Terror in the City of Champions: Murder, Baseball, and the Secret Society that Shocked Depression-era Detroit

by Tom Stanton

Overview

A New York Times Bestseller
Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year Winner in True Crime

• Selected as one of “2016’s Great Reads” by NPR
• Finalist for the 2016 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year
• An unforgettable cauldron of history, crime, race, and sports

Now in paperback comes the critically acclaimed New York Times Bestseller about a championship city haunted by a wave of racist terror. Detroit, mid-1930s was abuzz over its unrivaled sports success when gun-loving baseball fan Dayton Dean became ensnared in the nefarious Black Legion. The secretive, Klan-like group murdered enemies, flogged associates, and planned armed rebellion. The Legion boasted tens of thousands of members across the Midwest, among them politicians and prominent citizens—even, possibly, a beloved athlete. Award-winning author Tom Stanton has written a stunning tale of history, crime, and sports.

“[A] head-turning tale of the generally forgotten Black Legion terrorist group and Detroit in the 1930s.” —US News & World Report

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493030583
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/01/2017
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Tom Stanton is the author of several nonfiction books, among them the critically acclaimed memoir The Final Season and the Quill Award finalist Ty and The Babe. A longtime journalist, he teaches at the University of Detroit Mercy. Stanton co-founded and edited the suburban Detroit Voice newspapers, winning state and national press awards, including a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. He and wife Beth Bagley-Stanton live in New Baltimore, Michigan.

Table of Contents

Prologue xi

Part I Something Afoot, 1933-1934

Mickey and Dayton 3

A Friend Disappears 15

Spring in Lakeland 16

Major-General Bert 22

A Future Together 30

The Bee Is Buzzing 32

Neither Threats Nor Bribes 36

It Hurt for Days 43

The Little Stone Chapel 52

The Superstitious Schoolboy and His Gal 60

Happy Rosh Hashanah, Hank 69

Oh, Those Dean Boys 77

The Attorney down the Street 87

Part II Grand Plans, 1935

A New Year 101

Mr. Hoover, Investigate 103

Harry's Caravan 113

The Radio Priest 121

The Killing of Silas Coleman 128

Worries 135

Unwanted Attention 145

Zero Hour 153

Louis vs. Baer 159

World Champions 165

Amid the Joy, Punishment 178

The Pastor Who Said No 182

Uncle Frank 189

Come to Detroit, Lindbergh 192

Part III Joy and Terror, 1936

Cape Closed 203

City of Champions 214

Rumors 222

Poole and Pidcock 230

Secrets 236

Black Legion Hysteria 244

Frenzied Nerves 255

Dayton Dean and the Negro Reporter 257

The Captain 260

Wyoming 267

The Cover-Up 270

Epilogue 277

Acknowledgments 283

Notes 285

Bibliography 309

Index 315

About the Author 329

Editorial Reviews

(Starred Review) If you’re looking for a book that combines sports, crime, and history in one package, look no further…. For fans of books about baseball, Depression-era American History, and crime nonfiction, this book is a must-read.

Booklist

[A] head-turning tale of the generally forgotten Black Legion terrorist group and Detroit in the 1930s.

Us News and World Report

With the racist Black Legion spreading evil and the rambunctious Detroit Tigers bringing joy, Detroit’s seemingly eternal forces of darkness and light coexist in this captivating slice of American history.”
—David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story and When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi

"Today, Detroit is a shadow of its former self. This fascinating book reveals what an astonishing place it formerly was. Eight decades ago, it was a boiling cauldron of social extremism, extravagant criminality, and athletic excellence. Readers of this book have a new understanding of the city and the Thirties."
—George F. Will

From the Publisher

(Starred Review) If you’re looking for a book that combines sports, crime, and history in one package, look no further…. For fans of books about baseball, Depression-era American History, and crime nonfiction, this book is a must-read.

Booklist

Today, Detroit is a shadow of its former self. This fascinating book reveals what an astonishing place it formerly was. Eight decades ago, it was a boiling cauldron of social extremism, extravagant criminality, and athletic excellence. Readers of this book have a new understanding of the city and the Thirties.

George F. Will

★ 2016-03-17
A veteran journalist uses a variety of lenses to illuminate the dark story of the Black Legion, an association of murderous (white) domestic terrorists who briefly thrived in the upper Midwest. Stanton (Journalism/Univ. of Detroit; Ty and the Babe: Baseball's Fiercest Rivals, 2007) unfolds the history of the Legion gradually, always keeping it in the social, cultural, and economic context of the area where it was born and grew: the territory around western Lake Erie. Although the author tells us about the horrors perpetrated by the Legion (whippings, intimidations, murders), he follows other stories closely: the rise of boxer Joe Louis and the phenomenal year of 1935 for Detroit's professional athletic teams—the Tigers, Lions, and Red Wings all won championships. Stanton gives the Tigers the most attention, especially their player-manager, catcher Mickey Cochrane, a ferocious competitor who eventually crumbled into a nervous breakdown. Hank Greenberg, the first Jewish baseball star, also is often front and center. And there are cameos for a couple of future U.S. presidents (football star Gerald Ford, courted by the Lions, and Ronald Reagan, a broadcaster at the time). It's evident throughout that the author assiduously researched his project; he seems to have read every newspaper and magazine account of the events and to have walked the blood-soaked ground (he ends with a visit to a relevant cemetery). Stanton is also quite clear about the corrosive political and law enforcement corruption that enabled the Black Legion to commit their atrocities without much blowback. "Numerous city figures and their followers belonged," he writes, "including a councilman, police officers, and fire officials. Their biases spread along a spiteful scale from serious…to silly." In 1936, however, a group of diligent cops began investigating and arresting, and the whole house of cards toppled very quickly—though, as Stanton points out, many murders remain unsolved and crime scenes uninvestigated. First-rate reporting and a seminar in how to employ context in investigative and historical journalism.

Kirkus Reviews