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Editor says, what if the Kennedy Family was a role model for civic responsibility? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the March 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1911, on the Harvard University baseball pitch twenty-two year old undergraduate Joseph P. Kennedy (pictured) was taught a humiliating but necessary lesson in the rules of responsibility, fidelity and honesty that framed the public service duties of the Kennedy family throughout the twentieth century.
Joe Kennedy denied his "H"He had failed to even get himself picked to ride the bench for a single game during his senior year. And so he was forced to resort to cheating in order to gain his coveted letter in varsity baseball.
He begged his father Pat Kennedy to forcefully exert his influential position as an East Boston boss. Wardheelers paid a visit to his son's sworn enemy, the pitcher and captain of the team Charles B. "Chick" McLaughlin. Chick planned to open a movie theatre after graduation, but he was advised that he would only be granted a city license if he put Joe into the team for the final game against Yale.
In the ninth inning, and with the home team leading "Navy" four to one, he suddenly asked his coach to put Kennedy in for the final play. But the coach insisted on observing the tradition which dictated that McLaughlin as captain should get the winning ball. It was a seminal lesson in sportsmanship that in a democracy of talent, some things just cannot be bought at any price.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Joseph P. Kennedy, Harvard, Baseball, Presidency, Premature Death. Editor says, in authoring this article we explore an idea from Nellie Bly's 1996 book "The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal and Secrets". By way of explanation years later, Kennedy shamelessly exaggerated by saying that he threw out his arm in a game against Navy. The infamous incident is reported in Money, Power and Purpose as follows:
Harvard played its final game of the 1911 baseball season the day after graduation. With Harvard up 4-1 and one out to go, team captain and star pitcher Charles B. "Chick" McLaughlin called time, for a substitution at first base. A lanky redhead came off the Harvard bench. He had failed to make the team and hadn't even ridden the bench all season. The Yale batter hit a grounder and was thrown out at first; the substitute now had his coveted letter "H." McLaughlin then called over for the game winning ball. The first baseman shoved the ball in his pocket, saying, "I made the put out didn't I?" Right from the start, Joe Kennedy was hell on wheels.
~ Wonder how Kennedy would do making his big bucks under the restrictions of morality. No bear strikes on the market, no bootlegging, maybe he wouldn't have even supported Joe McCarthy. thats a good point - would a moral Joe Kennedy senior make the money to bankroll his son's presidential campaign?
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
