2023 Radio Hall of Fame Inductee Pat St. John

Pat St. John at the SXM control panel.

In Pat St. John’s senior year at Southfield High School, Pat began broadcasting from WSHJ, their ten-watt radio station. He was required by the Federal Communications Commission to get a broadcasting license. Upon graduation in 1968 at the age of seventeen, Pat was hired as an announcer on WWWW-FM in Detroit.

Young and ambitious, Pat made a demo tape and took it to CKLW-AM, a 50,000 watt station across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The station’s strong signal was a regional powerhouse reaching well beyond the Detroit/Windsor area to several adjoining states and Provinces.

CKLW-AM hired Pat in 1969 as a weekend personality and news reporter on the station’s 20/20 newscasts. He also worked as a booth announcer for CKLW TV-Channel 9. Pat left CKLW late in 1970 when he was hired at Detroit’s popular WKNR (Keener 13) until 1972, when he was lured away to join ABC’s WRIF-FM, 101.1.

Musical tastes had shifted from Top 40 pop music to album-oriented rock. In the early 1970s, FM radio began dominating AM stations because they broadcast in stereo and allowed for a wider range of music beyond the Top 40 playlists, staples of many AM stations.

Pat St. John’s ratings in the Motor City were noticed by ABC’s network brass in New York and they convinced him to leave his hometown Detroit, America’s fifth-largest media market at the time, and move to The Big Apple, the largest media market in the United States. Radio stations in New York reached 14% of American listeners. The more listeners a Dee-Jay could attract, the more money was at stake for the company’s advertising revenue.

St. John began his New York broadcasting career at WPLJ-FM in 1973 where he stayed almost fifteen years. Arbitron, radio’s consumer research service, ranked Pat the most listened-to afternoon radio personality in the country for most of the years he worked at WPLJ.

From 1987 through 1998, Pat worked at WNEW-FM in New York, both as a personality and the station’s program director for several years of his eleven year stay there. He left WNEW-FM when the station changed to a “talk radio” format. Pat was immediately approached by Sirius XM satellite radio to become their Director of Rock Programming, making him one of the first people hired by the company.

Now, Pat is one of the longest-serving employees at SXM, having worked on several of their channels from pop to rock to blues. Today, Pat can be heard live across the United States and Canada every weekday afternoon (3 pm Eastern/12 pm Pacific) and Saturday evenings (8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific) on Channel 73, 60’s Gold.

Pat continued working on New York (terrestrial) radio part-time for fun at WCBS-FM (2000-2015) while working full-time at Sirius XM. His final CBS-FM New York broadcast was on April 12, 2015, marking the end of Pat’s forty-two-year run in the New York broadcasting market, making him New York City’s longest-running on-air personality up to that time.

Pat and his wife Jan moved to San Diego, California in 2015 to be closer to their two daughters and grandchildren where he broadcasts from his home studio. Pat’s 60s Gold show begins with a six-note fanfare reminding Pat’s Great Lakes listeners of his CKLW radio roots. Then, comes his theme song “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” by Les Elgart and his Orchestra setting the stage for the show. Listeners always know from the opening that they are in for a good time.

Pat St. John’s on-air style is conversational and upbeat as he shares behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the music and performers between the music he plays. Pat has interviewed virtually everybody in the music business from Little Richard and Bo Diddley to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. He has been called “a walking, music encyclopedia."

Pat St. John with his Radio Hall of Fame Award.

With over fifty-five years in broadcasting, Pat St. John was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2023 for his lifetime of service to the industry. Not bad for a high school kid from Southfield, Michigan.

Pat St. John SXM Compilation (Six minutes)

Detroit's Historic Fort Wayne Namesake--"Mad" Anthony Wayne

Portrait of Anthony Wayne painted by Thomas Pauley

 

Throughout the Midwestern states of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan the name Mad Anthony Wayne resonates in communities far and wide. Scores of towns, cities, counties, schools, parks, hospitals, streets, and businesses have been named after this Revolutionary War general.

General Anthony Wayne led his soldiers in essentially rear guard actions harassing the British behind their lines. In several successful skirmishes with the enemy, he ordered surprise "bayonet only" attacks at night that inflicted many casualties. He was known as a courageous general--decisive and quick to act.

The legend behind the sobriquet "Mad" Anthony Wayne owes little to the general's military achievements. It has more to do with a drunk and disorderly colonist--known as Jemmy, the Rover--who the general sometimes used as a spy. A constable arrested the man who began to drop the general's name. When the general heard this, he threatened Jemmy with "twenty-nine lashes well-laid-on if this happens again."

In disbelief, the now sober Jemmy replied, "He must be mad or else he would help me. Mad Anthony, that's what he is. Mad Anthony Wayne." The story made its way around town and became a favorite among the troops. The general's nickname had a rhythm and bravado that was repeated in the ranks until it stuck.

President George Washington called Major-General Wayne out of retirement to command the newly formed Legion of the United States. Wayne established the first basic training facility to prepare  regular army recruits into professional soldiers.

Wayne mustered and trained a fighting force of 1,350 American soldiers and led them to the Northwest Territory (Ohio and Michigan) where they won a decisive victory against British forces and the Indian Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, just south of modern-day Toledo, Ohio. The war ended and Major-General Wayne negotiated the Treaty of Greenville between the tribal confederacy and the United States signed on August 3, 1795.

While returning to Pennsylvania after the conflict, Wayne died from complications of gout on December 15, 1796. He was buried at Fort Presque Isle. His body was disinterred in 1809 at the request of his family to be buried in a family plot. His bones make the journey to Radnor, Pennsylvania in saddlebags. For that grisly bit of history, consult the link below.

***

Aerial View of Old Fort Wayne.

The star-shaped fort in Detroit, Michigan--which bears Anthony Wayne's name--began construction in 1842 at the Detroit River's narrowest point with Canada. Fear of a territorial war with British Canada prompted the fort's building. It was named to honor Major-General Wayne's defeat of the British at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The victory resulted in the United States occupation of the Northwest Territories. Diplomats were able to settle territorial disputes, and the war with Canada never materialized. The new fort never fired a shot.

***

Fort Wayne was first used by Michigan troops in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War. It became the primary induction center for Michigan troops for every field of American combat from the Civil War through Vietnam.

During World War II, every truck, Jeep, tank, tire, spare part, or war ordinance manufactured in Detroit went through the docks of Fort Wayne to the battlefronts. Also, Italian prisoners of war from the North Africa Campaign were housed at the fort. After Italy's surrender, Italian POWs were given the chance to return home. Many chose to settle in Detroit where there was an established Italian-American community and greater opportunities awaiting them.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Fort Wayne's grounds were open to assist and house homeless families. During the Cold War of the 1950s, Nike-Ajax missiles were installed to prepare for a nuclear war that never came. And during the Detroit riots in 1967, the fort was again used to house displaced families, the last families leaving the fort in 1971.

Today, the Detroit Recreation Department operates the fort with the help of the Historic Fort Wayne Coalition, the Friends of Fort Wayne, and the Detroit Historical Society. The grounds are the home of the Tuskegee Airmen Museum, the Great Lakes Indian Museum, and historic Civil War reenactments. Special events are held throughout the year.

Fort Wayne was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1958 and entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The State of Michigan wants to upgrade the property into a multi-use facility while maintaining the fort's historical significance. Once the new International Transport Bridge is built in old Delray, the United States customs plaza will be located near the historic site. More information on restoration plans can be found in the Detroit News link below.

*** 

Bruce Wayne--Millionaire Industrialist

While researching, I discovered that Batman's alter ego--Bruce Wayne--was named after Scottish patriot Robert Bruce and Mad Anthony Wayne. In DC Comics, Bruce Wayne is said to be General Wayne's direct descendant, and stately Wayne Manor is built on ground given to General Wayne for his Revolutionary War service.

Another little known fact is that in 1930, stunt man and young actor Marion Michael Morrison was originally given the stage name of Anthony Wayne by director Raoul Walsh. Major-General Anthony Wayne was Walsh's favorite Revolutionary War general. Fox Studios decided to change his name to John Wayne because Anthony sounded too Italian.

***

For more information on preservation plans for Historic Fort Wayne:

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2015/03/10/detroit-fort-wayne/24743635/

The story of General Anthony Wayne's exhumation may be more noteworthy than his military achievements. For more details, check out this link: http://www.americanrevolution.org/wayne.php

Detroit's Movie Maven--Bill Kennedy

Bill Kennedy at the Movies with Sir Graves Ghastly. Sir Graves would riff on his monster movies and Bill would dish on Hollywood and the movie business.

Every Baby-Boomer from Detroit and Windsor remembers who gave us our extensive Hollywood movie education--Bill Kennedy. Bill started announcing on the radio professionally in the 1930s at WWJ - The Detroit News station. His deep voice resonated over the air waves.

In 1940, he embarked on a movie career and signed a contract with Warner Brothers Studios where he worked from 1941 until 1955. Bill had the voice but not the face. He didn't emote well on screen, so he was relegated to a series of flat supporting roles. He played mainly cops, bad guys, radio announcers (no stretch for Bill), newspaper men, and swindlers. In all, Bill Kennedy has 103 film credits.

In the post World War Two era, Kennedy appeared on numerous B-Western television shows including The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, and The Gene Autry Show. Kennedy always spoke kindly of Gene Autry. Bill was over six feet tall and many of Hollywood's leading men were short and didn't like doing fight scenes with him. Gene Autry was short, but always had a job for Bill when he needed it. Autry told him once, "I like beating up bad guys on screen who are bigger than me."

Bill Kennedy playing a newscaster in a Superman episode.

What many of us in Detroit know that most people don't is Bill's was the voice behind the opening credits of  The Adventures of Superman--one of the most iconic introductions in television history. Bill received a one-time check for $350. He regretted not asking for screen credit which might have benefited his career. The show has been continuously running in syndication since 1952. A link to the Superman program opening is below.

In 1956, Bill Kennedy returned to the Detroit area to host an afternoon movie program called Bill Kennedy's Showtime, for CKLW-TV across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario. The show became a big hit. Bill talked about his jaded experiences in Hollywood's heyday and how he worked with many of the top stars. His deadpan delivery and sarcastic wit won the loyalty of viewers. He had an avuncular, self-deprecating manner--especially if talking about a film he was in. If the movie was bad, he would tell his audience.

The show opened with a tight shot on a picture of a woman smoking a cigarette with Bill's theme song Just in Time playing in the background. The photograph was from a magazine. I can see the model in my mind's eye with her elbows on a table and a smoldering cigarette in her right hand. Bill chose Just In Time for his theme song because his professional life was at a low point when he got the job with CKLW.

Bill wearing a hat to cover up his hair transplant surgery.

In 1969, Bill took his show to WKBD which broadcast out of Southfield, Michigan. The show remained essentially the same with a title change to Bill Kennedy at the Movies. Bill would interview celebrities when they were in Detroit and he took on-air phone calls which were sometimes more interesting than the movies. I enjoyed the live TV commercial pitches of Abe Schroe for his furniture upholstery business.

Abe and Bill always had lively repartee like they knew each other well outside of work. These two got along so well on air that it strikes me Bill was probably part-owner or an investor in Artistic Upholstery. Bill would take a break and Abe would go into his pitch. Nobody else made live commercials on Bill's show--not Ollie Fretter--not even Mr. Belvedere (Detroit inside joke).

In 1983, Bill retired to Palm Beach, Florida. He died of emphysema on January 27, 1997, at the age of eighty-eight. Rest in peace "young, old-timer."

The Adventures of Superman introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2l4bz1FT8U

Bill Kennedy's theme song Just In Time by Frank Sinatra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIcQ26arWAs

Hissoner Detroit Mayor Coleman Young

Coleman Young's identity, life, and career were closely intertwined with issues pertaining to the African American community in Detroit and the nation. As the city's chief executive officer for five full terms, more than any other Detroit mayor, Young served the city he loved for twenty years. 

Throughout his political career, the White establishment, representing suburban interests and their media mouthpieces, viewed Coleman Young's ascendency to Detroit's mayor as a social trespass upon their political turf. But the demographics of the city were favorable for Young's election.

The phenomonon known as White flight decimated the city's population and tax base leaving crippling poverty in its wake. White flight redefined the city, first with the G.I. Bill for World War II veterans who moved to the suburbs, and after 1967 when Detroit experienced one of the worst race riots in the history of the United States.

Both of these demographic shifts happened years before Young was elected mayor in 1974. Factor in the virtual collapse of the city's main employer, the automobile industry, due to the oil crisis in the Middle East. This was the situation Mayor Young faced as he entered office and soon became defined by every urban social problem Detroit was heir to. He was the man in the moment.

***

Coleman Young began his boyhood in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on May 24, 1918. His father William Coleman Young was a barber who sold a Black newspaper out of his shop. For this, the local KKK began a harrassment campaign prompting him and his growing family in 1924 to become part of what history notes as the Great Migration to the North in search of jobs in the automobile factories and steel mills. Impoverished Southerners, Black and White, poured into Detroit. The men competed for unskilled jobs on the assembly lines, steel mills, and iron foundries, while the women found work in the domestic services industry.

Coleman was five years old when his family moved to Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood on Antietam Street between St. Aubin and the railroad tracks. He was the oldest of five children born to Ida Reese Young. As Coleman Young details in his autobiography Hard Stuff, he graduated from Eastern High School in 1935 during the depths of the Depression. To help support his family, he hustled to earn money doing small jobs. He recycled glass bottles, swept floors, delivered packages, and answered phones for Dr. Ossian Sweet.

Eventually, Young was hired as an autoworker for the Ford Motor Company. It was there where he joined the United Automobile Workers of America. After being fired from Fords for fighting, he went to work for the United States Postal Service before entering the service during World War II.

"My political consciousness was awakened at the neighborhood barber shop in Black Bottom where I shined shoes," Young wrote. "Local radicals educated me with dialogue that offered nothing about passivity or surrender but much about unity. As both a means and an end, unity has driven virtually every pursuit of my public life."

The two-chair, barber shop was owned and operated by Haywood Maben, "a self-educated Marxist and (political) pontificator." He and his customers would argue about trade unionism, dialectical materialism, and unity between the races which made for provocative conversation. Maben's barbershop was a left-wing caucus in the afternoon; at night, political meetings were held behind drawn curtains. 

These meetings did not go unnoticed by the FBI, which recorded names of participants and labeled them Communist sympathizers and socialists. Coleman Young's name was included on that list leading to the opening of a confidential dossier on him which followed him through his adult life. Time and again, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI interfered with Young's ability to hold onto a decent job or get fair treatment in the Army Air Corp. All it took was a well-placed phone call or a letter from the FBI and Young's opportunities vanished into thin air.

***

With the end of World War II, Detroit was on a collision course with history. The post-war economy began shrinking rapidly as government military contracts expired. The Arsenal of Democracy scrambled to transition back to a peacetime economy. Nowhere was this felt more than in Detroit. To compound Detroit's economic woes, the G.I. Bill and the Veterans' Administration provided low-cost, zero percent down home loans that sparked a dramatic exit from the city which became known as White flight, further devastating the city's population and tax base. 

Then came a gut punch which sealed Black Detroit's fate. President Eisenhower pushed for an Interstate Highway System based on the Autobaun, which he had seen in Germany at war's end. His primary argument for such a highway was it allowed the military to deploy personnel and equipment quickly to virtually anywhere in the country on expressways. In Detroit, local politicians saw this as an opportunity to clear out the depressed Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal.

The Black population regarded the construction of I-375 as little more than Negro removal. Local politicians gave no regard to the people who would be displaced or the impact it was destined to have on the city. Impoverished Black residents were forced into other underfacilitated, overpopulated, segregated areas within Detroit. In short, a powder keg of human misery was created waiting only for a spark to ignite and engulf the area. Up to this point, Detroit's African American community had little or no political influence.

Although not the first American urban area in the 1960s to erupt in civil unrest, the Detroit Riot/Rebellion began on July 23, 1967. It became the most devasting race riot of the era. President Lyndon B. Johnson sanctioned a federal investigation in 1968 into its causes and of other urban civil disorders called The Kerner Commission. 

The Commission determined after an exhaustive study that the rioting in Detroit was a response to decades of "persausive discrimination and segregation." The siege mentality of the mostly White, aggressive, and combative Detroit Police Department was singled out in particular.

After the week-long rebellion, Detroit public opinion polls revealed that 75% of White respondents believed the rioting was caused by radicals guided by a foreign conspiracy to overthrow the American government and our way of life--specifically, Pinko Commies and Black Panthers. 

Conservative politicans disputed that the blame fell on White institutions or White society and took no ownership of the issue. Most White people were dismissive and believed that the rioters were criminals who were "let off the hook" by bleeding-heart liberals.

Refuting that popularly held suburban belief, the Kerner Commission determined that the insurrection was a revolt of underprivileged, overcrowded, and irritable citizens. During a blistering heatwave, they reacted against a provocative police raid that provided the spark igniting the week-long rebellion.

The Commission concluded that the root cause of the violence was institutional racism. American society in general is "deeply implicated in the ghetto," the report read. "White society created it. White society maintained it. And White society condoned it."

Ironically, President Johnson, who initiated the study, was unhappy with the result because the Commission's recommendations were all budget busters with no chance of passage in the United States Congress. Johnson was also a man from the South and knew there would be political repercussions if he threw the weight of the presidency behind the Committee's recommendations.

As cruel fate would have it, one month after the Kerner Report was published, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated while standing on the Lorraine Motel balcony by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee. America's best hope for pulling our nation out of this racial quagmire was cut down in his prime. Grief and anger broke out across the land and demonstrations occured in over one hundred American cities. The Kerner Report was back-shelved and conveniently forgotten.

In Detroit, a new wave of White flight made Detroit the Blackest city in the United States. African Americans were now in the political majority.The stage was set for a new generation of Black leaders who would struggle to lift Detroit out of its death spiral. The most visible among them--Coleman Young Jr.

***

Young began his political career coming from the left-wing branch of the American labor movement. He became a respresentative for the Public Workers Union and devoted himself to full-time union organizing. By 1946, Young won a leadership role as a director within the larger Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). His election to the position was a major victory for the Black community, and he instantly became a spokesperson for Blacks across Detroit.

Earning a reputation as a devoted and hard-working labor organizer in the 1950s, Young was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1960. He helped draft a new state constitution for Michigan, which in turn led him to run for State Senator in 1964, a position he held for ten years making a name for himself as an effective legislator.

In 1970, Wayne County Sheriff Roman Gribbs became mayor of the City of Detroit running on a law and order platform. Gribbs hired former New York Police Commissioner John Nichols. Together, they created a special police unit named STRESS, an acronym for Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets, to apprehend street thugs and patrol in primarily minority-isolated neighborhoods. The group became simply known as The Big Four by the city's Black residents. The special unit soon devolved into what amounted to agents of urban terror.

STRESS Police Unit

STRESS police cruisers consisted of a driver and three burly, usually White, plainclothed police detectives. The department had several such units. In less than three years, twenty-two Detroit citizens (twenty-one of them Black) were shot to death, hundreds of illegal arrests were made, and an estimated 400 warrantless police raids were conducted. Rather than protect the citizenry, The Big Four terrorized the city's Black residents.

In 1973, Roman Gribbs stepped down as mayor after a single term in office, throwing his support behind his police commissioner John Nichols, who ran on a law and order platform. Coleman Young saw this as an opportunity to leave the Michigan senate and run for Detroit mayor.  

Young campaigned against the abuses of the Detroit Police Department which Black residents identified as their number one issue. He also ran on a platform of reconstructing the inner city, creating sorely needed jobs for city residents, and hiring city employees to reflect a 50/50 racial balance.

 

On election day there were no surprises. In this hard fought election, White precincts voted for Police Commissioner Nichols, and Black precincts voted for Coleman Young Jr., making Young Detroit's first Black mayor by earning 52% of the vote to John Nichols' 48%.

In his inaugral speech, Young urged unity between the races, White and Black, the rich and poor, and the suburbs and the city. He also spoke about restoring law and order.

Young addressed Detroit's criminal element directly, "Dope pushers, rip-off artists, and muggers, it is time for you to leave Detroit. Hit Eight Mile Road. I don't give a damn if you're Black or White, or if you wear Superfly suits or blue uniforms with silver badges. Hit the road!" 

While Mayor Coleman Young's "New Sheriff in Town" speech resonated with many city residents, The White political establishment extrapulated it as an invitation for Detroit's Black criminals to prey upon the affluent White surburbs. The opposition's fear mongering was echoed and amplified by Detroit's media outlets. And thus, Coleman Young's new administration began.

Young's first political act was to disband the police STRESS units and move toward a community policing approach with mini stations located around the city. He also made good on his promise to hire more Black policemen. The percentage of Black officers went from 10% to 50% during his administration. The net effect was the reduction of police brutality complaints against the department by over 35%, improving police relations within Detroit's neighborhoods.

The nationwide recession of the mid-1970s hit Detroiters especially hard. Unemployment was at 25% increasing costs for public relief programs and reducing city income and property taxes. In 1974, Automobile production was at its lowest level since 1950, and the Middle Eastern oil embargo drove up inflation nationwide. 

As if German Volkswagen imports in the 1950s and 1960s were not enough of a nuisance, in the 1970s, Japanese imports caught Detroit's Big Three (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) flat-footed with an large inventory of high-cost, gas-guzzling, luxury and muscle cars gathering dust in storage lots.

To vent the frustrations of laid-off auto workers, the UAW hosted fundraisers around the city where workers, or anybody else with a few bucks, could take a sledge hammer to a Toyota Corolla for a dollar-a-whack. These displays of the area's collective blue-collar angst did nothing but provide the local media with dramatic made-for-television news moments. The sledgefests also proved how well these imports were built. Most drove off under their own power after an afternoon of pounding.

The fundamental problem rested with the automobile executives who did not take the small car trend seriously and frantically rushed to produce economical cars which were inferior to Japanese imports.

As Detroit sank deeper into financial crisis, Mayor Young's second, third, and fourth elections were focused on creating jobs for city residents. Young's mantra was "Jobs built Detroit, and only jobs will rebuild it." The automobile companies decentralized and moved much of their manufacturing to the suburbs or to the South where wages were lower. That left Detroit out in the cold. The city could no longer depend on the auto business to enrich its coffers and pay its bills. Something huge and dramatic needed to happen.

Young tossed the dice and decided that casino gambling was the answer to his city's woes, especially after Windsor, Ontario, across the Detroit River approved gambling on their waterfront. For his next three election campaigns, Young made casino-style gambling the centerpiece of his political platform, much to the dismay of his most ardent supporters, the ministerial alliance of Black churches.

Young's most strident political opponents, the suburban power elite and their media machine hammered away at Young on a daily basis in the city's major newspapers and local news programs. Each time Young promoted casino gambling, the ballot measures were soundly defeated by a 2 to 1 margin in expensive and dirty campaigns.

For Young's fifth and final campaign for mayor, he did not make casino gambling part of his political platform. It took his successor Mayor Dennis Archer to win approval for casino gambling within the city limits. 

With the State of Michigan running a daily and weekly lottery and Windsor's Caesar's Casino raking in a million dollars a week from Michigan residents, voters' attitudes about gambling softened. In 1996, the proposition narrowly passed. The creation of construction jobs, casino jobs, and vendor jobs did much to stablize Detroit's economy and help revitalize downtown.

Coleman Young decided not to run for a sixth term as mayor. His emphysema from a lifetime of smoking robbed him of his strength and energy. Twenty years serving the city he loved was enough. He fought long and hard to improve Detroit and left the city in better shape than when he entered office.

The Renaissance Center

During his tenure, the Renaissance Center was completed in 1977 creating jobs and increasing the city's tax base. The Hart Plaza, thirteen acres of people-friendly sidewalks and promenades along the bank of the Detroit River, humanized what was once a blighted area. It included an amphitheater hosting all manner of ethnic and music festivals bringing city and suburban audiences together.

Among many other large construction projects Young supported the People Mover, a light rail loop in the downtown area; Detroit Receiving Hospital; Riverfront Condominiums; and the FOX Theater restoration, looking out at what would become Comerica Park and Ford Field bringing the Tigers and the Lions downtown.

From the beginning of his political career, Coleman Young was accused by his critics of being corrupt. In a Freedom of Information Act investigation, Young discovered he had been under FBI surveillance since 1940 because of his reputed association with suspected Communists and his labor union activities. Surveillance continued through the 1980s.

After six federal investigations of his administration, Young was never indicted or charged with a crime. Claims that he was corrupt were malicious myths designed to tarnish the mayor's brass.

Young emerged from a left-leaning element but moderated his political view once in power. He allied himself closely with community leaders, business entrepreneurs, and bankers proving that rather than a socialist, Young was a devout capitalist committed to rebuilding Detroit and improving the lives of its residents. His vision for Detroit laid the foundation for much of the city's resurgence we see today.

Coleman Young Surveying His Legacy

At the age of seventy-nine, Coleman Alexander Young succumbed to lung disease on November 29, 1997. The mayor's body laid in state for two days under the Rotunda in the Hall of Ancestors at the Museum of African American History in Detroit's cultural district.

Funeral services were conducted on Friday, December 5th by Reverend Charles Butler at the New Calvary Baptist Church. Aretha Franklin sang at the ceremony with the combined chorus of Greater Grace Temple and the New Calvary Baptist Church. Coleman Young was buried in a private ceremony in Elmwood Cemetery where many of Detroit's distinguished citizens are interred.

Background on Casino Gambling in Detroit

Early Detroit Tiger History

Charlie Bennett

 

Prior to 1894, the Detroit Tigers played minor league baseball and were one of the founding members of the West League that played throughout the Great Lakes states. Owner George Vandereck choose the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Boulevards as their home field. Previously, the vacant lot was used as a local hay market for farmers and livestock owners. Vandereck bought the lot and built Bennett Park--named after a popular Tiger catcher Charlie Bennett--who lost his legs in a railway accident in 1894 while running on a rain-slick train platform and falling onto the tracks. Bennett's left foot and his right leg above the knee were severed as the train pulled out, ending his baseball career.

Frank "Old Stone Face" Navin

In 1901, the Tigers joined the new American League as one of its eight founding members. Samuel F. Angus bought the Tigers in 1902 and hired lawyer and baseball enthusiast Frank Joseph Navin to run the club for him. As a young man, Navin was a blackjack and poker dealer in an illegal gambling establishment. He loved horse racing and was an avid wagerer at two racetracks in Windsor, Ontario and attended the Kentucky Derby annually. In 1908, Navin parlayed $5,000 of winnings into buying a significant portion of Tiger stock.

In 1908, Navin bought another large block of shares making him controlling owner and new president of the organization. When Navin's silent business partner William Yawkey--lumber fortune heir--died in 1919, Navin bought his stock becoming full owner of the club. Because he was suddenly cash-poor, he sold 25% of the franchise to auto-body manufacturer Walter Briggs Sr. and 25% to wheel maker John Kelsey of Kelsey-Hayes Corporation. When Kelsey died, Briggs bought his interest in the team becoming an equal co-owner with Navin, but Briggs was content to allow Navin to run the team unhampered.

Frank Navin and Ty Cobb

In 1905, Navin signed legendary Tiger center fielder Ty Cobb for $1,500. The talented ballplayer led the Tigers to their first American League pennant win in 1907. Between seasons, Cobb held out for a $5,000 contract. After bitter negotiations, Navin--a tight-fisted owner--met his match. Cobb was wildly popular with the fans and threatened to expose Navin for the conniving cheapskate he was. The penny-pinching owner quickly did the math and caved-in to Cobb's demand. Cobb led the Tigers to two more consecutive American League pennants in 1908 and 1909 turning a nice profit for the team. Navin made Cobb the team's manager as well as being the team's star player.

Navin Field

Bennett Park consisted of a wooden grandstand and bleachers. It was the smallest ballpark in the league seating 14,000. Owners Navin and Briggs tore down the obsolete wooden Bennett Park between the 1911 and 1912 seasons and built a concrete and steel stadium seating 23,000 fans--renaming it Navin Field. In 1924, Navin built a second deck increasing seating to 30,000.

By 1931, the Great Depression cut Tiger attendance by 30%. To draw fans to the ballpark, Navin tried to sign the most popular player in the game--Babe Ruth--but he wasn't availabe, so Navin bought out Mickey Cochrane's contact from Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack for $100,000 and made him a player-manager. Cochrane was just what the team needed. He helped the Tigers win pennants in 1934 and 1935.

Mickey Cochran with Grace and Frank Navin--1935

 

Under Navin's stewardship, the Tigers won four American League pennants but did not win a World Series until the 1935 season, giving the Tigers their first series win. But Navin's victory lap was short-lived. Navin and his wife Grace rode horses several times a week at the Detroit Riding and Hunt Club. Six weeks after the Tigers won the series, Navin went for a solo ride on his favorite horse Masquerader and suffered a fatal heart attack, falling to the ground. When his horse returned riderless to the stable, his wife cried out for help, but it was too late. Navin was dead at age sixty-five. He was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Michigan in a family mausoleum.

Mickey Cochrane and Walter Briggs

 

After Navin's death, Walter O. Briggs purchased Navin's stock and became sole owner. Because Briggs made a fortune manufacturing automobile bodies for Ford, Chrysler, Packard, Hudson, and Willys-Overland, he did not need an income from the team and promised not to take a salary during his tenure as owner. In 1938, he changed the name of Navin Field to Briggs Stadium and remained the sole owner of the Tigers until his death in 1952. The stadium was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961 until the franchise moved to Comerica Park in 2000.

For 104 seasons, the Tigers played baseball at Michigan and Trumbull earning them the distinction of being the oldest continuous one-name-only city franchise in major league baseball.

1935--Detroit Tigers, Lions, and Red Wings win their championships. 

Alex Karras’ Made-In-Detroit Movie—Jimmy B. and Andre (1979)

Alex Karras proves there is life after professional football.

When Alex Karras retired from the Detroit Lions in 1970, he left town for the bright lights of Hollywood. Alex first caught the acting bug as a senior at Emerson High School in Gary, Indiana when he performed in South Pacific. When he played college football at the University of Iowa, Karras wrestled professionally as villain George Brown donning a full mask and earning $50 a match. He relished playing the bad guy and acting crazy. It beat working in the steel mills.

After Karras was drafted by the Detroit Lions, he supplemented his ridiculously low NFL salary by wrestling in the off-season to help pay the bills for his growing family. He formed a tag team called Killer Karras and Krusher Konovski that performed to boos and sneers while winning all of their matches in the Midwest. While still a Detroit Lion, Karras played himself in the Hollywood film, Paper Lion. He garnered good reviews that led him to pursue an acting career.

Karras with Susan Clark in BABE.

Karras cut his teeth on several minor roles before he landed a co-star role in The Babe Didrikson Zaharias Story with actress Susan Clark, who won a best-actress Emmy for her excellent performance. They began performing regularly together and eventually married. In 1979, they jointly formed a Hollywood production company named Georgian Bay Productions.

Their first full length movie project was Jimmy B. and Andre which debuted on CBS on March 19, 1980. It was based on the true story of Jimmy Butsicaris, co-owner with his brother Johnny of the popular Lindell AC (Athletic Club) sports bar. The Lindell AC was frequented by Detroit Lion and Tiger athletes, sports writers, and sports fans from every level of Detroit society. Alex wanted to make a made-for-TV movie about his friend Jimmy B. trying to adopt a nine-year-old, African-American street kid named Andre Reynolds.

Andre was an elementary school dropout who shined shoes at Jim’s barber shop next door to the Lindel AC to pick up some extra money. But an older, local bully named Billy began harassing Andre for his hard-earned cash. Jimmy Butsicaris rescued the ragged, nine-year-old Andre from a beating one afternoon, finding him in desperate need of a bath, a meal, and some guidance. Over a cheese burger, fries, and a Coke, Jimmy learned the boy’s story. Andre’s mother was a widow who was also a heroin addict in poor health. Much of the money Andre turned over to her ended up in her arm. There was also an older sister and brother in the household.

Jimmy took the kid under his wing and gave him work doing odd jobs and a place to stay in the basement storeroom of the bar. Johnny Butsicaris converted a photo darkroom into a safe place for Andre to stay. He lived there for nine years. After the death of Andre’s mother from an overdose, Jimmy tried to adopt Andre but ran into trouble with the boy’s aunt who wanted him and his siblings as dependents to earn extra welfare money.

Detroit Free Press - March 20, 1980.

Undeterred by the court’s decision to deny him guardianship, Jimmy became Andre’s foster father and treated him like a son. As Andre grew into manhood, he called Jimmy “Pop.” To show his appreciation, Andre had a shirt made that read “I Am a Black Greek.” Jimmy took Andre to Detroit Lion and Tiger games and introduced him everywhere as his son. Jimmy helped Andre get back in public school where he earned a high school diploma from Western High School when he was twenty years old.

In the meantime, Karras and Clark pitched their story idea to CBS and sold them on it. Karras portrayed his friend Jimmy Butsicaris as a gruff restaurant owner with a big heart, and Susan Clark played his long-suffering girlfriend Stevie. In the movie, Jimmy keeps finding reasons not to marry her. Karras’ son, Alex Karras Jr, played a cameo role as the bully who beats up the young Andre, the real Andre played a restaurant employee called Bubba, and local Detroit weatherman Sonny Eliot played a drunk in the movie.

The movie project was shot entirely in Detroit at the Lindell AC, Jim’s Barber Shop next door, the Greektown restaurant district downtown, Belle Isle Park, and the Renaissance Center. The film was notable because of the heart-rending performance of twelve-year-old Curtis Yates, a student at Country Day School in Birmingham, Michigan. The real Andre Reynolds said he cried every time he saw the movie about his life and his foster father Jimmy Butsicaris.

Johnny Butsicaris in front of the Lindell AC sports bar.

After Andre’s high school graduation, Jimmy urged him to attend Grand Rapids Community College where he played football for one semester, but at 5’ 9” and 185#, Andre wasn’t big enough for college ball, so he dropped out. When Andre returned to Detroit, he left the influence of his mentor and drifted into Detroit’s drug culture. When he was busted for possession and drug trafficking, Andre served his sentence in Marquette Branch Prison.

In a prison cell at Marquette Branch Prison in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on November 21, 1996, thirty-six-year-old Andre learned that his foster father and mentor Jimmy Butsicaris had died the evening before at the age of seventy-five from a massive heart attack. Reynolds wasn’t eligible for parole, so he couldn’t attend the funeral, but he agreed to be interviewed by Detroit News reporter Thomas BeVier.

Andre Reynolds at Lindell AC in 1979.

“(Jimmy) Butsicaris took me in when I was a nine-year-old, punk kid living in a drug infested environment. I had a few moments of fame when the movie Jimmy B. and Andre came out. I was nineteen and wanted to be an adult, but I didn’t know how to do that. I was paid $15,000 for my story, and I used it to buy two cars and go to Grand Rapids Community College. But along the way, I fell in with a rough crowd and was in and out of trouble most of my twenties. I’m ashamed of the life I’ve lived.”

Andre served his sentence and was released. A few days before Thanksgiving in 2000, Andre Reynolds was brutally attacked by an unknown person or persons who beat and stomped him mercilessly. Detroit Police posited that Andre ran afoul of a local drug gang, but no charges were ever brought in his murder. He spent his final days in a coma at Detroit’s Receiving Hospital before succumbing. His body was unidentified in the Wayne County Morgue for four days before he was buried. What seemed on screen like a promising future for Andre became a nightmare in real life.

 

Access Jimmy B. and Andre by name on YouTube!

Billy Martin's fight night at the Lindell AC

Detroit/Windsor Sock-Hop-Jock Robin Seymour

Robin Seymour at the height of his popularity.

Robin Henry Seymour began his career in radio as a child actor on The Lone Ranger show on WXYZ in Detroit. Eventually, he became one of the country's most popular disc-jockeys. During World War II, Seymour spent part of his enlistment as a DJ on Armed Forces Radio.

Seymour's civilian broadcasting career resumed in 1947 in Dearborn, Michigan at WKMH. The newly formed radio station played mainstream pop music with news, sports, and weather segments. Soon, Seymour became the station's top jock who appealed to many of Detroit and Windsor, Ontario listeners. Seymour championed early rock & roll artists and was one of America's first DJs to play doo-wop music and black rhythm & blues which was labeled race music in those days.

As his popularity grew, Seymour began live appearances with his "Original Rock-n-Roll Revue" at Detroit's legendary Fox Theater. Seymour's personal theme song "Bobbin' with the Robin" was recorded in 1956 by a group popular at the time--The Four Lads. They were accompanied by the Percy Faith Orchestra.

Canadian broadcaster CKLW hired Seymour to host a television teen dance show in 1963 entitled Teen Town, modeled on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Clark's show was broadcast nationally, but Seymour's regional show was wildly popular in the greater Detroit area.

With the help of rising Motown artists, the show gained popularity and was rebranded as Swingin' Time. Local teens would dance to Top 40 hits and two kids were chosen from the audience to rate new records with an "aye" or a "nay." National acts performing in Detroit or Windsor appeared on Swingin' Time to promote their live shows and records.

Seymour had the good fortune to feature virtually all the Motown artists--The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Little Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, and the list goes on. Many of them recorded on Gordy and Tamala records before the Motown label. Swingin' Time introduced white suburban teens to local black performers, helping bridge the racial divide in heavily segregated Detroit.

In addition to Motown artists, many local white rock group performers appeared on Seymour's show--people like Glenn Frey, Mitch Ryder, Ted Nugent, and Bob Seger. Because of technical limitations in those days, all of the performers lip-synced their records. The most frequently booked local group on his show was The Rationals--an Ann Arbor garage band. Seymour managed many of the early Detroit groups.

Robin Seymour shortly before his death.

When CKLW changed ownership in 1968, Robin Seymour was replaced by Tom Shannon, another popular Detroit DJ. America was undergoing drastic political and social turmoil and the music reflected that change. Ever try to dance to psychedelic music? The show dropped in the ratings and ended its run in 1969.

Robin Seymour passed away on April 17, 2020, at the age of ninety-four in San Antonio, Texas. He will be missed by thousands of Detroiters and Windsorites. Robin wrote an indie autobiography The DJ That Launched 1,000 Hits just before he died which is available on Amazon. It is a joy to read.

Robin Seymour's Bobbin' with the Robin theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJFyQuvGG8g

Early Bob Seger Swingin Time performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMUrxXwL-NM

 

The Story of Robin Seymour by Robin Seymour with Carolyn Rosenthal.

Norman "Turkey" Stearnes, Mack Park, and the Detroit Stars

Norman "Turkey" Stearnes

The Negro National League (NNL), America's first successful Black baseball league, was the brainchild of Andrew "Rube" Foster, who was born in Calvert, Texas in 1879. He grew up playing sandlot baseball in the Deep South. A gifted pitcher, Foster was a much sought after player for neighborhood and regional teams. He became a vagabond ballplayer and barnstormed throughout the South, scratching out a living on the mound rather than the land. Like many Black Americans, Foster was drawn to the North by the Great Migration for jobs and a better life.

In 1910, Foster had the foresight to realize that the Chicago area, and other Midwestern cities had sizeable Black populations which could support their own city teams. He organized, owned, and managed the Chicago American Giants. The American Giants were a barnstorming team that picked up games whenever and wherever they could, or they hosted exhibitions which allowed local teams and factory teams to compete against a professional team and split the gate profits after expenses were paid out.

Rube, as he became known professionally, also pitched for the American Giants until 1916. At the age of thirty-seven, his weight became a problem, and he lost his snap. Foster decided to hire younger men to take over the hurling chores, so he could devote his full attention to managing and scheduling the team.

When World War I ended in 1919, Foster acted on his dream to create a professional Negro league modeled after the White major leagues. He installed a new team in Detroit and hired known numbers [illegal lottery] operator John T. "Tenny" Blount to manage the team which Foster dubbed The Detroit Stars. Foster also owned the Dayton Marcos from Dayton, Ohio; he hired someone to manage that team for him also. From these three charter teams, the fledgling NNL was born. Soon four other teams rounded out the league though teams came and went over the life of the league.

For the next decade, the Detroit Stars played at Mack Park on Fairview and Mack Avenues in the middle of a White, working-class, German neighborhood on Detroit's near Eastside. It was a short four-mile trolley ride from Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood to the ball park. The Stars performed before mixed crowds and had fans on both sides of the color line.

Mack Park was constructed in 1914 by Joe Roesink, an avid sports fan from Grand Rapids, who ran a chain of successful haberdasheries [men's clothing stores]. He leased his field to the NNL Detroit Stars, so Detroit could have its own Black team. Roesink also got 25% of the gate.

On most weekends, as many as 8,000 people could be squeezed into the bleachers with another 2,000 in the grandstand. The ball park was a single-decked structure made of fir lumber planking and tin sheeting over the grandstand. The expensive seats were padded stadium seats under the grandstand. The cheap seats were in the bleachers where spectators had to contend with the elements and teeming crowds. Surprisingly, crowds tended to get along well for the most part. 

Mack Park was a left-handed hitters' ball park. Right center field was 279' from home plate, the right field power alley was only 265'. The left field fence was 358', left center field was 390', and center field was 405'. Statistics indicate that NNL batters hit 128% more home runs in Mack Park than in any other Negro league park. Soon, the Stars were to have their first superstar who would take full advantage of that.

***

In an aside, on Sunday, July 7, 1929, the Detroit Stars were to play a double-header against the Kansas City Monarchs. Two days of heavy rain had soaked Mack Park. Owner and operator John Roesink wanted to get these two games in before he had to issue rain checks and lose money. The skies cleared and 2,000 fans were inside the ball park anxious to see some good baseball. 

Standing water surrounded first and second base. A common practice in those days was to use blazing gasoline to evaporate standing water. [Wouldn't spreading sand be safer and more effective?]

Roesink telephoned a nearby gas station ordering 40 gallons of gas, but the ball park did not have an approved storage tank for that amount, so they filled eight, five-gallon gas cans and stored them under the grandstand along the first base line where the team club houses and the ground keeper's lodging were.

Two gas cans were taken to the infield and emptied on the standing water around first and second base. Before the field was set ablaze, an explosion was heard under the grandstand and someone shouted "FIRE!" Smoke and fire began to rise from the stands and a full-blown panic broke out. 

Only three days after the 4th of July, it seems likely someone threw a powerful firework like an M-80 or Cherry Bomb under the stands, but the fire marshal surmised someone dropped a hot cigarette butt under the stands starting the blaze. That theory did not explain the many reports of an explosion and a cloud of black smoke rising before the conflagration. Nobody was ever charged with arson.

Fans were trapped in the stands by a chicken wire barrier to protect them from stray foul balls. Quick-thinking ball players pulled down the wire barrier with some difficulty, allowing fans to pour onto the field, but they were now stuck on the gasoline soaked field. Players from both teams bravely battered down a section of wooden wall enclosing the ball park so fans could escape the flames.

Sixty-one people went to the hospital with thirty cases of broken arms, legs, and other injuries. Miraculously, nobody lost their life. Damage to the park was estimated to be $12,000. Five cars were also lost in the fire. The Stars played out the rest of their season at Dequindre Field at Dequindre and Modern streets on Detroit's far Eastside.

For the 1930 season, Roesink built a new $30,000 ball park for the Stars in Hamtramck, Michigan, located at 3201 Dan Street. Originally named Roesink Stadium, this ball park had a 315' left field fence and a 407' right field fence. Now, right-handed batters had the homerun advantage. Soon, the ball park became known as Hamtramck Stadium.

2022

***

Over the lifetime of The Detroit Stars, many great ballplayers donned the uniform, but one player stood above the rest as the Stars' greatest player. His name was Norman "Turkey" Stearnes from Nashville, Tennessee. The agile and quick Stearnes played first base and pitched for the semipro Southern Negro League in 1920 for the Montgomery Grey Soxs and in 1921 for the Memphis Red Soxs. Scouts from Detroit liked what they saw in the left-handed thrower and batter.

Detroit Stars management offered Stearnes a contract for the 1922 season, but he turned it down so he could finish high school at the age of twenty-one. When his father died, Norman Stearnes had to quit school and get a job to help his mother support their family. But Stearnes returned when he could and graduated late. In 1922, he earned his diploma, much to the joy of his mother. She was determined that Norman get an education. 

The achievement is all the more remarkable because in the 1920s, most males and females of both races quit school in the eighth grade when they were fourteen so they could get working papers. Times were always hard and money was to be made.

Stearnes signed with the Detroit Stars for the 1923 season at $200 a month. He soon earned the nickname "Turkey" because of the peculiar way he ran with his arms flapping. But in a foot race, at 5'11" and 175#s, Stearnes was one of the fastest men in the league.

He sported broad shoulders and had a powerful, whiplike swing that could connect with the ball and hit home runs to any field in any park he played in. Remember that in the 1920s and 1930s, baseballs were not as wound tightly and less lively than they are in today's game. When Turkey Stearnes hit a long ball, the leather sphere cried out in pain.

Satchel Paige is considered one of the greatest pitchers of all time in any league.

Turkey Stearnes' upper body strength, quick reflexes, and good batting eye made him a threat at the plate. Legendary hurler for the Kansas City Monarchs Satchel Paige called Turkey Stearnes "one of the greatest hitters in the Negro leagues, as good as anybody who ever played baseball. I feared him more than any other hitter."

The Stars shifted Stearnes to center field where his speed and wide-ranging fielding ability could cover a lot of ground. Most of the real estate in Mack Park was in center field and he owned it.

Turkey Stearnes' career statistics boast a .349 lifetime batting average, 186 league homeruns, 129 stolen bases, 997 runs batted in, and a .617 slugging percentage. Stearnes is the only professional baseball player to lead his league in triples for six years. Five times he was chosen for the Black All-Star Game, twice he was the NNL batting champion. On November 7, 1987, Stearnes was inducted into the Michigan African American Sports Hall of Fame along with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.

As a player, Turkey Stearnes was detached, colorless, and cooly efficient. Unlike other players, he did not enjoy the spotlight and rarely spoke more than a phrase or a brief sentence. Off the field, he did not smoke, drink, chase women, or keep irregular hours. Stearnes donned the Detroit Stars uniform for eleven seasons. Longer than any other player, and unlike most of the Detroit Star players, he lived in Detroit in the off season with his wife.

In the off season, rather than barnstorm like other players to earn extra money, Stearnes worked in Walter Briggs' automobile body factory at Harper Avenue and Russell Street as a spray painter and a wet sander. He could make steady money that way and spend more time with his wife Nettie Mae.

After working from late autumn through early April, Stearnes left for spring training in 1927, only days before a fire burned down the block-long Briggs factory. From then on, Stearnes worked the off-season in the foundry at Henry Ford's Rouge Plant until he retired from baseball and worked there full time. 

After Stearnes passed away, his wife Nettie Mae worked tirelessly to get her husband into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, where some of Turkey Stearnes' contemporaries like Rube Foster, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Ray Dandridge and Satchel Paige were already installed. She told the Detroit Free Press, "It's not for me or my daughters' sake, it is for Norman. He deserves it."

Baseball Hall of Fame Plaque

When the Detroit Tigers moved to Comerica Park in 2000, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes was finally honored with a bronze plaque mounted outside the stadium at the center field gate. Although meant as a tribute to Stearnes by the Tiger management, many Detroit African Americans wondered aloud what it was going to take to get Turkey Stearnes inside the ballpark. There is also a display honoring Stearnes along the third base concourse at The Corner Ballpark, the site of the old Tiger Stadium at Michigan Avenue and Trumbull.

Joyce Stearnes-Thompson at a preservation ceremony for Hamtramck Stadium proudly displaying a photo of her father.

Norman "Turkey" Stearnes was finally elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame in 2000, sixty years after his career ended and twenty-one years after his death on September 4, 1979, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes was elected along with former Tiger manager Sparky Anderson. 

In Comerica Park's center field, a NNL flag flies commemorating the Negro league, and during every Negro League Weekend at Comerica Park, Stearnes' daughters Roslyn Stearnes-Brown and Joyce Stearnes-Thompson sing the National Anthem.

Early Detroit Tiger History