Major Taylor

by Conrad Kerber

  For an agonizing moment, Taylor fought with his swerving craft, frantically trying to keep it from crashing. With his bike teetering on the edge, Taylor staggered sideways, clinging on for dear life while simultaneously trying to decelerate. For good reason; he was on a collision course with the press and stewards’ stand lining the track. Perched high up in the boxes, scores of horrified reporters recoiled as they watched Taylor, seemingly out of control, rapidly approaching the hardwood structure beneath them. Taylor was on the verge of being maimed. Brady glared out at the main field, tamped out his cigar, then burst into a titanic tantrum.

  In an amazing display of acrobatic riding, Taylor somehow righted his bike at the last minute, shimmied back in his saddle, then scorched for the line. By then he was alone—in last place. Brady and the crowd exhaled. When Taylor finally caught up with the pack, it was too late. Owen Stevens had torn across the line in front of him with Bald by his side.

  From his seat, Brady continued seething. Acting as head race steward that day, Chairman Mott stared out through his double-barreled opera glasses. Surely aware of Brady’s presence, he knew he had to do something. He immediately called an inquiry and demanded to know who was responsible. Mott had seen the commotion and knew something was afoot, but because of the large number of riders, his view of the infraction had been impeded. He conferred with the other stewards. He then summoned several riders to the stewards’ quarters and one by one called them on the carpet.

  None of them would talk.

  Outside, the crowd stood in confusion. The ruling finally came down. Their silence had worked. Unable to prove collusion or pin the infraction on any particular rider, the race results were upheld and no fines were levied. Brady was incredulous. Down in the winner’s circle, Stevens, who was no fan of Taylor, accepted the trophy and his purse with a telling smirk. From the sidelines, Taylor watched sober-faced. He had once again lost valuable points to competitors, clearly in cahoots with one another. “The nerve of the men in doing teamwork right under the eyes of the chairman,” barked one race writer, “took the breath away from many.”

  Incensed, Brady bounded up the press box stairs to address journalists and to once again stick up for his rider. “Leave the boy alone and he will land a winner every time,” he shouted. “Think of the odds he has worked under. Of course, it is humiliating to have colored boys win,” he continued, his arms flailing, “but he does the trick honestly, and in racing parlance, there isn’t a whiter man on the track. He’s game to the core, and you never hear him complain.” Nearly everyone agreed, including his previously dubious partner, Pat Powers. “He can beat any of them in a match race,” Powers shouted, a lump of chewing tobacco swishing in the corner of his mouth, “and they know it.”

  On the train afterward, Taylor felt restless. Brady’s mood mimicked that of his rider. Each unwound in his own way. Brady no doubt soothed his anger with a bottle of wine; Taylor drank water and slept. In the midst of a trying season, both men headed north.

  They reeled into New Jersey’s Asbury Park on the morning of July 28. When the railcar door slid open and Taylor stepped out, he caught sight of an old friend surrounded by admiring fans. Though it had been five years since they had first crossed paths, he recalled the man’s features, the wide smile, the caring eyes, the towering figure, as if he’d seen him just yesterday. Waiting on the platform stood Arthur Zimmerman, the former champion of the world. Zimmerman raised his arm and offered his hand. Taylor reciprocated. They smiled at each other.

  Hardly a day had passed without Taylor harking back to that memorable day when Zimmerman had wooed him with fantastic stories of races won at tracks across the globe. Zimmerman could not have known just how momentous that brief meeting had been for Taylor or how much the kindness he displayed toward this anonymous black boy had inspired him to carry on amid pervasive racism.

  In the intervening years, Zimmerman had lost some of the jump in his legs, yet his legendary status with the American public, sportswriters, and every pro rider remained. Capitalizing on his popularity and his ability to boost attendance, Brady often invited Zimmerman to act as startman, the person who shot the pistol to begin a race. Since their last meeting at Munger’s bachelor pad, Zimmerman had been following Taylor’s rise to national prominence with great interest. Even though he was still recuperating from a near-deadly case of Mexican fever when he received word that Taylor was racing in his hometown, Zimmerman, who didn’t have a racial bone in his body, greeted him at the depot and offered up his home while he was in town.

  Familiar with the temptations pro cyclists faced—frequent invitations to late-night parties, the drinking, gambling, and womanizing—Zimmerman praised Taylor for his racing success and for abstaining from the vices that had burned out some of his competitors. Zimmerman escorted Taylor to the track as Taylor had escorted him to Munger’s home years ago.

  “I am very anxious to see you win the event this afternoon,” Zimmerman said, “and I feel sure you will, even without a suggestion from me; however I have one to offer, which aided me in my heyday, and I trust you will give it consideration.” Hours before the race, Zimmerman, who had a patriarchal quality about him, led Taylor out on the rain-soaked track where he gave him a lesson on the subtleties of winning on the Newark oval. The two men—one declining, the other rising—stood alone on the barren track and talked in the vernacular of bike racers.

  “If you can lead the field into this turn,” Zimmerman said, pointing to the backstretch halfway to the last turn, “nobody can pass you before you cross the tape. I made all my successful sprints from this identical spot.”

  Taylor marked the spot, thanked Zimmie for his sage advice, and limbered up. Watching the former world champion walk off the track, his best years behind him, Taylor must have viewed the incident as a passing of the baton. Later that afternoon, Brady and boxer Jim Corbett, his official timekeeper, wedged into the damp grandstand alongside a small and wet crowd of a couple thousand fans. Though it was a drizzly weekday race with a light purse, with Zimmerman and “Papa” Zimmerman standing by, it meant everything to Taylor.

  Zimmerman pointed his pistol skyward. The riders, surely jealous of the attention the former star had given Taylor, glanced up at Zimmerman. “No group of racing horses,” commented Taylor, “ever faced the barrier in a more nervous state.” The field broke even and stayed bunched together until midway through the one-mile open race. As he rounded the far turn, Taylor eased up, dropping into the slipstream of the main field and surveying his rivals for potential weaknesses. Rolling into view of “the spot” on the track, Taylor experienced a unique sensation. Professional cyclists claim that on certain days they are so strong it’s as if their bicycles have no chains. They feel no resistance; all things move forward effortlessly.

  For Major Taylor, this was one of those days and Zimmerman’s famous spot was upon him. At the precise mark, he channeled his surge of energy into a vicious sprint for the line. One by one, the rest of the field, trying with all their might to respond to Taylor’s move, collapsed under the strain. The first to pop off the back was Stevens, then Gardiner, followed by Cooper. The last to crack, yards before the tape, was Champion Bald.

  Taylor flew across the line in front and alone. Glowing like a child, he circled the track waving to the crowd. Zimmerman watched the crowd swarming around him, recalling his own glory days. “Our friend Birdie Munger was right about you,” Zimmerman repeated several times as he, Brady, and Corbett doffed their caps and joined the celebration on the track. “He shared the honors with Major Taylor,” wrote the Boston Globe, “the lion of the hour.”

  The victory and the resulting purse, however sparse, proved to be one of the most rewarding moments of Taylor’s life. But it meant as much to Zimmerman as it did to Taylor. “I have never seen a more happy man in my life than Arthur A. Zimmerman as he shook my hand warmly at the conclusion of the race,” Taylor remembered.

  In the end, it wasn’t the racing tip that had motivated
Taylor. It was that a man of Zimmerman’s stature cared about him, the despised black man. It would prove to be the kind of compassion that was redemptive and everlasting.

  Somewhere out on that barren New Jersey backstretch before an otherwise forgettable race, a ceremonial baton was passed. Given the racial acrimony at the time, it was a unique exchange—passing from the wavering hands of a legendary white man who had lived a life of unprecedented fame and glory into the grasp of a persecuted black man who had previously moved in obscurity.

  With that baton clenched in his hand, it was now up to Taylor to run with it—or watch it fade away.

  Chapter 10

  THE BOYS WOULD GLADLY MAKE HIM WHITE

  By the middle of 1898, William Brady believed he had greatness in his midst. It was time, he reasoned, to expand Taylor’s horizons. For race promoters, a top-flight match race could attract big crowds and equally large gate receipts. For riders, there was the potential for significant purses and increased notoriety. For Taylor, it would be time to test his mettle in something new. Beyond the profit potential, Brady had other reasons for wanting to involve Taylor in match races. In nearly every traditional race, he noticed Taylor’s true talent had been impeded by other riders. Because he hadn’t yet been allowed to soar freely, no one knew how fast Major Taylor really was.

  A lot of people were eager to find out. So Brady put out a nationwide challenge to every pro rider, including the “big four”: Eddie Bald, Arthur Gardiner, Tom Cooper, and Earl Kiser. “I will match Major Taylor with any man in America in a sprint race for any amount from $1,000 to $5,000,” he announced confidently. Under normal circumstances, riders would have jumped out of their skins for a shot at that kind of purse. Brady employed all the promotional tricks he had learned from his days managing Corbett, yet no one seemed willing to come within a locomotive’s length of Taylor. “I want to race these men,” Taylor told a reporter, “but they choose to ignore me entirely . . .”

  His rivals fired back with every conceivable excuse—too sick, too busy, maybe next week. Eddie Bald, who had just agreed to a match race against Tom Cooper for half of what Brady was offering, came right out with it, claiming that competing head to head against a black man “would affect him socially.” Many observers read right through their explanations. Previously, those losing an open race to Taylor could explain it away by claiming they were pocketed or that something beyond their control had been responsible. But in match races, or “races of truth” as they are called, little room for excuses is available to the vanquished. In Taylor’s case, none of the elite riders wanted to risk explaining to their friends and family why they lost a heavily publicized match race to a man born of an “inferior” race.

  Believing it was racism pure and simple, Brady was furious at the American circuit chasers. But there was a reason why he was known as “The Fighting Man.” After it became clear that none of the elite American riders would risk the potential shame and humiliation, he sent all the way to Wales for a tiny crumb of a man named Jimmy “Midget” Michaels, who was universally hailed as “the athletic marvel of the century.”

  Michaels was a boy-faced, twenty-two-year-old Welshmen who, even soaking wet, rarely tipped the scales at more than 105 pounds. His lithe frame would measure more than five feet but only if he stepped into his much taller wife’s high heels. Michaels was so small and looked so young, a judge had recently kicked him out of a Calaboose because the court did not allow “minors” in the local jail. Yet in 1898, a few years beyond Zimmerman’s peak, Michaels was among the most talked about, written about, and idolized athletes in the world. Along with Corbett and Zimmerman, he was also among the richest.

  His initiation into the sport had apparently been inauspicious. “His opponents,” explained Brady, “laughed out loud when they saw this pink-cheeked midget, hardly out of short pants, trotting his wheel around the track to compete with grown men. But once he was in the saddle and digging into the pedals behind his pace,” continued Brady, “he turned into a streaking wonder.”

  Unlike Taylor, Michaels avoided the regular circuit races and specialized instead on one thing—paced match races. In this popular niche in which sportswriters judged him “invincible,” Michaels had set many world speed records, incinerating everyone he had ever faced. No one, including puzzled physicians who were brought in to analyze him, could figure out where, within his diminutive body, such incredible power came from. Some wondered if it wasn’t just one giant lung. His global fame was such that before he agreed to ship overseas, he demanded a king’s ransom from Brady—a guaranteed minimum of $22,500, plus purses and promotional fees from bike and tire manufacturers. One of only a few promoters able to underwrite such a venture, Brady, with his partners, agreed to Michaels’s demands.

  The timing was right. America was utterly obsessed with speed, and any minute advance in technology or human conditioning that increased a rider’s speed captivated the public. Brady understood this well and was the man most responsible for bringing paced racing to America. In those days before reliable motorcycles, he had hired more than fifty strong “pace” riders to pilot super long bicycles built for anywhere between two to eight men. Paced racing was fast and dangerous. “Take a spill off a speeding bicycle on a hardwood track,” commented Brady years later, “and you’d be better off if you’d stopped one of Joe Louis’s punches.”

  Brady sat down with Michaels and Michaels’s agent and ironed out a deal. Brady agreed to pit Taylor against Michaels in a one-mile paced match race, even though paced match races were not part of Taylor’s normal routine. Michaels agreed, and even though he had set a world record for the one-mile, his preference was for middle distances. In mid-August, while waiting for his new Orient bicycle in Worcester, Taylor received a telegraph from Brady ordering him to get to New Jersey at once to prepare for the race. Upon arrival, Taylor worked out at Jim Corbett’s sporting center, a resort nestled in among seven acres of pine trees near the Asbury Park bike track. The Farm, as it was called, had tennis and handball courts, dumbbells, pulley weights, pools, punching bags, masseurs, and Aunt Mary, a fabulous black cook who could prepare any wholesome meals he wanted. The world-famous training grounds had become besieged with so many visitors who wanted to meet the star athletes who worked out there, Brady required them to procure a special pass signed by him.

  Though it was the ideal matchup, the match race with Michaels would have to wait until after Michaels responded to a summons to appear before one of his staunchest fans. At the White House waiting to receive him for dinner—along with Dave Shafer, James Kennedy, and William Brady—was First Lady Ida and President McKinley, who had recently given a rousing pro-wheelmen speech before a partisan group of three thousand riders. If it was like most of his meals, Midget Michaels pecked on a light salad. Kennedy, a pleasingly plump man of prime 1890’s stock, surely devoured half the White House. Brady apparently kept his Irish tongue in check for one evening.

  Upon his reentry to earth, William Brady paid a visit to the New York newsrooms to charm his old friends. The press, already fascinated with the match-up, didn’t need a lot of prodding. With their coverage, including drawings of expected luminaries (with Zimmerman being one of them), the New York Sun and the New York Journal seemed to find the topic more interesting than the Spanish-American War.

  Taylor kicked back and watched a master promoter in action. “I dare say,” he commented after having competed in hundreds of races, “no bicycle race that was ever conducted in this country ever received the amount of space in the sporting pages that this one did.”

  On August 28, thousands of fans filed into the Manhattan Beach Velodrome. The only thing keeping it from being a sellout, one editor believed, was the inevitability of another Michaels’s victory. With Taylor, the young black star, competing against Michaels, who women thought “was the cutest thing they ever saw,” the place had a feminine air about it. All the female fawning had apparently gotten to Michaels. “He made so much money and rec
eived so much adoration from the ladies,” Brady remembered in amazement, “that his head was badly turned.”

  All around the track, large sums of money changed hands, with Michaels as the favorite. Feeling surprisingly confident and flush, Brady sidelined Dave Shafer, Michaels’s manager, and offered to wager a sum seemingly equal to the cost of the Brooklyn Bridge on Taylor’s legs. “Michaels,” said Brady, “will be up against the best man in the world.” Shafer accepted the challenge with a knowing smile.

  Without the typical wind gust swirling in from the Atlantic, an unusual stillness permeated the balmy track, causing the first of several signature products to appear. Ladies cooled themselves with silk accordion fans that featured Taylor prominently in the center and nineteen white riders, their arms folded, filling in each fold.

  Defeating Jimmy Michaels would mean worldwide fame and fortune for Taylor, and everyone knew it. Tension filled the air. “I have seen enthusiastic gatherings at bike tracks all over the country,” remembered Taylor, “but I never saw one more on edge than the assembly that witnessed the final heat in this great race.”

  Out of the gate, Taylor and Michaels broke even. They remained neck and neck through the first of three laps. Right before midstretch, conserving energy for the final push, Michaels purposely faded behind Taylor, hounding him like a dachshund nipping at the heels of a speeding greyhound. Noticing the gap widening and Taylor pressing forward at a relentless pace, Michaels gunned ahead, lopping yards off Taylor’s lead with every turn of his crank. Bending around the final turn of the second lap, Michaels drew up near Taylor again. The hair-raising speed of both men was building and building, bringing the riders near exhaustion.