Why it took until 2011 to read about this should itself be a story. Talk about no respect.
Aside from the Jesse Owens story line in the 1936 there was the substitution of the two American Jewish runners, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller from the 100x4 relay team for Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, another black American who finished second to Owens in the 100 meter dash.
The explanation advanced for the substitution was always that Glickman and Stoller were pulled because Hitler asked the American team not to run any Jewish athletes. Apparently, in his mind, blacks winning was better than having Jews win.
Whether there is any basis to an alternate take on the episode will likely never really be known. It went that the USA team feared that the Germans hadn't yet used their best runners, and were waiting for the relay to show off their talent, thereby blowing the US out of the water, despite the US being favored before the substitution.
Thus, Owens and Metcalfe were substituted at the last minute in order to assure victory, despite not being originally scheduled to run the event, or even to have practiced baton passing, a key element, that if botched, leads to disqualification.
Because Glickman had a long broadcasting life in New York with the football Giants this part of the Owens episodes is usually told hand-in-glove with Jesse's achievements.
So, until PBS does an American Masters piece on Jesse Owens, I never knew there were two Jewish athletes removed from the relay team, for well-imagined reasons, and not until Jimmy Breslin writes about Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson do I ever hear that Jackie's older brother was a fast guy himself and took home a silver medal, 0.04 seconds behind Jesse Owens.
All you read and hear isn't all there is the read and hear.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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