigby Park they claimed, “being owned by the horsemen who have no love for the wheelmen was left in a very rough state.”