Chief Bender's ten commandments

Baseball’s Ten CommandmentsHave you every heard of Baseball’s Ten Commandments? Chief Bender coined them in the early 1900s.

Charles Albert “Chief” Bender pitched in the major leagues from 1903 through 1925, for a variety of teams. He was a Native American from Crow Wing County, Minnesota and his lifetime earned run average was 2.46.

He was inducted into the hall of fame in 1953 and his ten commandments were published in April of 1970, by Baseball Digest.

They are good points to teach youngsters learning the game and to remind those who have been playing for awhile.

1. Nobody ever becomes a ballplayer by walking after a ball.
2. You will never become a .300 hitter unless you take the bat off your shoulder.
3. If what you did yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.
4. Keep your head up and you may not have to keep it down.
5. When you start to slide, SLIDE. He who changes his mind my have to change a good leg for a bad one.
6. Do not alibi on bad hops. Anybody can field the good ones.
7. Always run them out. You never can tell.
8. Never quit.
9. Do not find too much fault with the umpires. You cannot expect them to be as perfect as you are.
10. A pitcher who hasn’t control hasn’t anything.The only problem is that many people credit the Ten Commandments of Baseball to Joe McCarthy, not Chief Bender. Here's an exchange on the subject:

The Ten Commandments of BaseballTen Commandments for Success in Baseball
by Joe McCarthy (1949)

Harold said...

The 10 commandments of baseball were not from Joe McCarthy...they were originally from Chief Bender.

Larry said...

The Ten Commandments of Baseball have been credited to a few different people, but most sources site McCarthy as the author. According to author Alan H. Levy in Joe McCarthy, Architect of the Yankee Dynasty (McFarland & Company, 2005), the “10 Commandments of Baseball” was composed in 1921 by then player/manager Joe McCarthy of the Louisville Colonels minor league club. McCarthy went on to an illustrious managerial career in the Majors. According to a friend of mine, JD Thorne, and author of a book on McCarthy's Commandments that is not yet published, the Commandments were printed by the Boston Globe under McCarthy's name in 1949--Thorne actually found the film image of the Globe piece and submitted it to the Baseball Hall of Fame. McCarthy's Commandments were printed by the thousand back when he originally composed them and in later years thus, there were probably many baseball people who referred them to players. McCarthy was a teaching manager and very concerned about instructing his players and the Commandments fit his style. One of McCarthy's players, Bill Zuber, who was a restaurant owner printed them up and distributed them at his restaurant in the Amana Colonies for many years.Clearly there's some evidence linking McCarthy to the sayings. I don't know if there's any evidence linking Bender to them.

So far McCarthy is winning the attribution war. A search for

"joe mccarthy" "ten commandments" baseball -heston

produces 2,880 hits, while

"chief bender" "ten commandments" baseball -heston

produces only 24 hits.

If McCarthy conceived the Ten Commandments, I have no idea how they got attributed to Bender. Perhaps one person mistakenly attributed them to Bender on the Internet and a couple dozen people have copied that citation.

On the other hand, it makes a better story if Bender conceived the Ten Commandments. And if McCarthy "borrowed" them from Bender, it would be an interesting case of intellectual theft. Let's hope someone sets the record straight someday.