There’s a Minnesota native in the Baseball Hall of Fame who was known for his clutch pitching in the World Series — the pitcher who couldn’t be dragged from the mound even when the biggest games stretched past the ninth inning.

And that’s not even counting Jack Morris.

You’ve probably read a few times this week that Joe Mauer is the fourth St. Paul native to be inducted into the Hall, along with Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor and Jack Morris. It’s an incredible claim for the city — especially when considering the entire state has produced only one other hall of famer born here.

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On Monday morning, after the streets of Cooperstown were open again and most of the crowds had left, still basking in the memories of Mauer, Beltre, Leyland and Helton, I went back to the Hall to find that fifth Minnesotan native’s plaque and found him right there between Dizzy Dean and Paul “Big Poison” Waner.

Charles Albert Bender.

And right under that, the nickname that (almost) everyone in baseball called him, the nickname he disdained.

“Chief.”

Charles Bender was born in Crow Wing County in 1884, exact day and location unknown, and grew up on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. His mother was Ojibwe and his father German. His family was large and poor, and young Charles probably didn’t play baseball until after he’d been sent to the Carlisle boarding school in Pennsylvania, a place designed to “assimilate” Native American children into the dominant white culture. Bender later said, though, that he had unknowingly begun his training as a pitcher by throwing rocks at gophers on the reservation.

After being sent east, Bender rarely returned to Minnesota throughout the rest of his life, but he put together one of the more unlikely Hall of Fame careers in baseball history.

At Carlisle, he became a pitcher under the coaching of Pop Warner. He joined Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics in 1903 and defeated Cy Young in his first game, and was a rising star by 1905. That’s when he began a remarkable run as a big-game pitcher. In the 1905 World Series, he pitched a shutout in Game 2 to beat future hall of famer Joe McGinnity, and he pitched another complete game in Game 6, though he and the A’s lost to one of the greatest ever, Christy Mathewson, who threw three shutouts in three starts for the New York Giants.

Bender had established himself as Mack’s go-to pitcher for big games, in an era when Mack had hall of famers such as Rube Waddell and the great “Gettysburg Eddie” Plank on his rosters.

Philadelphia Athletics pitcher Charles Bender is seen in this 1909 photo. He won six World Series games and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953. (Associated Press)

When Philadelphia next reached the World Series in 1910, Bender was Mack’s choice to start Game 1 over 31-game-winner Jack Coombs. Bender rewarded him with a complete-game victory. He lost Game 4 in a duel with “Three-Finger” Brown of the Cubs, but again Bender threw a complete game – all 10 innings. The Athletics won the series the next day.

Bender was again Mack’s choice over Plank for Game 1 of the 1911 Series, a rematch against Mathewson and the Giants. Mathewson prevailed again, 2-1, though Bender went the distance, of course. He finally beat Mathewson in Game 4 with a 2-run complete game. Then Bender returned to the mound two days later to throw another 4-hit complete game to clinch the championship.

Bender again started Game 1 of the 1913 World Series and also Game 4, winning both and going the distance each time (also pitching for the A’s in that series was Brainerd native Bullet Joe Bush).

It wasn’t until 1914 that Bender faltered, losing Game 1 and failing to finish a World Series start for the first time, and the Giants lost the series in an upset. Mack let him go after that, as he sold off and dismantled the Philadelphia dynasty that was about to become a lot more expensive.

Bender succeeded on the mound largely through his command of the strike zone, his large and varied repertoire of pitches, and his ability to read and exploit batters’ weaknesses. His knowledge of the game and attention to detail put him in demand as a major-league pitching coach in the second half of his life — especially his ability to pick up small “tells” that gave away opponents’ intentions.

Bender also might have invented the slider — though it was often called a “nickel curve” in his day.

Bender bounced around the league a bit after Mack let him go, though his glory years in big-league baseball were over. He kept pitching for years with minor league and semipro teams, and was in demand as a coach in the major leagues as the decades went on. He was also at the wheel when his car struck a man crossing a Philadelphia street, killing him, but after a controversy over whether Bender left the scene or had been sent away by a police officer, charges were dropped against him.

In an era of fiery, hard-fighting and foul-talking ballplayers, Bender was known for his cool and unflappable demeanor, especially under pressure, a trait he might have honed originally to deal with the abuse he encountered as an Ojibwe man competing in the “white” big leagues.

Tom Swift, a writer in Northfield, Minn., wrote a 2008 biography of Bender, “Chief Bender’s Burden,” that goes into wincing detail about the racism and prejudice Bender faced as an Ojibwe man. Though he was allowed to play in the “white” major leagues at a time Black ballplayers couldn’t, he still faced all the predictable taunts, slurs and slights from fans and opponents.

It’s all painful and infuriating to read, of course — but a strange thing happens as the book goes on. The prejudice doesn’t disappear, but as Bender goes through his life in the overwhelmingly white world of professional baseball at the time, he just keeps quietly winning over people, turning people who at first see him at best as some sort of mascot into lifelong friends. The quotes of esteem and respect from teammates and opponents pour out as the years go on.

Bender lived long enough to know that he had been inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1953, though he died before the ceremony and didn’t have to wince at seeing “Chief” on that plaque.

In the biography, Swift points out that just about every one of the few Native American players in the big leagues in this era was saddled with the “Chief” nickname. Bender was no different — though he spoke out against the moniker: “I do not want my name to be presented to the public as an Indian, but as a pitcher.”

But he eventually, grudgingly, surrendered to it, allowing it even on his gravestone. And it’s there on his Hall of Fame plaque.

Pitcher Charles Bender’s plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame, photographed on July 22, 2024. (Mike Decaire / Pioneer Press)

There was at least one baseball person who didn’t use the nickname, at least not around Bender. His longtime manager and friend Connie Mack called him “Albert,” his middle name and the last name Bender was playing under to preserve his amateur status at the time Mack acquired his contract.

Mack also said something else:

“If everything depended on one game,” Mack said, “I just used Albert.”

“From St. Paul to the Hall”: the Pioneer Press chronicled the careers of Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris and Joe Mauer, and we’ve compiled the best of our coverage into a new hardcover book that celebrates the legendary baseball legacy of Minnesota’s capital city. Order your copy of “From St. Paul to the Hall.”

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There is a time and place to relax on a cruise ship, but Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas figures its guests will sleep when they get home.

Leaning into short three- and four-night Bahamas trips, each with a stop at the cruise line’s private Bahamas island Perfect Day at CocoCay, the line is combining its newest ship with its most popular port of call for what it dubs “The World’s Biggest Weekend.”

“You’re going to leave this ship with a couple of days, exhausted. That is our mission — all weekend,” Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley said during a preview cruise ahead of the ship’s debut Friday with paying customers.

Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas dwarfs the older cruise ship Vision of the Seas as both are seen docked at the cruise line’s private island resort Perfect Day at CocoCay in the Bahamas on Wednesday, July 16, 2024 during a preview sailing from Port Canaveral. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

The behemoth ship is the second largest in the world behind Icon of the Seas that debuted out of Miami in January, but it’s the largest ever to sail from Port Canaveral and the first time Royal has assigned a new ship short itinerary duties.

As such, the line has taken the 18-deck, 236,473-gross-ton ship with room for 5,668 guests based on double occupancy and crammed the days with shorter, punchier live shows and a cavalcade of parties and live music.

The sixth Oasis-class ship takes on all the best aspects of its recent predecessors including the three-slide water park The Perfect Storm, FlowRider surf simulator, rock climbing wall and the 10-deck twisting dry slide The Ultimate Abyss.

A view of The Boardwalk neighborhood on Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas after the ship made its inaugural arrival at Port Canaveral, Fla., Thursday, July 11, 2024. At 236,860 gross tons – with a passenger capacity of 5,668 – the ship is the second largest in the world and the largest to call Port Canaveral home. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

A sign of amping up things where it can, Royal added rollers and extended the length of the slide for an even faster run with stretches of tube that alternate from pitch black to psychedelic flashing lights to translucent for a brain-thumping ride.

The high energy also flows into all three of its main entertainment venues which lean into song, dance and acrobatic spectacle married with technology for quick-hit performances that run under an hour. That means leaving behind the longer-running Broadway or other original stage productions found on Royal’s longer cruises.

“I don’t think we could sit in a theater for 90 minutes here,” said Christi Coachman, Royal Caribbean’s vice president of entertainment. “Because obviously that’s that’s our key timeframe, 90 minutes, with all of the other things that we want to experience.”

The main Royal Theater show on board Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas is titled “All In,” seen here during a preview sailing from Port Canaveral on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

That said, the Royal Theater hosts a show called “All In” that takes all the technological toys Royal has developed over its last decade of stage productions and combines them into a journey thematically tied as global musical hotspots, running from Studio 54 in New York to a neon-lit Miami to Burning Man in California and a gothic masquerade ball in Venice — all dipping musical toes across different eras.

“In the theater, it was all about hit ’em hard, all about technology. We have drones, we have performers flying, we have incredible video projection, lasers,” Coachman said, while also using a technology that tracks performers’ positions through sensors that trigger interactive video or laser projection.

The AquaTheater show on board Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas is titled “Aqua80Too,” seen here during a preview sailing from Port Canaveral on Monday, July 15, 2024. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

Unique to Royal Caribbean are both the ice skating show venue and the AquaTheater that combines divers, synchronized swimmers, slackliners, aerialists and dancing amid jets and fountains of water.

For Utopia, the AquaTheater show embraces Gen-X with a show titled “Aqua80Too” that leans into 80s hits with one seamlessly mashing up Phil Collins’ “Sussudio,” Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue” and Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.” One number with slackliners gleefully bounce to the beat of a medley from the Beastie Boys, David Bowie, Kool & The Gang, Sugar Hill Gang and Young MC. A more poetic aerobatic performance beautifully mixes U2’s “With Or Without You,” Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s “Don’t Give Up” and Thomson Twins’ “Hold Me Now.”

Children of the 80s will approve.

The ice skating show on board Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas is titled “Youtopia,” seen here during a preview sailing from Port Canaveral on Monday, July 15, 2024. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

The hardest show conceptually to get one’s head around may be one of the most impressive artistically. The ice show titled “Youtopia” features skaters in a series of quick-change outfits with impressive choreography under an intense projection system that interacts with the skaters zipping around the small rink performing jumps, spins and turns.

“This is my definition. When you think about Utopia, what is the definition of Utopia? It’s perfect place. It’s ideal perfection, and what does that mean to you?” Coachman asked. “So why is it ‘Youtopia’ — Y-O-Utopia? So is that the perfect car, the perfect house, the perfect love? And candy, because that’s perfect, because there’s a whole section on candy. So it’s really kind of what Utopia perfection means to you.”

The shows, though, almost play second fiddle to the arsenal of musical options on board.

“We’ve noticed guests on three- or four-day cruises, many times, as incredible as the shows are, they much rather gravitate toward loud music … They’re here to have fun,” said Allison Rider-Davidoiu, director of headliner entertainment, live music and enrichment.

The ship has 29 of more than 200 entertainment staff dedicated to music.

“The energy is definitely, you know, we amp it up,” Rider-Davidoiu said. “So it’s one of our entertainers, still incredibly talented, but maybe a bit more upbeat than what you would experience in a 14-day cruise or a seven-day cruise.”

The French string duo Enchanté perform in Central Park on Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas on Tuesday, July 16, 2024 during a preview sailing out of Port Canaveral. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

She said there are still moments of more chill music across the ship, such as the French violin and guitar duo Enchanté that migrates to more calm venues such as the greenery found in Central Park.

“There’s a lot of parties. There’s a lot going on. Everything’s super loud everywhere, but sometimes you need that alternative,” she said.

She’s not wrong about the parties. The ship now employs staff called party influencers that can be found among the sundry celebrations such as the Rezolution Dance Party held in the ice skating rink venue so the projection system casts onto those on the dance floor.

There’s also a fraternity-themed party called Royal Kappa-Chi, a silent toga party, poolside plunge party and the sail-away party.

“Utopia is a taste, right, of what possibly you could experience on maybe a longer itinerary,” Coachman said. “It was really important not only to continue to create the family experiences, because that’s very important for our brand, but also to go in a little bit of a different direction and have one party after the other to where you don’t ever stop.”

So amid the parties, live music, comedy shows, game shows and performances are all the other things that Royal Caribbean can shoehorn in into the world’s second largest cruise ship.

A view of Pesky Parrot in the Promenade of Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas after the ship made its inaugural arrival at Port Canaveral, Fla., Thursday, July 11, 2024. At 236,860-gross-tons –with a passenger capacity of 5,668– the ship is the second largest in the world and the largest to call Port Canaveral home. Utopia of the Seas is scheduled to sail on its first passenger cruise on July 19. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

That includes more than 40 places to eat and drink including what has already become a crowd-inducing new bar concept called the Pesky Parrot on the Promenade deck. It’s what Royal calls a Caribbean-inspired Tiki concept.

Bayley enjoyed telling the story of the Pesky Parrot’s origins.

“Somebody came up with the idea of, well, why don’t we have like a drunken parrot,” he said. “And so the pesky parrot really is this parrot, you know, is getting on in life, likes a few drinks, and as the day progresses, the parrot kind of becomes a little belligerent, rude. … You come on vacation, it doesn’t need to be serious. It’s just meant to be stupid. Some things can just be plain stupid. And you know, you go in a bar and this parrot just starts mouthing off at you.”

The line is bringing a live parrot named Brian on board for the first revenue sailing.

New cruise line dining experiences make you forget you’re on a cruise

Another venue unique to the ship is a themed dining concept called “Royal Railway — Utopia Station.” It builds off the thematic Empire Supper Club introduced on Icon of the Seas, but adds theme park-esque elements to mimic a train trip complete with digital screen projections of passing landscapes, piped in track sounds and vibrating seats.

The first railway trip is themed to the Wild West and has actors playing out a train heist during a 90-minute dinner. Future sailings will tackle other themes, such as the Asian Silk Road, along with shorter offerings tied to things such as wine tastings and holidays.

Bayley said he expects the line to do well offering this size ship in the Central Florida market.

“One of the reasons we put this brand new Oasis class into this market is that we really expect to see a certain amount of demand coming from tourists who are going in for … some kind of combo. They’re doing Disney or Universal or doing something in Orlando, and then they can tag on,” he said. “What kids wouldn’t be happy with that idea. … I wish I was a kid. That’s pretty good.”

Avery Newmark | (TNS) The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The early bird may not always get the worm, at least when it comes to cognitive performance. A study from Imperial College London suggests night owls — those who feel more alert and productive in the evening — tend to outperform their early rising counterparts on brain tests.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 26,000 participants and found evening people scored up to 13.5% higher than morning people on cognitive assessments. Even those without a strong preference for morning or night still performed better than early risers.

“Our study found that adults who are naturally more active in the evening tended to perform better on cognitive tests than those who are ‘morning people.’ Rather than just being personal preferences, these chronotypes could impact our cognitive function,” lead author Dr. Raha West explained.

The study accounted for age, gender, smoking, drinking, health conditions and other factors. Younger people and those without chronic illnesses generally did better on the tests. Healthier lifestyle choices were also linked to better brain performance.

But don’t stay up all night just yet. The study also found that getting the right amount of sleep is crucial for everyone. People who slept between seven and nine hours a night had the best brain function. Those who slept too little or too much showed decreased cognitive performance.

“While understanding and working with your natural sleep tendencies is essential, it’s equally important to remember to get just enough sleep, not too long or too short,” West said. “This is crucial for keeping your brain healthy and functioning at its best.”

Although these findings are interesting, the study notes more research is needed to fully understand how sleep patterns affect brain performance. So whether you’re a night owl or an early bird, focus on getting quality sleep to help keep your brain sharp.

_____

©2024 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Sam Taube | NerdWallet

The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only. NerdWallet, Inc. does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks, securities or other investments.

What do fishing, air pollution and Bitcoin have in common? Maybe just one thing: Until recently, they were all regulated by a powerful legal doctrine known as Chevron deference.

But in late June, a fishing-related Supreme Court case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, brought an end to Chevron deference. Experts say the decision could cause substantial changes to financial rules — especially when it comes to cryptocurrency. Here’s what investors should know.

What was Chevron deference?

The term “Chevron deference” comes from a 1984 Supreme Court case, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. That case hinged on whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was allowed to modify factory emissions regulations that were derived from a broadly worded air pollution law.

The court upheld the modified regulations, creating a “Chevron doctrine” under which judges had to defer to the expertise of federal agencies such as the EPA when those agencies issued, changed or enforced regulations based on ambiguous laws.

Jeff Sovern, a professor of consumer law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, summarizes Chevron deference this way:

“Congress writes statutes, and they can’t predict everything. No one can. So they leave gaps; they’re human. Somebody has to fill in those gaps. And under Chevron, if there were gaps, it was largely up to the administrative agencies,” Sovern says.

Over the past 40 years, Chevron deference has been used in over 19,000 federal court cases, and Congress has passed broadly worded laws with the expectation that Chevron deference would allow agencies to interpret them into specific regulations.

But on June 28, the Supreme Court ruled against a federal agency regulation on fishing boats in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, bringing Chevron deference to an end. Federal agencies no longer have the power to enforce regulations based on their interpretations of ambiguous laws. They can only regulate when their rulemaking powers are explicitly defined by law, either by Congress or by a federal judge.

Financial regulations could loosen

Chevron deference was a load-bearing legal principle in many federal regulations, and its disappearance has the potential to roll back a variety of financial rules.

Sovern says that the full impact of Loper Bright on financial regulations is unclear. Some agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), have congressionally defined powers to make “appropriate” rules, and those rules might still hold up in court post-Loper Bright.

But that might not always be the case. For example, a federal judge in Texas has already referenced Loper Bright in an order that could potentially overturn the Federal Trade Commission’s recent ban on noncompete agreements.

According to Alex Alben, a professor at the UCLA School of Law and former chief privacy officer for the state of Washington, cryptocurrency is another area of financial regulation that could see a lot of changes because of Loper Bright.

“In cases such as the regulation of cryptocurrencies, where there are very few laws, and there are even very few agency interpretations — in those fields, we’ve definitely seen a power shift from the agencies to the courts,” Alben says.

Crypto rulemaking is up to Congress now

Congress has passed laws regarding the taxation of cryptocurrency, and it has debated several bills that would explicitly define a regulatory framework for digital assets.

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But most crypto regulation today consists of agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enforcing rules based on their interpretations of their broad jurisdiction over financial markets. Without Chevron deference, many of those rules may not survive legal challenges.

Some cryptocurrency experts say that crypto can still be regulated post-Loper Bright; Congress just has to pass laws clearly defining those regulations.

“It creates an obligation for Congress to create actual rules that apply to this industry and pass new laws for a new technology. So it makes it more of a political issue than a bureaucratic one,” says Alexander Blume, CEO of Two Prime, a digital asset-focused registered investment advisor.

Blume says that in the short term, Loper Bright may turn the tide in favor of crypto companies in certain regulatory situations. For example, Uniswap, a developer of decentralized crypto exchange software, is facing legal action from the SEC, which regards it as an unregistered securities exchange and broker that may be violating federal securities laws.

The SEC has indicated that it may press charges against Uniswap, which has been the subject of class action lawsuits by investors who have lost money buying scam tokens on its software.

But last week, Uniswap’s legal counsel sent an open letter to the agency questioning its jurisdiction in the matter, in light of Loper Bright and the lack of clear laws that apply securities regulations to cryptocurrency.

For investors, buyer beware could be the new normal

“I see positives and negatives of this ruling, with respect to financial markets. I think we will have more innovation and more creativity in financial markets,” Alben says.

Many crypto investors are anticipating the approval of Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as soon as this month. Blume says Loper Bright could mean that staking (an interest-like reward system by which Ethereum holders earn new Ether coins over time) could be added to crypto ETFs “sooner rather than later,” although the current crop of Ethereum ETF candidates doesn’t have staking features for SEC compliance reasons.

The end of Chevron deference is “an anti-regulation ruling by the court,” Alben says. Less regulation may give investors more choice in what kinds of investments they can buy — but it also may leave investors more vulnerable to losing their money on potentially fraudulent or otherwise inadvisable investments.

“We’re probably going to have riskier environments for investors, who will need to educate themselves about the levels of risk that they’re taking, and do their homework before they make any kind of speculative investment,” Alben says.

The author owned Bitcoin at the time of publication.

Sam Taube writes for NerdWallet. Email: staube@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @samuel_taube.

The article The End of Chevron Deference Is a ‘Power Shift’ for Investors originally appeared on NerdWallet.