60' 6'' and Other Distances from Home

"Mose YellowHorse's 1920 fastball traveled "in the neighborhood of ninety-five miles an hour," and Todd Fuller's bio of YellowHorse is a similarly powerhouse affair. Avid and loving in the tribute it pays to this too-neglected American original, but willing to distinguish Mose the myth from the everyday Mose the man, this deeply researched and widely encompassing journey through baseball, politics, poetry, prose, stats, tribal life, and comic strip shenanigans is surely Fuller's equivalent of having all the bases loaded."-Albert Goldbarth

Mose YellowHorse (18981964), a Skidi Pawnee, played professional baseball for nearly a decade, most notably with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1921 and '22. Aside from his baseball achievements, YellowHorse, as a boy, traveled with and performed in Pawnee Bill's Wild West show, later served in the Army during World War I, and also appeared as a character in Chester Gould's Dick Tracy comic strip. After his death, he earned induction into both the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame and the American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame. His baseball glove remains on permanent display at the Baeball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Using a structural pattern based on an old-time Pawnee Indian storytelling session, many voices and perspectives collaborate to form a multi-faceted recreation of Mose YellowHorse's life. Poetry, oral histories (from tribal elders), critical essays, letters, cartoons, photographs, and newspaper accounts are all included as a way of focusing on cross-cultural tensions.

Todd Fuller teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Drake University. In 1999 he completed his Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Native American literatures from Oklahoma State University, where he researched this book for eight years, with the help of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. The author is donating half of his royalties to establish the Mose YellowHorse Higher Education Endowment.

...1) This book is about the first full-blood American Indian to play baseball in the major leagues. That he accomplished such a difficult thing in an era when not even African Americans were allowed to play in the majors, is something that all American Indians should be proud of (not just the Pawnee). 2) From this book, Non-Native society learns that Indians DO exist, not just in the historical sense but in contemporary, everyday existence. Non-Native society learns that Indians CAN accomplish great things, such as, playing major league baseball. 3) It could be that Yellowhorse's own words are absent from this book because he passed away nearly 40 years ago and also, it states very clearly in the book that Yellowhorse left no journals or other writings behind. (Possible explanation for that "emptiness," I don't know).