Ryne Duren and the Integration of Minor League Baseball

Rinold George “Ryne” Duren, one of Wisconsin’s most famous baseball pitchers, passed away at his Florida winter home on January 6, at age 81.   Born in Cazenovia, Wisconsin in 1929, Duren was not permitted to pitch while a high school student out of fear for the safety of the other players; however, he did star in the amateur adult Sauk County League, where he averaged 22 strike outs per game.

He signed a professional contract with the St. Louis Browns in 1949, and later pitched for seven different major league teams between 1954 and 1965.  He is best remembered as a star relief pitcher for the New York Yankees from 1958 to 1961.  In that role, he was instrumental in the Yankees victory over his home state Milwaukee Braves in the 1958 World Series.

Although his career statistics were fairly modest, a 27-44 won-lost record with 57 saves and a life time ERA of 3.83, Duren was well-known to baseball fans of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.  Perhaps the hardest thrower of that era and one of the first pitchers to have his fastball clocked at over 100 mph, Duren was a three-time all-star who averaged 9.6 strikeouts and 6.0 walks per nine innings for his career.

In 1958 and 1959, he was one of the best relief pitchers in major league baseball, but in most seasons, his lack of control limited his effectiveness.  In 1960, for example, he struck out an average of 12.3 batters per nine innings while holding opposing batters to a .160 batting average.  However, his lack of control, which led him to walk an average of one full batter per inning, caused his earned run average to balloon to 4.96.  Even though he pitched relatively few innings each year, he also several times ranked among league leaders in hit batsmen and wild pitches.

Although he was an accomplished pitcher for several years, Duren was best known as the original “Wild Man” relief pitcher.  (He was the prototype for the Charlie Sheen character in the movie Major League.) Although he was an athletic 6’2”, 190 lbs., Duren had extremely poor eyesight (20/200) and wore coke bottle thick eye-glasses.  He also had a severe drinking problem and frequently pitched while badly hung over and occasionally while intoxicated.  The combination of his wicked fastball, his lack of control, the coke bottle glasses, which he occasionally chose not to wear, and his well known penchant for drinking made him a very intimidating figure.

Duren’s inspirational autobiography, I Can See Clearly Now (2003), tells the story of his triumph over alcoholism in the years following his retirement from baseball.

What has not been mentioned in any of the tributes that have appeared since his death was Duren’s role in the integration of minor league baseball in the American South in the early 1950’s.  In his book  Brushing Back Jim Crow: The Integration of Minor League Baseball in the American South, historian Bruce Adelson tells several stories about Duren coming to the defense of his black teammates.

In 1955, Duren was pitching for the San Antonio Missions of the Texas League.  Even though the Texas League had been racially integrated in 1952, it still had very few black players and included several all-white teams.  Many of the league’s fans clearly resented racial integration.  That year, Shreveport Sports manager Mel McGaha regularly ordered his pitchers to throw at black batters.

According to Duren’s San Antonio teammate Willie Tasby, a black outfielder, Duren would retaliate on Tasby’s behalf by throwing 100-mph fastballs at Shreveport batters.  Apparently, Duren would sometimes take off his glasses and throw at Shreveport batters in the on-deck circle so that they would not be able to take first base when they were hit by his pitch.  Apparently, this tactic worked, and white pitchers stop throwing at Tasby.  The year before, Duren had also reportedly gone out of his way to befriend black San Antonio teammate Joe Durham who was not permitted to room or eat with his teammates in the Jim Crow South.

Playing minor league baseball in the South in the early 1950’s was no picnic for black baseball players, but the existence of sympathetic white teammates like Ryne Duren made it more bearable, and safer.

Duren spent most of his life in Wisconsin and his name appears on the Wall of Honor at Miller Park.  Hall of Famer Ryne Sandburg, born in 1959 in Spokane, Washington, during Duren’s best season, was named after Duren by his Yankee-fan father.

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Did Rock Legend Bob Dylan Steal His Name From Packer’s Legend Bob Dillon?

It is commonly known that Bob Dylan was originally Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota.  The legendary singer left Hibbing in 1959 to enroll at the University of Minnesota, and then less than a year later moved to New York where he achieved fame and fortune as a folk and later rock and roll performer.  Sometime after leaving Hibbing, he began performing under the name “Bob Dillon” or “Bob Dylan.”  There is some evidence that he initially spelled his new name “Dillon,” but changed it to “Dylan” after he arrived in Greenwich Village.  In any event, he legally changed his name to Dylan in 1962 while living in New York.

Why Zimmerman chose the name Dylan has long puzzled his biographers.  Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, Marshall Matt Dillon of TV’s iconic western Gunsmoke, and Dillon Road in Hibbing have all been suggested as possible sources.  Dylan himself has been characteristically vague and enigmatic on the name issue.

From 1952 (the year that Dylan was in the seventh grade) to 1959 (the year he enrolled as a freshman at the University of Minnesota), the Green Bay Packer defensive backfield was anchored by Bobby Dan Dillon, a 6’1”, 180 lb. native of Temple, Texas who played college football at the University of Texas.  Drafted by the Packers in the 3rd round of the 1952 NFL draft, Dillon (called Bob or Bobby) quickly moved into the starting lineup and for the next eight years was one of the few bright spots on a fairly dismal Packer team.  Dillon was a first-team all-pro on four occasions, played in four Pro Bowl games, and was named first or second team All-NFL every year after his rookie season.

There is no evidence that Bobby Zimmerman was especially interested in football or any other sports while growing up in Hibbing.  He did not play sports in high school, and while there are sports references in his later songs, they are principally to boxing and to a lesser extent, baseball.  On the other hand, there is no reason to believe that he wasn’t familiar with the sports figures of his era, at least in a general way.

I am not suggesting that Zimmerman chose the name Dylan to honor his football hero; it is more likely that he was familiar with the name (for reasons explained below) and simply liked the way it sounded.  (Of course, it could also be that the name Bobby Dan Dillon and the football player’s rural, southwestern roots appealed to the young Jewish Midwesterner who was soon to go to great lengths to project himself as a wandering troubadour from the heartland of America.)

Before the creation of the Minnesota Vikings in 1961, most northern Minnesota NFL fans followed the Green Bay Packers.  This is confirmed by former Marquette Law professor Ken Port who grew up in the area around Hibbing in the 1960’s and 70’s and who is an acquaintance of many of Dylan’s Zimmerman relatives.  According to Port, most of the older people he knew growing up had been Packer fans before 1961, and that many of them remained Packer fans after the arrival of the Vikings.

Packer games were broadcast into Minnesota on the radio each season, and from time to time on television as well.  For example, television sets in Hibbing on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1954, could be used to watch the Detroit Lions-Green Bay Packer game on the Dumont Network. (In that game, the Packers almost upset the first place Lions, before falling 28-24.)  It seems safe to say that any Packer fan is the 1950’s would have immediately recognized the name Bob Dillon

However, there was one even more direct Hibbing-Packers connection.  In the early 1950’s, the Packer held their summer training camp in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, which was not terribly far from Hibbing.  Moreover, on August 13, 1953, the Packers actually played an exhibition game in Hibbing against the New York Giants.  Given that Bobby Zimmerman was 12 years old at the time, it is hard to imagine that he would not have known about the game, and he likely would have heard the names of the top Packer players discussed.

As for the legal question in the title of this article, it is hard to believe that the football Bob Dillon would have had any legal recourse against the folk-rock legend even if Dylan did “steal” his name.  First of all, there is a general principle in property law that no one can own exclusive rights to a name.  Moreover, as I noted several years ago in an article on the landmark right of publicity case of Uhleander v. Ericksen (1970), the Minnesota law regarding the right of publicity was almost completely undeveloped prior to 1970.

However, the tort of appropriation of identity was widely recognized in 1959, and presumably existed in Minnesota.  The elements of that tort were (and are): (1) taking, (2) identification, (3) benefit to the appropriator, and (4) lack of consent.  Elements (3) and (4) would appear to have been satisfied, but elements (1) (a taking) and (2) (identification) demand that third parties recognize the identity that has been ostensibly taken and act in a manner that tangibly benefits the taker.  At a minimum, a person whose image is tortuously appropriated must be objectively identifiable; a benefit to the appropriator must accrue before a legal claim arises; and the use must be nonconsensual.  In this particular case, it seems unlikely that anyone listening to Bob Dylan sing or contemplating purchasing one of his albums was ever under the misimpression that the singer-songwriter was the Packer defensive back branching out into a new career.

On a different front, in contemporary intellectual property law, Dillon could conceivably have maintained a trademark action against Dylan.  Fans of sports law probably remember that in 1998, former basketball superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sued NFL running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar for trademark infringement.  The football playing Jabbar, originally known as Sharmon Shah, changed his name for religious reasons in 1995 while still a student at UCLA.  Although the name was spelled slightly differently and the basketball playing Jabbar had been retired since 1989, there were a number of parallels between the two men that suggested some sort of linkage.  Both had attended UCLA and both wore uniform number 33, albeit in different sports in different eras.

Nevertheless, the basketball Jabbar filed a trademark infringement action against his football counterpart, once the latter became established as a rising star in the National Football League.  The case never went to trial, but the football Jabbar conceded the issue and agreed that for commercial purposes, he would play in the NFL under a different name.  After initially playing under the name Abdul, he eventually changed his name to Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, which was apparently acceptable to Kareem.

The earlier Dillon situation was different for a number of reasons, the first of which was the “undeveloped” state of trademark law in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.  In that pre-dilution era, the primary focus of a successful trademark infringement claim was the proof of likelihood of confusion in the marketplace.

Again, it is hard to believe that anyone in 1959 or 1960 confused the two Dillons/Dylans, particularly given the dissimilar spelling of the names.  Moreover, while it is hard to believe that any knowledgeable sports fan really believed in 1996 that the 7’4” basketball legend Had actually embarked on a new, and apparently successful, career as an NFL running back at age 49 (his age during the football Jabber’s rookie year), it was true that many sports fans at the time assumed that the football Karim (who shared the same uniform number and alma mater with his basketball counterpart) was the son of Kareem Abdul Jabber (which he was not).

In contrast, no one ever suggested that they thought that Bob Dylan was Bob Dillon’s son (especially since the football Dillon was only eleven years older than the singer).

Unless Bob Dylan someday reveals where he got the idea for his name, we will be left to speculate on the matter.  For the reasons stated above, however, I think it highly likely that Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota went through adolescence already familiar with name that he would eventually adopt as his own, albeit with an altered spelling.

Professor Adam Kurland of Howard University Law School can attest to the fact that I have been making this “Bob Dylan got his name from the Packers’ Bobby Dillon” argument since the late 1980’s when we were both colleagues at Chicago-Kent, and I first learned that there had been a Bob Dillon who played for the Packers.

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Look to Your Left, Then Look to Your Right: Marquette University Law School, Fall 1919

At all most every law school founded before 1960, a story is told about a past dean who addressed incoming classes by telling them: “Look to your left and then to your right, and three years from now, only one of you will still be here.”  The softer version of the story ended “and only two of you will still be here.”

The story is probably apocryphal in its origins, although it was certainly used by later deans to emphasize the difficulty of legal study.  Today, the story is usually told to illustrate how lax legal education has become in the modern era.

To the extent that that this story reflects past reality, it is actually a commentary on how easy it was to get into most American law schools before the great surge in applications that began around 1970.  Even Harvard Law School did not reject a qualified applicant until 1939 (although it is true that Harvard had stiffer entrance requirements than most law schools in the first half of the twentieth century.)

Most law schools accepted all applicants who met their minimum entry requirements and then let the chips fall.  Those who could handle the work continued to graduation.  Those who couldn’t either flunked out or dropped out.

History does not record whether Dean Max Schoetz delivered the “look to your left” speech when he greeted the entering class at the Marquette Law School in the fall of 1919.  But if it did, and had he used the softer version of the story, his prediction would have been borne out by subsequent events.  There were 92 students enrolled in the first post-World War I day division entering class, and only 66 made it to the second year.  One of those who did not was Milwaukee native Pat O’Brien, who later became famous as a Hollywood actor (e.g., The Front Page, The Knute Rockne Story).

Whether O’Brien and the other 26 students who didn’t continue on for a second year flunked out or merely decided to pursue a different path in life is difficult to determine.  To remain eligible to continue, students had to pass more than half their courses, and 70 constituted a passing grade.

Admission requirements for the law school in 1919 were fairly modest.  Ordinarily a student had to be a high school graduate and have attended college for one year.  However, if an applicant was a high school graduate who had not yet attended college, he or she was allowed to enroll in a four-year program at the law school in which most second-year courses were taken in the college—essentially to meet the one year of college requirement.  This turned out to be a popular alternative, particularly for veterans like O’Brien who were anxious to get on with their careers.  Twenty-nine of the 66 students who entered the day program in the fall of 1919 and continued on for a second year were admitted under this option.  Students who were not high school graduates could opt to take a special examination, and if they passed it they were admitted as well.  Anyone could enroll in the four-year night program whether or not they had finished high school, and 63 individuals did.  The total first year enrollment of 155 in the fall of 1919 was the largest in the school’s history.

Under a recent change necessitated by Association of American Law School guidelines, night students were not eligible to receive a law degree from Marquette beginning with the 1919-1920 academic year, but their attendance did qualify them to take the Wisconsin bar exam.  The diploma privilege had not yet been extended to Marquette, so all its law students were required to pass the bar exam before they could begin law practice.  Wisconsin also required that applicants for admission to the bar have completed a high school course or its equivalent, and a few evening students were attending law school and high school at the same time.

Only four students in the day division and only one in the night group were listed as holding college degrees prior to beginning law school.  Most of the students, day or night, hailed from Wisconsin.  Only 11 of 92 first-year day students are listed in the Law School Bulletin as being from outside Wisconsin, and except for a single student from Montana, the others were all from the Midwest: Illinois (3), Iowa (3), Minnesota (2), and Michigan (2).  Only three of the 92 were female.

Ironically, the night division (known as the “Owls”) was geographically a slightly more diverse group.   Out-of-state students accounted for 13 percent of the night class, just ahead of the 12 percent for the day division.  While there were also students from Minnesota (2), the night class featured individual students from the more distant venues of Ohio, South Dakota, Montana, New Hampshire, Virginia, and the Philippines.  Two of the evening students were female and one, Edward Snyder, was a medical doctor.

Attrition was even higher among the ranks of the night class with only 39 of the 63 night students returning for a second year.  Among those not returning were most of the out-of-state students and Dr. Snyder.

In the aftermath of World War I, which had disrupted the vocational plans of so many American men, the law school appeared to be reluctant to impose barriers in the way of anyone who wanted to become a lawyer.  However, it did not appear to be willing to carry along students who were unable or unwilling to meet its academic standards.  It is worth remembering, however, that law school education was not a prerequisite for bar admission in Wisconsin (and most states) in the early 1920’s.  Those who left law school were free to enter apprenticeship arrangements and qualify for the bar that way.  (In fact, they could still count their unsuccessful law school year or years toward the state’s three- year “law study” requirement.)

The following is the curriculum in effect for first-year day students during the 1919-1920 academic year.  The number in parentheses is the number of hourly meetings each week for that particular course.

FALL

The Study of Cases (1)

Criminal Law (2)

Criminal Procedure (1)

Contracts I (3)

Torts I (2)

Personal Property (2)

Common Law Pleading I (1)

Natural Law (1)

Total Hours:  13

SPRING

Contracts II (3)

Torts II (2)

Common Law Pleading II (2)

Agency (2)

Equity (2)

Real Property I (1)

Natural Law II (1)

Legal Bibliography (1)

Total Hours: 14.

The Natural Law course was taught by the university president, Rev. Herbert Noonan; Personal Property and Legal Bibliography were taught by Dean Schoetz.

Each course had a written examination at the end of the term, which meant that full-time day-division students took 15 exams during their first year of law school, seven in fall and eight in the spring.  Students in the 4-year program — those who lacked prior college credits — took year-long courses in English and Argumentation in lieu of Contracts I & II, Criminal Procedure, Personal Property, Agency, and Equity.

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