August 12, 1936: The Biggest Baseball Crowd -- In Berlin?

Bill Sayles. The "B" stands for "Brooklyn," not "Berlin."

August 12, 1936, 90 years ago: What was definitely the biggest crowd in baseball history to that point, and may still be, sees a game in... Nazi Germany?

After having been a "demonstration sport," rather than an actual competition, at the Olympic Games in Paris in 1900, and again in Stockholm, Sweden in 1912, baseball returned to Olympic display, though still not yet joining official Olympic competition, in 1936.

There was a single exhibition game, played at the Olympiastadion in Berlin. Since Olympic competitors had to be amateurs until 1992, all of the players in the game were Americans who had not yet played in the minor leagues, let alone in the major leagues. The umpire was Leslie Mann, whose 16-year major league career included playing as an outfielder for the 1914 World Series-winning "Miracle" Boston Braves. He had been among the leading advocates for putting baseball in the Olympics.

The "visiting team," the one batting 1st, was called the "U.S. Olympics." The "home team" was called the "World Champions." The game was set for 7 innings. The game was set for 8:00 PM, and for most of the players, this would be their 1st experience in a night game. (The 1st night game in MLB had been played the season before, at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, but that was still the only major league park with lights.)

Although the Olympiastadion was built for soccer and for track & field events, and didn't have room for a standard baseball field, I can find no reference to whether any accommodation was made for any "short fences."

The Berlin Olympiastadion

A crowd then estimated at 90,000 came out. Officially, the biggest crowd that had ever attended a single Major League Baseball game (rather than a doubleheader) was the 74,217 who were said to have attended the opening game of the original Yankee Stadium in 1923. (And that was almost certainly a lie, exaggerated by around 12,000 or so.)

But the Associated Press reported the crowd as being over 100,000, without getting any more specific than that. If so, then this remained a record for any baseball game until 2008, when 115,300 packed into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for an exhibition game. Regardless of the actual total, neither the Chancellor of Germany at the time, Adolf Hitler, nor any official of the Nazi Party, was said to have attended.

For the U.S. Olympics, 1st baseman Bill Shaw hit a 2-run home run in the 1st inning. At the end of 6 innings, the World Champions led, 5–4. The Olympics scored in the top of the 7th to tie the game, before Les McNeece hit a solo home run, what would now be called a walkoff home run, in the bottom of the 7th, to win the game for the World Champions, 6-5.

Bill Sayles was the starting pitcher for the World Champions. He was the only player in this game who would go on to play in the major leagues: He pitched in 5 games for the Boston Red Sox in 1939, 18 for the New York Giants in 1943, and 5 for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943, with a record of 1-3, and an ERA of 5.61. Most likely, he made those 1943 appearances solely because of the manpower drain caused by the war the Nazis started. He lived on until 1996.

Baseball would once again be a demonstration sport at the Olympics in Helsinki, Finland in 1952, and then occasionally, until finally becoming an official competition sport in Barcelona, Spain in 1992. After 2008 in Beijing, it was dropped. It was restored for Tokyo in 2020 (2021), but dropped again for Paris in 2024. It will be restored for Los Angeles in 2028, with a 6-team tournament to be played entirely at Dodger Stadium, during a planned 11-day break in the Major League Baseball season.

August 9, 1936: His Name Was Sohn Kee-chung

August 9, 1936, 90 years ago: Legendary journalist Lincoln Steffens died in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. He was 70 years old.

Meanwhile, the marathon race is held in the Olympics in Berlin, Nazi Germany. Officially, it was won by Kitei Son of Japan, a nation that would soon be an ally of the Nazis.

Unofficially, it was a much better story.

His real name was Sohn Kee-chung. He was born on August 29, 1912, in Sinŭiju, in what is now North Korea. Since 1910, however, Korea had been part of the Empire of Japan. And so, any athletes from Korea were forced to compete for Japan, under their flag, and with Japanese names.

Between 1933 and 1936, Sohn Kee-chung ran 12 marathons, finishing in the top 3 in each, and won 9. On November 3, 1935, in the Japanese capital of Tokyo, he set a world record with a time of 2 hours, 26 minutes and 42 seconds.

In the 1936 Olympics, Sohn tried to sign his name in its correct Korean form. But it was not his legal name, and so he was forced to write it in, and compete, as Kitei Son. Another Korean, Nam Sung-yong, entered the marathon, and had to compete under his legal Japanese name, Nan Shōryū. Sohn won the race in 2 hours, 29 minutes, 19.2 seconds, breaking the Olympic record. Nam finished 3rd, winning the Bronze Medal.

The International Olympic Committee, not recognizing Korea as a member, credited both medals to Japan's total. Sohn refused to acknowledge the Japanese national anthem while it was played at his award ceremony, and later told reporters that he was ashamed to run for Japan.

In 1945, Allied forces forced the surrender of Japan, and Korea was free. But, as part of the peace treaty, a line was drawn at the 38th parallel, and Communist forces had control over the northern part, including Sohn's hometown of Sinŭiju. The Korea War resulted, from 1950 to 1953, and the new border was a diagonal across the country, but roughly around the 38th parallel.

Sohn was named the team manager for Korea's national track & field team. In 1947, his trainee, Suh Yun-Bok, won the Boston Marathon, breaking the record that Sohn had set in Tokyo in 1935. For the Opening Ceremony for the 1948 Olympics in London, the entire Korean team chose Sohn to be their flag bearer. In 1950, another Sohn trainee, Ham Kee-Young, won the Boston Marathon.

In 1988, the Olympics were held in Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea (a.k.a. South Korea). The final runner in the Olympic torch relay, receiving perhaps the greatest ovation anyone has ever received in an Olympic ceremony, was 75-year-old Sohn Kee-chung. He attended the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, and saw Hwang Young-Cho win the Olympic marathon.

Sohn died on November 15, 2002. Nam Sung-young, who had worked with him at the Korean Sporting Association, had died a year earlier. On December 9, 2011, the IOC recognized Korean nationality of Sohn and Nam, and all other Korean athletes under the Empire of Japan, in their official profiles.

August 5, 1936: The Helene Mayer Story

August 5, 1936, 90 years ago: Helene Mayer wins a Silver Medal at the Olympics. Ordinarily, an athlete finishing 2nd in an Olympic event wouldn't be a big deal. This time, it is.

At 17, she won a Gold Medal in foil fencing at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, and was a national hero in Weimar Germany. She competed again in 1932 in Los Angeles, but just before a match, she was told that her boyfriend had died in a military training exercise. This was only a year after losing her father. Shaken, she only finished 5th.

She stayed in America to attend college as an exchange student. But when Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, her membership at her native fencing club was terminated, because she was Jewish. She taught at California colleges, and then in 1935 her German citizenship was canceled with the Nuremberg Laws.

There was a movement to boycott the 1936 Olympics, scheduled for Berlin. To avoid this, Nazi authorities chose her as the token Jew on the German Olympic team. She won a Silver Medal, and, on the podium, in an effort to protect her family, gave a Nazi salute.

She went back to America, and won the U.S. women's foil championship 8 times in 13 years from 1934 to 1946. In 1952, with World War II over and freedom back in place, but perhaps knowing she was dying, she returned to her homeland, and got married, spending her last months in happiness. She was posthumously elected to the U.S. Fencing Association Hall of Fame.

Helen Mayer died on October 10, 1953, of breast cancer, in Munich, Germany. She was only 42 years old.

August 3, 1936: Jesse Owens Beats Aryan Supremacy

August 3, 1936, 90 years ago: Nazi Germany's myth of racial supremacy is shattered by a black American.

The International Olympic Committee had awarded the 1936 Olympic Games to Germany in 1931, when it was still governed by the Weimar Republic. The Winter Games went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria, on the nation's southern border, with Austria. The Summer Games went to the national capital, Berlin.

But in 1933, the National Socialist German Workers' Party -- Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpar, or "Nazi" Party -- came to power, and Adolf Hitler became Chancellor. Within another year, he had total control, and instituted the party's ideology, fascism: Nationalism, militarism, bigotry, and letting big business do whatever it wanted.

He also instituted his ideal of an "Aryan" "master race": White, blond hair, blue eyes, tall, physically strong. He, himself, was white, but not the other things.

And he falsely blamed Communists and Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I. Well before most people know what a "holocaust" was (originally, the word was used to mean a large fire), he was cutting Jewish people out of German society.

Like most dictators, he was not especially interested in sports. But, like many of them, someone talked him into using sports as propaganda for his ideals. And so, the 1936 Olympics, especially the Summer Games in Berlin, would be a spectacle celebrating "Aryan supremacy."

But a story which may be apocryphal (I hope it's true) shows that even his power was not absolute. In the Olympic Stadium (Olympiastadion) he had constructed for the Games, the restrooms had signs saying, "Dogs and Jews are not allowed." A representative of the International Olympic Committee told him to take it down.

Hitler: "When you come into a man's house, you don't tell him what he can and cannot put up!"

IOC official: "Excuse me, Mr. Chancellor, but when that five-ringed flag goes up over the stadium, it is no longer Germany. It is Olympia. And we are the masters there."

The signs came down.

*

James Cleveland Owens was born on September 12, 1913 in Oakville, Alabama. One thing Southern white people and Southern black people have in common is frequently addressing boys by their initials, so Owens was usually called "J.C."

When he was 9, the family moved north, as part of the "Great Migration" of African-Americans seeking to leave the segregated South in search of less prejudice and better jobs in the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West Coast. The fact that they moved to Cleveland, both his and his father's middle name (Henry Cleveland Owens), appears to have been a coincidence.

Upon arrival in school in Cleveland, the boy was asked his name. He said, "J.C. Owens." The teacher misheard this, and said, "Your name is Jesse?" Not wanting to contradict her, he said it was. And so he was Jesse Owens from then on.

He became Ohio's biggest high school track star. On May 25, 1935 -- the day after the 1st night game in Major League Baseball -- he competed for Ohio State University at the Big Ten Championships at Ferry Field, the former football facility at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

He ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds, tying the world record. He set world records in the long jump (26 feet, 8 1/4 inches, a world record that would last for 25 years), the 220-yard sprint (20.3 seconds), and the 220-yard low hurdles (22.6 seconds). These 4 records were all set within a span of 45 minutes.

So when the U.S. Olympic Team set sail -- flying across the Atlantic Ocean was still too risky at that point -- for Germany in July 1936, Owens was considered one of the favorites in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, and the long jump. (Most of the world was now racing using the metric system, although the United States, as yet, was not.)

*

The Games began on August 1, and were the 1st sporting event ever televised, though only a few people in Germany had sets on which to watch it. The Nazis instituted many of the things we now associate with the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, including the torch relay from Olympia, Greece into the stadium and the lighting of the cauldron; and the release of doves as a symbol of peace, although they used pigeons instead. When a cannon was fired as a salute, it literally scared the shit out of the pigeons, and many of the athletes got pooped on.

Established from the beginning in 1896 was the host country's head of state speaking before the crowd, and declaring the Games open. Hitler did this, in German, rather than French, the official language of the Olympics (he hated the French as much as he hated anyone else), or in English, by this point the semi-official language of the world. (As far as historians have been able to determine, German was the only language he spoke fluently.)

It's not always the head of state that does it. Sometimes, someone else is designated. In 1932, in Los Angeles, President Herbert Hoover sent Vice President Charles Curtis. In 1960, in Squaw Valley for the Winter Games, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent Vice President Richard Nixon to his native California to do it. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter sent Vice President Walter Mondale. President Ronald Reagan did it himself in his adopted home State in Los Angeles in 1984, President Bill Clinton did it in Atlanta in 1996, and President George W. Bush did it in Salt Lake City in 2002.

When Britain has hosted: King Edward VII did it in 1908, King George VI did it in 1948, and Queen Elizabeth II did it in 2012, despite being 86 years old. When Australia hosted in 1956 and 2000, and when Canada did it in 1976 for the Summer Games, and 1988 and 2010 for the Winter Games, it was the Queen's representative, the Governor-General, who did it, even though the Queen was in attendance in Montreal in 1976, as her daughter, Princess Anne, was competing in the equestrian events.

The Parade of Nations had also been established from the beginning, and many of the countries' delegations followed the tradition of dipping their flag before the host nation's head of state. The American delegation refused to do this with the Stars & Stripes, and it had nothing to do with said head of state being a Fascist maniac. They were criticized for this, but stood their ground.

On August 2, Owens ran in the qualifying heats for the 100 meters. In the 1st, he tied the Olympic and world record. In the 2nd, he broke it. On August 3, the final was held, and Owens won it with a time of 10.3 seconds. Finishing 2nd was another black American, Ralph Metcalfe, who would later serve the South Side of Chicago in Congress from 1971 until his death in 1978.

Owens was now an Olympic Gold Medalist, and, by winning the Olympic 100-meter dash, he became recognized unofficially as "the fastest man in the world."

On August 4, Owens won the long jump, with 26 feet, 5 inches. Finishing 2nd was Luz Long of Germany, who did fit the Aryan profile. Owens was missing the tape and fouling, and, in a great display of sportsmanship, Long advised Owens to jump a bit short of the tape, just to be sure. It worked, and he had a 2nd Gold Medal.

On August 5, he won the 200 meters in 20.7 seconds. Finishing 2nd was a runner from UCLA, Matthew MacKenzie "Mack" Robinson. He had a younger brother, who went on to star in track, and other sports, at UCLA: Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson. So Owens now had 3 Gold Medals, fulfilling his goal.

On the 1st day, Hitler shook hands with the German victors only, and then left the stadium. International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour told him that he had to greet every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for none at all, and skipped all further medal presentations.

His refusal to congratulate Owens had nothing to do with hating black people, or hating Americans. Nor was it personal. Owens was not "snubbed by Hitler." Owens responded to these claims at the time:

Hitler had a certain time to come to the stadium and a certain time to leave. It happened he had to leave before the victory ceremony after the 100 meters race began at 5:45 PM. But before he left, I was on my way to a broadcast, and passed near his box. He waved at me, and I waved back. I think it was bad taste to criticize the "man of the hour" in another country.

The final of the 4x100-meter sprint relay was to be held on August 9. The intended American competitors were Frank Wykoff (Des Moines, Iowa and of Dutch descent, having already taken Gold Medals in the event in 1928 and 1932), Foy Draper (from Texas and of English descent, and would be listed as missing in action in World War II), and 2 Jewish runners, Marty Glickman from New York and Sam Stoller from Cincinnati. (Glickman went on to become the 1st great New York sportscaster.)

But the President of the U.S. Olympic Committee was Avery Brundage, a racist and an anti-Semite, who was just fine with the Nazis. He decided that, since Hitler's boys had already been beaten by black men, it would be worse if they were beaten by Jews. So he benched Glickman and Stoller, and told Owens and Metcalfe that they would run in those men's places. Owens objected. Coach Dean Cromwell told him, "You'll do as you're told." With no recourse but to drop out, which would have been much worse, he ran the anchor leg, and the U.S. team won.

Owens had his 4th Gold Medal -- possibly the most unwelcome medal in Olympic history. This feat -- winning the Gold Medals of the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the 4x100-meter relay, and the long jump -- has only been done once since, by Carl Lewis in Los Angeles in 1984.

From a distance, Owens was hailed as a hero upon his return to America. Up close, he was still treated like any other black person in the 1930s. He found it difficult to make a living -- "You can't eat four gold medals," he said -- and took part in demeaning stunts to raise money. During World War II, the U.S. Office of Civilian Defense appointed Owens as director of a national fitness program for African Americans, but he lost this job when peace came. Like his contemporary, Joe Louis, the Heavyweight Champion of the World, he fell into trouble over his taxes. Unlike Louis, he eventually got out of it.

He became what he called "a professional good example." He became an American representative at the Olympics, and was particularly honored the next time a free and democratic Germany hosted, in Munich in 1972. He even did an American Express "Do you know me?" commercial. He died on March 31, 1980, of cancer, at age 66. He is buried at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.

The Olympiastadion still stands, having undergone some renovations. It is the home of the biggest soccer team in the German capital, Hertha Berlin. It hosted 3 games in the 1974 World Cup, and 6 games in the 2006 World Cup, including the Final and a Quarterfinal. It hosted the 2015 UEFA Champions League Final, and the Final of Euro 2024. Having seated over 100,000 upon its opening, renovations and wider seats have brought capacity down to 74,475, but it is still the largest stadium in any German-speaking country.

In fact, the Olympiastadion in Berlin is 1 of 4 stadiums to have hosted an Olympic Games, a World Cup Final and a UEFA European Cup/Champions League Final. The others are the Olympiastadion in Munich, the old Wembley Stadium in London, and the Stade de France outside Paris.

August 14, 1917: Marty Glickman's Centennial

August 14, 1917, 100 years ago: Martin Irving Glickman is born in The Bronx. He was the greatest sportscaster New York ever knew. Or any other city, for that matter.

He grew up in Brooklyn, the son of Jewish immigrants from Romania. He graduated from James Madison High School in 1935, and enrolled at Syracuse University, where he played football and ran track. He made the U.S. track team for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The 4x100-meter relay team was supposed to be Glickman, Sam Stoller of the University of Michigan, Ralph Metcalfe of Marquette University in Milwaukee, and Jesse Owens of Ohio State. The 1st 2 were Jewish, and the last 2 were black.

Owens won the 100 meters, with Metcalfe finishing 2nd for the Silver Medal. And he won the long jump, defeating German jumper Carl "Luz" Long. The sound of German fans cheering on a black American, flying in the face of the myth of "Aryan supremacy," infuriated the host nation's head of state and head of government, who were the same man, Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

After this, Avery Brundage, Chairman of the U.S. (and later of the International) Olympic Committee, dropped Glickman and Stoller from the relay team, replacing them with Foy Draper and Frank Wykoff, the latter of whom had already won Gold Medals in 1928 and 1932. Draper and Wykoff were blond and blue-eyed, neither black nor Jewish. Glickman and Stoller fumed, but there was nothing they could do except cheer the team on to their Gold Medals.

(Draper and Long would both be killed in action in World War II in 1943 -- on opposite sides, of course. Metcalfe would later be elected to Congress from a Chicago district in 1970, serving until his death in 1978. Wykoff became a teacher in Los Angeles. Owens became what he called "a professional good example." He and Wykoff both died in 1980. Stoller became an actor and a singer, and lived until 1983. Glickman survived them all, by plenty.)

*

His athletic career over with his 1939 graduation, he continued a path he had begun at Syracuse: Radio. He was hired by WHN, 1050 on the AM dial. His career was interrupted by World War II, and he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.

A Marine? From Brooklyn? Who had played football at a major university? You know he was tough. A Jew who'd already been robbed of his chance to embarrass Hitler on the field of play? You know he was ready to do so on the field of battle. They made him an officer, and he survived The War without a scratch. Hitler, and the Nazi government and Reich (Empire) he built, of course, did not.

He returned to WHN, and became its sports director. (1050 AM is now ESPN Deportes, the Spanish version of ESPN radio in New York.) In 1946, with the founding of the league that would become the NBA, he became the 1st voice of their charter and flagship franchise, the New York Knickerbockers -- the Knicks. In 1967, he would also become the 1st voice of what is now the other NBA team in New York, the New Jersey Americans of the American Basketball Association -- later the New York Nets, the New Jersey Nets and the Brooklyn Nets.

As Knick broadcaster, he was preparing his broadcast while watching the Knicks practice. He saw All-Star guard Carl Braun -- a fellow Brooklyn Jew -- practicing free throws, and when one went through the net without going off the backboard, what would later be called "nothing but net," Braun would imitate the sound it made, saying, "Swish!" Glickman picked up on it, and when it would be done during a game, he would say, "Swish!"

Those of us who grew up in the 1980s and '90s, who heard Warner Wolf do the sports on WCBS-Channel 2 on the 11:00 broadcast, we thought he invented "Swish!" Nope, he got it from Marty Glickman. I don't know where Warner got "Boom!" for a home run, but he came up with "Come on, give us a break!" on his own, and "Let's go to the videotape!" happened unintentionally, as the result of a blooper -- not his own.

Glickman practically invented TV sportscasting in New York. He did the pregame and postgame shows for the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers -- making him, in a way, the father of the MSG Network, SportsChannel, YES and SNY. He served as sports director of WCBS, 880 AM. He also did Jets games, college basketball, track meets, wrestling meets from St. Nicholas Arena, and harness races at Yonkers Raceway. He did University of Connecticut football and basketball for the Connecticut radio network, and Ivy League football on PBS.

Since Glickman went to Syracuse, it became a destination for other New York City and Tri-State Area natives who wanted to get into the business, some of whom can be heard on this video: Marv Albert, Dick Stockton, Bob Costas, Len Berman, Ed Coleman, Ian Eagle, Sean McDonough, Mike Tirico, Gary Apple, Craig Carton, Joe Castiglione. Jayson Stark is from Philadelphia, but he went to Syracuse, too. Then there's broadcasters who weren't in sports, or aren't necessarily from anywhere near New York, but are still worth mentioning: Dick Clark, Ted Koppel, Steve Kroft, Jeanne Moos, Megyn Kelly, Contessa Brewer, Mary Calvi.

In 1991, the Basketball Hall of Fame gave Marty Glickman their Curt Gowdy Media Award, tantamount to induction for broadcasters. He was only the 2nd person to receive it. The 1st was Gowdy himself.

He retired in 1992, wrote a memoir titled Fastest Kid On the Block, and continued to make public appearances until heart trouble hospitalized him in 2000. He died on January 3, 2001, from complications from surgery. He was 83.

He was survived by his wife, Marjorie; 2 daughters, Elizabeth Alderman and Nancy Glickman; 2 sons, John and David; 10 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren. He was cremated, so there is no gravesite.

In his New York Times obituary of Glickman, William N. Wallace wrote, "Glickman's voice had the clarity of a bell and the authority of a bank." Considering he came of age during the Great Depression, and considering what we've seen from banks since he died, maybe we should say he had more authority than a bank.

Marv Albert called him "my idol." And Marv -- at least, before his 1997 scandal -- was a lot of younger sportscasters' idol.

Marty Glickman was the 1st New York TV sportscaster. He was the best. Because he was such a good example, several others have come close. And he deserves to be remembered on what would have been his 100th Birthday.

September 12, 1913: Jesse Owens Is Born

September 12, 1913, 100 years ago: James Cleveland Owens is born in Oakville, Alabama. One thing Southern white people and Southern black people have in common is frequently addressing boys by their initials, so Owens was usually called "J.C."

When he was 9, the family moved north, as part of the "Great Migration" of African-Americans seeking to leave the segregated South in search of less prejudice and better jobs in the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West Coast. The fact that they moved to Cleveland, both his and his father's middle name (Henry Cleveland Owens), appears to have been a coincidence.

Upon arrival in school in Cleveland, the boy was asked his name. He said, "J.C. Owens." The teacher misheard this, and said, "Your name is Jesse?" Not wanting to contradict her, he said it was. And so he was Jesse Owens from then on.

He became Ohio's biggest high school track star. On May 25, 1935 -- the day after the 1st night game in Major League Baseball -- he competed for Ohio State University at the Big Ten Championships at Ferry Field, the former football facility at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

He ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds, tying the world record. He set world records in the long jump (26 feet, 8 1/4 inches, a world record that would last for 25 years), the 220-yard sprint (20.3 seconds), and the 220-yard low hurdles (22.6 seconds). These 4 records were all set within a span of 45 minutes.

So when the U.S. Olympic Team set sail -- flying across the Atlantic Ocean was still too risky at that point -- for Germany in July 1936, Owens was considered one of the favorites in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, and the long jump. (Most of the world was now racing using the metric system, although the United States, as yet, was not.)

*

The International Olympic Committee had awarded the 1936 Olympic Games to Germany in 1931, when it was still governed by the Weimar Republic. The Winter Games went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria, on the nation's southern border, with Austria. The Summer Games went to the national capital, Berlin.

But in 1933, the National Socialist German Workers' Party -- Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpar, or "Nazi" Party -- came to power, and Adolf Hitler became Chancellor. Within another year, he had total control, and instituted the party's ideology, fascism: Nationalism, militarism, bigotry, and letting big business do whatever it wanted.

He also instituted his ideal of an "Aryan" "master race": White, blond hair, blue eyes, tall, physically strong. He, himself, was white, but not the other things.

And he falsely blamed Communists and Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I. Well before most people know what a "holocaust" was (originally, the word was used to mean a large fire), he was cutting Jewish people out of German society.

Like most dictators, he was not especially interested in sports. But, like many of them, someone talked him into using sports as propaganda for his ideals. And so, the 1936 Olympics, especially the Summer Games in Berlin, would be a spectacle celebrating "Aryan supremacy."

But a story which may be apocryphal (I hope it's true) shows that even his power was not absolute. In the Olympic Stadium (Olympiastadion) he had constructed for the Games, the restrooms had signs saying, "Dogs and Jews are not allowed." A representative of the International Olympic Committee told him to take it down.

Hitler: "When you come into a man's house, you don't tell him what he can and cannot put up!"

IOC official: "Excuse me, Mr. Chancellor, but when that five-ringed flag goes up over the stadium, it is no longer Germany. It is Olympia. And we are the masters there."

The signs came down.

The Games began on August 1, and the Nazis instituted many of the things we now associate with the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, including the torch relay from Olympia, Greece into the stadium and the lighting of the cauldron; and the release of doves as a symbol of peace, although they used pigeons instead. When a cannon was fired as a salute, it literally scared the shit out of the pigeons, and many of the athletes got pooped on.

Established from the beginning in 1896 was the host country's head of state speaking before the crowd, and declaring the Games open. Hitler did this, in German, rather than French, the official language of the Olympics (he hated the French as much as he hated anyone else), or in English, by this point the semi-official language of the world. (As far as historians have been able to determine, German was the only language he spoke.)

The Parade of Nations had also been established from the beginning, and many of the countries' delegations followed the tradition of dipping their flag before the host nation's head of state. The American delegation refused to do this with the Stars & Stripes, and it had nothing to do with said head of state being a fascist maniac. They were criticized for this, and stood their ground.

On August 2, Owens ran in the qualifying heats for the 100 meters. In the 1st, he tied the Olympic and world record. In the 2nd, he broke it. On August 3, the final was held, and Owens won it with a time of 10.3 seconds. Finishing 2nd was another black American, Ralph Metcalfe, who would later serve the South Side of Chicago in Congress from 1971 until his death in 1978. Owens was now an Olympic Gold Medalist.

On August 4, Owens won the long jump, with 26 feet, 5 inches. Finishing 2nd was Luz Long of Germany, who did fit the Aryan profile. Owens was missing the tape and fouling, and, in a great display of sportsmanship, Long advised Owens to jump a bit short of the tape, just to be sure. It worked, and he had a 2nd Gold Medal.

On August 5, he won the 200 meters in 20.7 seconds. Finishing 2nd was a runner from UCLA, Matthew MacKenzie "Mack" Robinson. He had a younger brother, who went on to star in track, and other sports, at UCLA: Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson. So Owens now had 3 Gold Medals, fulfilling his goal.

On the 1st day, Hitler shook hands with the German victors only, and then left the stadium. International Olympic Committee president Henri de Baillet-Latour told him that he had to greet every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for none at all, and skipped all further medal presentations.

His refusal to congratulate Owens had nothing to do with hating black people, or hating Americans. Nor was it personal. Owens was not "snubbed by Hitler." Owens responded to these claims at the time:

Hitler had a certain time to come to the stadium and a certain time to leave. It happened he had to leave before the victory ceremony after the 100 meters [race began at 5:45 PM. But before he left, I was on my way to a broadcast, and passed near his box. He waved at me, and I waved back. I think it was bad taste to criticize the "man of the hour" in another country.

The final of the 4x100-meter sprint relay was to be held on August 9. The intended American competitors were Frank Wykoff (Des Moines, Iowa and of Dutch descent, having already taken Gold Medals in the event in 1928 and 1932), Foy Draper (from Texas and of English descent, and would be listed as missing in action in World War II), and 2 Jewish runners, Marty Glickman from New York and Sam Stoller from Cincinnati. (Glickman went on to become the 1st great New York sportscaster.)

But the President of the U.S. Olympic Committee was Avery Brundage, a racist and an anti-Semite, who was just fine with the Nazis. He decided that, since Hitler's boys had already been beaten by black men, it would be worse if they were beaten by Jews. So he benched Glickman and Stoller, and told Owens and Metcalfe that they would run in those men's places. Owens objected. Coach Dean Cromwell told him, "You'll do as you're told." The U.S. team won.

Owens had his 4th Gold Medal -- possibly the most unwelcome medal in Olympic history. This feat -- winning the Gold Medals of the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the 4x100-meter relay, and the long jump -- has only been done once since, by Carl Lewis in Los Angeles in 1984.

From a distance, Owens was hailed as a hero upon his return to America. Up close, he was still treated like any other black person in the 1930s. He found it difficult to make a living -- "You can't eat four gold medals" -- and took part in demeaning stunts to raise money. During World War II, the U.S. Office of Civilian Defense appointed Owens as director of a national fitness program for African Americans, but he lost this job when peace came. Like his contemporary, Joe Louis, the Heavyweight Champion of the World, he fell into trouble over his taxes. Unlike Louis, he eventually got out of it.

He became what he called "a professional good example." He became an American representative at the Olympics, and was particularly honored the next time a free and democratic Germany hosted, in Munich in 1972. He even did an American Express "Do you know me?" commercial. He died on March 31, 1980, of cancer, at age 66. He is buried at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.

The Olympiastadion still stands, having undergone some renovations. It is the home of the biggest soccer team in the German capital, Hertha Berlin. It hosted 3 games in the 1974 World Cup, and 6 games in the 2006 World Cup, including the Final and a Quarterfinal. (UPDATE: It has since hosted the 2015 UEFA Champions League Final, and is scheduled to host the Final of Euro 2024.)

One of the adjacent streets is named Jesse Owens Allee.