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

by Tom Stanton

Detroit, mid-1930s: In a city abuzz over its unrivaled sports success, gun-loving baseball fan Dayton Dean became ensnared in the nefarious and deadly Black Legion. The secretive, Klan-like group was executing a wicked plan of terror, murdering enemies, flogging associates, and contemplating armed rebellion. The Legion boasted tens of thousands of members across the Midwest, among them politicians and prominent citizens even, possibly, a beloved athlete.

Terror in the City of Champions opens with the arrival of Mickey Cochrane, a fiery baseball star who roused the Great Depression's hardest-hit city by leading the Tigers to the 1934 pennant. A year later he guided the team to its first championship. Within seven months the Lions and Red Wings follow in football and hockey all while Joe Louis chased boxing's heavyweight crown. Amidst such glory, the Legion's dreadful toll grew unchecked: staged suicides, bodies dumped along roadsides, high-profile assassination plots. Talkative Dayton Dean's involvement would deepen as heroic Mickey's Cochrane's reputation would rise. But the ballplayer had his own demons, including a close friendship with Harry Bennett, Henry Ford's brutal union buster.

Award-winning author Tom Stanton weaves a stunning tale of history, crime, and sports. Richly portraying 1930s America, Terror in the City of Champions features a pageant of colorful figures: iconic athletes, sanctimonious criminals, scheming industrial titans, a bigoted radio priest, a love-smitten celebrity couple, J. Edgar Hoover, and two future presidents, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. It is a rollicking true story set at the confluence of hard luck, hope, victory, and violence.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Baseball, True Crime, Sports, Crime, Audiobook

352 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2016

About the author

Dear Readers:

I feel fortunate to have been writing professionally since age 18, beginning back in the final year of Jimmy Carter's presidency, when I sported a poorly executed, Peter Frampton-inspired perm. Decades on, my hair is gone, but writing remains central to my life. I've been a reporter, editor, publisher and, more recently, an author and journalism professor (Go University of Detroit Mercy Titans!). If you know me for my books, it's likely for the Tiger Stadium memoir The Final Season, the Quill Award finalist Ty and The Babe or the feverishly publicized Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America. My forthcoming book is Terror in the City of Champions, a true story set in mid-1930s Detroit.

OK, enough of the formal stuff. Some things you might be interested to know:

* Elton John's music has been a big part of my life since "Bennie and the Jets," which is no excuse for accidentally setting off one of his legendary tantrums backstage one evening. (My fault.)

* I drink too many ... Tim Hortons Ice Caps.

* The three biggest thrills to come my way due to book writing: going with Elmore Leonard to a Detroit Tigers baseball game, hearing Alec Baldwin read an excerpt from one of my books on television and receiving an unexpected phone call from one of my favorite authors, Pat Conroy.

* My eternally kind wife and I care for four feral cats -- Pumpkin, Sox, Frisco and Panther -- who dictate our schedule.

* When I travel, I inevitably wind up searching out bookstores and libraries. (We probably have that in common.)

* One of my uncles, Edward Stanton, was a photographer in Detroit in the 1930s, and his shots of black Detroit can be found here: http://reuther.wayne.edu/image/tid/1983

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hank Greenberg is one of my all time favorite non Cubs baseball players, so when I noticed a book featuring the 1930s era Detroit Tigers at my library, I was intrigued. Detroit area writer Tom Stanton had heard older family members mention a part terrorist group part gangster network based near Detroit during the same era, yet had heard nothing about the group growing up or in school. The presence of this group during America’s low point in history moved him to investigate. The fact that they operated concurrently to when Detroit’s athletic teams held championship titles in every major sport got Stanton thinking that between the terrorist group and the sports championships he would have the basis for a fast paced book. Thus, the idea for Terror in the City of Champions had been planted, a hybrid sports and true crime book designed to shed light on Detroit during the height of the Depression.

During the 1935-36 sports cycle, Detroit found lightning in a bottle and held every major championship- baseball, football, hockey plus heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis. That the football Lions won was a fluke as they clearly were not the best team that year; however, in 1935 it was evident that the Detroit Tigers were the best team in the American League. Bested in a seven game World Series the year before, the Tigers returned all their key players including player-manager Mickey Cochrane, second baseman Charlie Gehringer, pitcher Schoolboy Rowe, and first baseman and eventual league most valuable player Hank Greenberg. Co-owner Frank Navin was praying to see at least one championship during his lifetime, something that eluded even the teams lead by the great Ty Cobb. The Tigers started out on fire and would eventually capture the pennant and the hearts of the city. While the Tigers were out winning ball games, another clandestine group was instilling fear into the minds of working class Detroit.

The Black Legion had been the brainchild of former Klansman Bert Effinger. In his mutual hatred of Blacks, Jews, and Catholics, he was determined to rid the world of all of them and take over the federal government in the process. With a gunpoint oath and initiation ceremony and the promise of beatings and floggings if members missed meetings, the Black Legion recruited thousands of unsuspecting white, Protestant members. Boasting membership in the upward of three million people, the Legion would systematically murder black and catholic good standing citizens just to do it. Because lawmakers at all levels of society were either Legion members or supported their belief system, the group was given free reign to operate. With murders being cited as suicide and closed cases, especially with the murder of black citizens, law enforcement not in the ranks of Legion were unable to rid society of this menace. Effinger’s grandiose plans included a takeover of the federal government, which he believed orchestrated the depression for its own communist gains. His rhetoric hit a nerve with out of work white workers, and, unless federal agents not in the pockets of the Legion could prove that these plans were legit, Effinger was determined to follow through with them.

Ironically, the Legion were still big baseball fans and many members supported the Tigers during their championship season. Although they may have taunted Hank Greenberg with anti-Semitic slurs, Legion members largely left him alone because he was a member of the Tigers. Other Jews, the Legion plotted to douse synagogues with cyanide gas, but, thankfully, that plot had been uncovered. Likewise, the Legion as a whole may not have liked that Joe Louis was black, but because he won a boxing title and brought glory to Detroit, the group looked the other way, although it appears as though the Legion detested blacks even more than they did Jews or Catholics. Louis might have been unaware of the Legion’s operations; it is tough to surmise from these pages. He won overwhelming victories and brought glory to black Detroit and became a champion of champions. Tigers manager Mickey Cochrane, on the other hand, did not fare as well as Louis. As one of Detroit’s well to do citizens, some of his associates may have assisted the Legion in their operations. Cochrane feared the Legion and suffered a nervous breakdown midway through the 1936 season, putting a damper on the championship from the year before. With even athletes and other upwardly standing citizens not immune to the Legion’s psychological scheming, it is no telling how far the group would go before a government takeover was imminent.

Tom Stanton himself had not heard of the Black Legion; an uncle mentioned it to him once, and he was intrigued to research the group for this book. All the key players in this story have long been deceased but Stanton has been able to piece together the Legion’s operations and was alarmed at how far reaching the group became. He either did not have enough information to write a book strictly about the Legion, or he wanted to contrast the group with the glory of Detroit’s four champions in the 1935-36 sports cycle; that remains to be seen. With so many facets of this story, at times it became hard to follow because there were too many key players in it. As a result, what could have been a fast moving true crime story fell a little flat. I did enjoy the sections on Joe Louis and Tigers but felt that even those could have been more detailed; for more information on those sports stories there will have to be another book at another time. It is apparent that Tom Stanton has pride in the Detroit community where he has lived his entire life. Terror in the City of Champions pays homage to the history of that community, and with a little fine tuning could have been an epic story.

3+ stars

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terror in the City of Champions is an excellent piece of historical/journalistic investigation. It is set in Detroit in the period of 1933-1936. Detroit was an amazing contrast in wealth and poverty. This is a city that came out of the Great Depression in better economic shape than perhaps any other city in the U.S. However the rapid change in demographics, recent immigration and the increased unemployment created a city primed for all kinds of class and racial problems.

The primary thread in the book reveals the story of the Black Legion. The Black Legion was a secretive and murderous white nationalist organization with thousands of members in southeast Michigan and northern Ohio during the early 1930's with one historian estimating membership at 135,000 in the Midwest. The Legion was embedded within police departments, Ford Motor Company, and mayor's offices to such an extent that the overwhelming majority of the fifty murders linked to the Legion were never prosecuted. The author presents some limited evidence indicating the reason that J. Edgar Hoover repeatedly declined to investigate was to avoid this issue at the national level and which might create undue pressure on southern Democrats who were linked with the KKK. The Legion and KKK were using similar racist tactics.

This was the same period and city where Father Coughlin and Henry Ford were routinely spouting anti-semitic beliefs and where the mob was active. The author includes these threads as supporting rationale for the systematic racism and the authorities' reluctance to throw the book at the masterminds behind the murder plots. There were some 11 members convicted of murder and 37 convicted of other related crimes. Membership declined dramatically when the court cases were eventually covered by the press.

The parallel thread to the Black Legion story is sports related. In 1935 the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions won their first world championships and the following spring (1935-1936 season) the Detroit Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup. Detroit was coined the City of Champions by the national press. This is the only time in the history of the four major sports in America that teams from one city have ever held three titles simultaneously! The story also follows Joe Louis who became AP's Athlete of the Year in 1935 and won the world title in 1937 over Braddock.

Tom Stanton is a journalist so the pace moves pretty fast. A lot of comparisons have been made between this book and Erik Larson's style because of the multiple parallel threads and the obvious use of the city as the backdrop of some heinous crimes. This book is dense with facts, including sports figures and references many locations that only a local would be familiar with. The writing is a little choppy at times as well. That is my only reservation with the book but I grew up here so I appreciate all good books set in Michigan

Stanton spent 10 years researching and writing the book and the detail shows. For what it's worth, I think a more apt title for the book might have been Detroit 1935 but I guess terror sells.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mid-1930s were banner years for the city of Detroit’s unrivaled sports scene. In late 1934, the Tigers won the pennant. Just seven months later, the Red Wings took home the Stanley Cup and the Lions sat atop the National Football League. And it wasn’t just team sports that dominated. Hometown hero Joe Louis had his sights set on his boxing’s crown.

All this success managed to awaken the city from a depression-induced slumber. However, beneath all the championships and celebration, an underground society began to form. A white supremacist group that splintered from The Ku Klux Klan, The Black Legion terrorized the streets of The Motor City during the 1930s. Now, author Tom Stanton weaves together both the pride and the embarrassment of Detroit in one sweeping book, Terror in the City of Champions.

I received a free copy from the publisher in exchange for a review.

Stanton’s book was shocking to read, to say the least. The story of how The Black Legion rose to prominence was alarming. Basically, prospective members were invited to mysterious meetings only to find out they were tricked into an initiation to The Black Legion, a hate-driven, racist organization. They were then told that they were now members without choice and if they were to betray their new brotherhood, they would be killed. Obviously, not all members were innocent, but this practice was the key in how they were able to grow their numbers so quickly.

The other side to the book detailed the Detroit Tigers and their rise to World Series Champions. Honestly, I found this to be the duller of the two stories and at times found myself drifting off, waiting to read more about the murder and madness that surrounded the Legion. It’s not to say that Stanton did a bad job in presenting the sports aspect, the material was concise and the narrative easy to follow, it just didn’t grab me in the same way.

If you’re a fan of the “Eric Larson” style of historical presentation, I think you’ll at the very least find this an interesting read. I wouldn’t put it on the same level as Larson, but it’s worth a look.

[Molly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lordy, what a hot mess of a book.
You'd think from its title that this book would be about a secret society in which many Detroit baseball players were active. Nope. Or even a murder related to Detroit baseball. Nope.
This book goes back and forth between very detailed Detroit Tiger games, less detailed Joe Louis fights, some Red Wings hockey, Lions football gets mentioned AND a KKK style gang (the Black Legion) PLUS local politics of the metro Detroit area. Way too much ground to attempt to cover and it isn't covered well at all.
The interesting part of this book is about the Black Legion and near the end, it just drops off and then there's an epilogue that attempts to tidily summarize the book. I guess it does, but that sure is not payoff for having to read the preceding pages.
If you are interested in the Black Legion,there must be other (readable) books out there.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terror in the City of Champions: Murder, Baseball, and the Secret Society that Shocked Depression-Era Detroit by Tom Stanton is a thrilling and terrifying read.

Stanton begins his narrative in 1933 as Frank Navin signs Mickey Cochrane in hope that his Tigers would finally win a championship under his watch. At the same time a series of unsolved murders in the Detroit area were ruled suicides. Stanton weaves the narrative thread of winning teams and murderous mayhem through 1936 when the Black Legion was finally identified.

Detroit became the "City of Champions" when wins by the Tigers, Redwings, the Lions, and Joe Louis brought together a city crushed by the Depression.

Detroit was also the 'automotive capital of the world', attracting workers from the South to factory jobs. The largest Catholic congregation met in the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, MI, now a national shrine. When it burned down in 1935 controversial Father Coughlin rebuilt it with money contributed by his radio followers. He preached a mixture of worker's rights, government control of railroads and major industries, Antisemitism, and he supported some Fascist policies. President Roosevelt finally shut his radio station down in 1939.

It was also a time when the Black Legion's reign of terror pressed men into membership on threat of death, flogged or executed backsliders, and assigned hit men to kill targeted 'enemies' of America: Catholics, Jews, Socialists, Communists, African Americans, liberal lawyers and newsmen. The leaders' ultimate goal was to depose President Roosevelt and take over the American government--to save it from Communism.

Reading about the Black Legion carrying out their meetings and activities in locales known to me was sickening. The group grew out of the ashes of the KKK. Men were invited to a club or gathering, but when they discovered what was really going on it was too late to back out. Pledges were signed at gunpoint and members given a bullet to remind them that betrayal meant death. It was a reign of terror. Bigwigs ordered regular 'joes' to carry out abductions and executions. At least one African American man was murdered just for sport.

Membership climbed into the tens of thousands across the Midwest, reaching into the ranks of police, courts, and elected officials. It was said all of Oakland County's government were members! I live in Oakland County!

When Captain Marmon came from Lansing to investigate he soon announced the Black Legion was responsible for at least 50 Michigan deaths. Old cases were reexamined; murders had been ruled as suicides. But his investigations were stymied. Cover-ups prevented following through on leads. J. Edgar Hoover ignored demands for action. The Ford Motor Company would not allow permission for the police to drain Ford Mill Pond, said to hold bodies. Major-General Bert Effinger of the Black Legion lived in Lima, Ohio. The local police would not execute a search warrant on his house. Effinger went missing.

Had it not been for a Legion member's confessions and telling police of activities and crimes no one would have been brought to justice. The downfall of the Black Legion was a relief for thousands who spent every day in fear.

I am not a sports fan myself but my limited knowledge did not prevent me from appreciating, or following, the book's saga of the Tigers. I now know who Schoolhouse Rowe, Hank Greenberg, Micky Cochrane, and Frank Navin are! I proudly can say I now know why Navin Field is important to my acquaintance who is involved in vintage baseball played there and why the Navin Field Grounds Crew are fighting the installation of artificial turf on the field. I do love when history books make one understand and appreciate the present! Stanton is able to bring these men to life.

This multi-layered book offers a full picture of Depression Era Detroit. It has always been a complicated city.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[SuperWendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well this was disappointing. This reads like a series of vignettes - jumping from the Tigers (lengthy descriptions of games in some instances), the Black Legion, the Lions, Red Wings, Joe Louis and back around again. It reads like a "day in the life" (or 2 year period in the life in this case) of the city of Detroit. Which means it's not very satisfying depending on what you're interested in. The crime reader and Detroit Tigers fan in me was largely bored. The author should have picked one subject and stuck with it. Instead this reads like a disjointed mess.

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a history buff and a sports fan made me grab this book from the library shelf and I was not disappointed. I loved it........the style is reminiscent of that of Erik Larson, concentrating on two disparate subjects in one book and making it work. It is all tied together by Detroit, a once thriving city that was crushed by the Great Depression and was struggling to survive. Baseball was a positive force for the people of the city who were hoping for a championship or at least a winning season for the faltering Tigers. The negative force in and around the city was the Black Legion, a pseudo Ku Klux Klan organization which espoused the same racist/religious/cultural policies and conducted a campaign of fear, destruction and murder against the targeted groups and in some cases its own members.

I'm not sure how many people have knowledge of the Black Legion but it is fascinating to see how this group grew and literally got away with murder. Government and police officials were members although that was not known to the general public and the organization was always under the radar when it came to prosecution. On the other hand, the Detroit Tigers were constantly in the public eye and were determined to win the World Series against all odds.

This book gives the reader an inside look at Detroit during a turbulent time which ended in glory for the Tigers and ignominy for the Black Legion. I highly recommend this book.......a great read.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book just didn't click for me. I thought the narrative flow was kind of confusing, especially when jumping between subjects. I also thought that it was hard to keep track of people. It would have been easier to follow and more engrossing if Stanton had picked just a few people and told their stories and left the others out.

**I received this copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

[Amanda Fitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michigan history? Baseball history? Secret historical mob-like organization terrorizing Detroit? This book had all of it. While not my normal genre, it was really interesting to learn a little about 1935 Detroit, from its sports teams to the KKK offshoot The Black Legion. I enjoyed the way this book was written, with one chapter focused on baseball, then one on the Black Legion, eventually intertwining them. For me though, there so many names and facts, I really struggled to keep up with many of the finer points. But that's on me. It was overall a good read, and I was tricked into learning something new!

[Anup Sinha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an outstanding book and right up my alley as a huge Detroit sports fan and as one who is also interested in the city's history. Tom Stanton is also in both categories, but to the extreme, and he is also an excellent, professional writer. The research is extraordinary, I don't know how he got so much detail about the Black Legion and their activities.

I really felt like I was in the 1930s Detroit and I enjoyed driving past many of the same landmarks 85 years later while reading this book.

Among other things, this book reinforces my dislike for the corruption of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI outfit who looked the other way when it came to organized crime. They could have nipped the terrorist acts of the Black Legion in the bud. Unfortunately, too many local police and politicians were part of it and there was nowhere for the victims to go for help and the feds didn't care.

The portrait of Mickey Cochrane and the Tigers of that time is outstanding. He focuses most on the Tigers and Joe Louis but some good info on the Red Wings and Lions, too.

Strongly recommended for like-minded readers.

[Shay Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine an America just starting to right itself after an economic calamity. Imagine a changing America where racial and religious resentment lead to a sometimes polarized society, whipped up further by demagogues and religious media stars. Imagine "a low type of mentality, men easily incited by mob psychology, who have taken a silly pledge and gone through a crazy ritual apparently created by a fanatic who seeks power."

Imagine, too, politicians and police who often place political gain or personal prejudice above the common good. Imagine further a sports-crazed America, in love with the champions of professional baseball, football, hockey and boxing. Imagine Detroit in the mid-193os, a place amazingly similar in many ways to America in 2016.

"Detroit the Dynamic" was home, of course, to the mighty American auto industry, the 1935 Champion Detroit Tigers in baseball, the Lions in football, and the Red Wings in hockey, a major sports trifecta that no other city has ever matched, making Detroit truly "The City of Champions." Add to that, Detroit native Joe Louis' rise to the ranks of the boxing elite.

However, Detroit was also home to the notorious Purple Gang, and to the secret and sinister Black Legion, a Klan-like organization that draped itself in flag-waving, Constitution-spouting patriotism, but who terrorized and murdered people simply for being black, or Catholic, or leftist.

Author Tom Stanton brings the long-ago streets of Detroit to life again, along with the outsized personalities of Tiger player-manager Mickey "Black Mike" Cochrane, his Jewish star player Hank Greenberg, Catholic radio priest Father Coughlin who drifted from bible lessons to antisemitic diatribes before being shut down by his Bishop, and the strangely disinterested FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Stanton also brings to life the mean, violent, racist members of the black-robed Black Legion and the people they harassed, bombed, shot and sabotaged.

From the bright sunshine of Navin Field and the World Series (What exactly DID happen to star pitcher "Schoolboy" Rowe's hand that caused him to lose to the Cardinals in the 1934 World Series? What led to Cochrane's nervous breakdown in June of 1936?) to the shadowy clandestine meetings of the Black Legion, to the offices of the three major Detroit dailies and the halls of government and justice, this is a truly a tour through one American city's best of times and worst of times. What really struck me the most is how little people and institutions have changed since then. Highly recommended.

[Edwin Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

TERROR IN THE CITY OF CHAMPIONS by Tom Stanton recounts Detroit as the city of champions, with three major sports (baseball, football and hockey) having championships in 1935, while in the shadows of the city during the same time, a ruthless, violent organization know as the Black Legion, was thriving and terrorizing the entire North Michigan region.
As a Detroit Tigers fan myself, I'll admit a special draw this book and perhaps I will also carry a bit of a bias in how much I enjoyed this book. Stanton approaches the study of this time in three ways: He looks at the sports teams, particularly the Tigers, and how they became the champions, from putting the right puzzle pieces together, to overcoming obstacles and finally to reaching the pinnacle of their respective leagues. Stanton also delves deeply into the beginnings of the Black Legion, how they recruited, who the identified leaders were, and recreated many of their crimes. The third facet of the book was how the sports champions and at the same time the Black Legion was woven into the culture of Detroit, and to a degree the rest of the country, in the 1930's.
Stanton detailed many of the Detroit Tigers during the time and a natural desire for them to succeed comes forth. It seems likes Stanton has a sweet spot for Mickey Cochrane, the catcher/manager of the 1935 teams and rightfully so, because he was a key figure for the Tigers due to his dual participation. In the end there is a sadness to see his decline after all time and effort he put into making the Tigers champions.
Stanton recreation of Black Legion events and actions are written so well that you forget that he wasn't there and that he used multiple sources to cobble together his best estimate as to what really happened. I also like how Stanton made a point of considering not just the leaders and members of the Black Legion that were dedicated to the cause, but he also looked at the reluctant participant, many of them who waffled and questioned their participation in such a scandalous and criminal group.
I would definitely recommend this book to fans of Detroit sports and readers of historical prominence. Also, if I ever travel to Detroit, I hope to have time to explore some of the city where a lot of the book takes place, especially the field where Tigers Stadium used to be.
Thank you to Rowman & Littlefield, Lyons Press, Tom Stanton, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

[Sean Kottke · Rating 5 out of 5]

**I received a digital copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

Tom Stanton's latest is a perfect complement to his canon of baseball journalism and Detroit tales. Launching from a brief slice of the 1930s when all of Detroit's professional sports teams - as well as Joe Louis in the boxing ring - pursued world championships, the book reads like a non-fiction Motor City Ragtime as it presents the intertwining lives of famous, infamous and everyday Michiganders at a pivotal moment in history. The agony and ecstasy of athletic competition at its pinnacle stands juxtaposed with one of the ugliest (and shamefully forgotten) episodes of domestic terrorism and hatred. An epilogue demonstrates just how forgotten the story of the Black Legion is today, despite a clear line that can be traced between its activities in the 1930s and the underground infrastructure of intolerance behind the Oklahoma City bombing and beyond. Ever the top-notch journalist, Stanton has a talent for weaving a dynamic tapestry of Detroit history through concise, engaging vignettes that are vivid enough to make readers forget how many historical figures are parading before their eyes and never lose sight of the broader saga while trying to keep track of all the players. Braided with Stanton's earlier memoirs of baseball and Detroit, there's a great parallel structure across his oeuvre, as a pivotal player from The Final Season plays a key role here. Although his heart is in the baseball diamond, Stanton proves equally adept in writing about football, hockey and boxing, even if those portions are briefer than the portions about the Tigers. I'm calling it now: watch for it to appear on next year's Michigan Notable Books list!

[Josh Gulch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tom Stanton's "Terror in the City of Champions" was an enormously frustrating read. There were effectively two very different books here, neither one feeling as complete as their respective audiences might like, while both competed for page space. On one hand, the "terror" implied in the title, of a secretive white nationalist Klan offshoot operating out of Detroit and Monroe, Michigan, down to Lima, Ohio. On the other hand, the goings on of Detroit sports teams, particularly the Tigers, during the same time period from 1933-1936.

I read this book for the Black Legion angle. Living in Toledo, within the Legion's sphere of influence, I was interested in a bit of obscure local history that remains relevant in today's world, even if those particular players from eighty years ago have been long forgotten. There has been very little written about the Black Legion, the only other significant title that I'm aware of being George Morris' 1936 booklet, "The Black Legion Rides," which was written in a hot-off-the-press sensationalist style while the investigation and trials were still ongoing. Morris' short volume only devoted 47 pages to the topic and offered little resolution to the eventual fates of the perpetrators. One might expect that Stanton would have significantly more information given the passage of time and everything that may have been revealed during the intervening years as those involved aged and passed and archives became more accessible. True, Stanton offered much more than Morris, and in a more compelling, less excitable, fashion, but the story still felt under-served paired against the trials and tribulations of Detroit baseball.

The primary driving story wasn't the Legion though. Occupying what must have been more than half of the book was the history of Mickey Cochrane and the Detroit Tigers trying to win the World Series in 1934, taking the title in 1935, and falling apart in 1936, all of this going on while the Legion were terrorizing the city. An unsuspecting reader might anticipate some crossover, where both sides of this drama finally come together in some manner. Will we learn that members of the Tigers were involved in the Black Legion? Will we learn that the Black Legion were targeting and blackmailing Tigers players? Neither of those happened, nor did either side ever come to blows. Some members of the Legion turned out to be fans who occasionally attended games at Navin Field and talked baseball to lure their victims into a false sense of complacency, and Cochrane was friends with Harry Bennett, the nasty union-busting head of internal security at the Ford River Rouge plant, who was not a member of the Legion despite sharing the secret society's views about labor and Communists. Bennett may not have been terribly bothered by the Legion, whose members worked in the plant he patrolled with an iron fist, but as far as can be known, he was never initiated into their ranks. That's as close as any Tigers player came to Legion activities in Stanton's work, and members of the team appeared blissfully unaware of who was behind the murders happening in their city.

If these two narratives felt at odds with one another, Stanton would expand the sports world with the Detroit Lions winning the championship, the Detroit Red Wings taking the Stanley Cup, and Detroit's own Joe Louis wowing the nation as he boxed his way towards heavyweight champion, all of which earned Detroit the nickname "City of Champions" in that gloriously troubled year of 1935. Each new team felt like a further distraction, no longer talking about the Tigers or the Legion and taking a tangent down an entirely different road with entirely different characters, serving mostly to build upon the Tigers portion of the book as chapters about the Legion were pushed back further and further. Stanton only devoted consistent attention to the Legion at the very end, when their ranks were blown open and the saga of the Black Legion stumbled to a close as law enforcement, which had been infiltrated all through Detroit and other municipalities where they operated, dragged their feet and refused to investigate, leading to very few threads being tied before the cases were officially closed.

Tom Stanton clearly wanted to tell these stories, and he put in the work to research both, that cannot be denied. Forcing these two histories to commingle only hurt both due to bouncing back and forth so frequently between capers that never came together. The kicker is that Detroit is a city with a fascinating history, and the 1930s had plenty of more related angles that Stanton could have followed. He's a sports historian, first and foremost, so a devoted history of the Lions and Tigers and Red Wings and Joe Louis, oh my, would have been right in his wheelhouse and he could have given that history his full attention and produced something that sports enthusiasts would find rewarding. Likewise, the Black Legion is a story absolutely worth telling. Even if the sources and research materials are spotty and less comprehensive, mostly due to the botched investigations near the end which could lead to a shorter story to tell, the history of Detroit during this period more than filled in the rest with more connective tissue than the Tigers and their World Series ambitions. The three-year span of the Black Legion was set against a period of labor turmoil in the Motor City, and it was that turmoil that allowed the Legion to thrive. Much of their ranks worked in Detroit's auto factories and one of their core tenants was aggressive opposition to labor unions, with union leaders and activists being among the bloodied bodies they left behind. The reign of the Black Legion was bordered on both sides by the Ford Hunger March in 1932 and the Battle of the Overpass at the Ford plant in 1937, with plenty of labor strife in and around River Rouge and the other manufacturing plants in the city during that time period. Harry Bennett was still a key figure throughout, and his inclusion as Henry Ford's chief thug would have been better integrated than an occasional mention as Tigers' manager Mickey Cochrane's problematic friend. Telling the tale of how a white supremacist terror cell arose in the city of Detroit makes more sense if set against a Detroit labor force crafted by Ford and Bennett than contrasted against Cochrane and the Tigers.

"Terror in the City of Champions" was a missed opportunity to delve into a truly bleak and forgotten incident in the history of Detroit. I found if difficult to get through, and with each chapter where we bounced back to the Tigers, usually for two or three more in a row, felt exhausting, even interrupting Legion chapters for a Tigers update. I would have loved to read a book dedicated to how the Black Legion were radicalized by and weaponized the labor activity and racial tensions in Depression-era Detroit, and this satisfied some of of that appetite. By the last page, this being the only book to really detail that society of terror only seems incomplete and the dark history of that period not properly explored.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Terror in the City of Champions is one of those bifurcated Erik Larson-style popular histories that tries using parallel storylines to capture an historical era. In this case it's Depression-era Detroit, with Stanton (a veteran sportswriter) comparing the city's sports successes in that era with the dark reign of the Black Legion, a KKK splinter group who terrorized immigrants, Jews, Catholics, blacks and leftists in 1930s Michigan. It's an odd juxtaposition of subjects, not least because they intersect only in passing, mostly with minority athletes (Hank Greenberg of the Tigers, boxer Joe Louis) struggling against the era's prejudice. Intercutting between a Detroit Tigers pennant race and the Legion's acts of terrorism in brief, snippet-like chapters doesn't make much thematic sense beyond offering broad irony, nor does it amount to a satisfactory narrative. It's not that Stanton's a bad writer or that the information isn't interesting (if nothing else, the paucity of literature on the Legion makes it worth checking out), but the book's too scattershot to connect all the dots or explain what made '30s Detroit tick. What might work as a novel or film is highly problematic as a work of nonfiction.

[Michael Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well-written book. Stanton is an obviously talented writer on a technical level, and nearly all of the strings of the plot are presented in a manner which demands interest. The central complaint among most reviewers, that the narrative is too multifaceted and fast-paced to be grasped, is short-sighted and mostly unfounded. Though Stanton does present literally dozens of characters in the various plotlines, he does so in order to establish wider themes. The point is not for the reader to remember all the details of all the people and incidents presented along the way, but rather to establish patterns and themes which collectively embody the zeitgeist of the time, place, and topic. We must see the forest for the trees here. While he delves deeply into the backstories and emotions of the various Tigers, it never feels strictly like a baseball book, instead developing and successfully interweaving stories of culture and politics. My only true gripe is that the mentions of the Lions and Red Wings are so limited, especially relative to the coverage of the Tigers, that they feel like an afterthought used to validate the book's title. I would rather not have had them mentioned at all. Regardless, Stanton made a thoroughly enjoyable book...and I am not a baseball fan.

[Tom Gase · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent book by Tom Stanton but at times it felt like two completely different stories that was kind of forced into being one. On one hand you have Stanton's great writing and research on the 1934-1936 Detroit Tigers, along with info on boxer Joe Louis, the 1935 Detroit Red Wings and 1935 Detroit Lions. Don't let the book title fool you though, Stanton spends a great deal of this book discussing the Tigers and not much time dedicated to the other Detroit teams. When he isn't discussing the Tigers he's telling the other story of this book, the Black Legion, or an underground KKK-like group that was terrorizing Detroit around this time frame. Didn't really get into that story at all. Like I said, I would have probably just enjoyed more of a book on the 1935 Tigers. Thought this book would kind of be Devil in the White City, but with baseball instead of a World's Fair, and in some ways it kind of is, but only liked one half of this story. Still, Stanton is a good writer as I liked his book, The Final Season.

[Aaron Sinner · Rating 3 out of 5]

2016 CASEY Award nominee
2017 Seymour Medal finalist
NPR’s "2016 Great Reads"

Briefly: Compelling history

Terror in the City of Champions offers a tour of major events in mid-1930s Detroit, focusing on the success of its sports icons and on the unmasking of a secret society. Both storylines make for compelling, page-turning reading. Unfortunately, the two storylines are almost entirely unrelated, so that the book reads as two separate narratives told in parallel. Despite some tonal suggestions that the two unfolding dramas will at some point intertwine into a single payoff, they remain separate through the end. The book is still a worthwhile read, with two histories worth discovering, but the lack of cohesion undermines its effectiveness.

[Steve Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good historical book on when the Black Legion grew to influence in Detroit in the mid 30’s. The book flips back and forth between the Tigers/Red Wings/Lions championship season of 1935 and the growth and influence of the Legion. Although I’m a Detroit sports fan, I found the narrative on the Legion to be more compelling.

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story especially if you're from Detroit and have interests in history, sports - particularly the Detroit Tigers - and insane murders by the terrorist group the Black Legion. I enjoyed the story following along both stories as they progressed along the same timeline - one exciting and one truly frightening.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Stanton digs into four extremely well known organizations and one extremely obscure organization in TERROR IN THE CITY OF CHAMPIONS.
Anyone who has lived or currently lives in the southeast communities of Michigan will avidly read and appreciate this historical account of Depression Era Detroit. Readers will not only learn of the secret “patriotic” society comprised of vigilantes and sadistic cult members who blindly supported violence, hatred, and allegiance, but also the World Series Tigers, Stanley Cup Red Wings, Championship Lions and Heavy Weight Champ, Joe Louis. The parallel to contemporary groups is both fascinating and frightening. Detroit natives will easily recognize and reminisce the sports stars, politicians, neighborhoods, corporations, business leaders, landmarks, and happenings while non-Detroiters will enjoy the historic relevance. Hopefully, history will not be repeated. Five cups of criminal-i-TEA with a generous portion of Sanders Almond Tea Ring.

[Kersten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This non-fiction book was chosen for my book club book. It is not something I would have chosen. However, I really was so intrigued by it and learned so much about the local history of Detroit and really within our country. (I live in Midland, MI, about 2 hr north of Detroit). There is a lot of name/place dropping and the book is very well researched. However, because of all the name dropping, I almost wish they would have indexed all the people. (Not quite Game of Thrones list, but extensive). I also wish there was a map to show locations. The author flips telling the story of the challenges of the Detroit Tigers to the "Black Legion" a secret society, that I had never even heard of. It is quite amazing that this was less that 100 years ago (1934-36) and the cultural/political issues were so crazy. Yet so many of these elements have not changed and/or evolved since this time. (People thinking there is only one acceptable "ism" allowed in this country and that is "Americanism". The placement of "Fake News". The relationships and intersections between law enforcement, big business, politics, religious leaders, activists, and the common man. The fear, the hatred, the trying to make it in the world, the standing up for others. This book has all that, making it an intriguing read, and recommend to anyone interested in Michigan, baseball/sports or culture challenges.

The fact is, I enjoyed the book enough that I am planning a trip to Detroit this summer to try and locate some of the buildings/areas mentioned in the book and maybe a baseball game.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free Kindle copy of the book courtesy of Net Galley and Rowan Littlefield, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my review blog. I also posted it on my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested a copy of this book as I have an keen interest in baseball and the description sounded fascinating. This is the first book by Tom Stanton that I have read.

The subtitle of the book "Murder, Baseball and the Secret Society that shocked depression-era Detroit" is spot on as to the subject of the book. There are brief mentions of the Detroit Lions and the Detroit Red Wings as they also won championships during the mid-1930's.

The book primarily focuses on two subjects - the Detroit Tigers and the Black Legion. It addresses how the Tigers developed into World Champions for the first time, the relationship of some of the individuals involved with the club and the Black Legion, and the Black Legion itself. I will not spoil the book for those who have not read it, but I will say the the Black Legion gave the Ku Klux Klan a run for their money as to who was the most notorious organization at that time.

I recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in baseball and crime.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since learning Humphrey Bogart's film "Black Legion" was based on a real organization I've wanted to learn more about it. As detailed here, it was a far right group founded by a former Klansman, dedicated to anti-Jew, anti-Catholic, anti-black, anti-Communist principles which frequently led to murder. Members kicked around terrorist dreams about infecting Jewish communities with typhoid and perhaps taking over the government.
The trouble with the book is, Stanton seems to be trying for a "Devil in the White City" approach of paralleling the 1930s group with the success of the Detroit Tigers as they finally won the world series. Unlike the White City/Black City relationship, this has no connection with the Legion which weakens the book. Particularly when Stanton adds in Joe Louis, the Detroit Lions football team and even a brief glimpse of the hockey team.
Despite which, the Black Legion stuff was good enough to give this four stars.

[Chris Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on an otherwise forgotten time in the history of Detroit. The emphasis is mainly on the Black Legion while the city's sports developments serving as a backdrop. While the contrasts show the differences in human nature during the Depression, the lures of the Black Legion and what made them a force can be seen as a cautionary tale for modern times. Highly recommended, another A+ work from Stanton.

[Brad Hodges · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up in Michigan, as did my dad, my mom, and both sets of grandparents either were born there or spent many years there. Yet I'd never heard of the Black Legion, a kind of Klan knock-off, that murdered several people during the 1930s in the Detroit area. Tom Stanton writes about them in Terror in the City of Champions: Murder, Baseball, and the Secret Society that Shocked Depression Era Detroit.

I did know about the Detroit Tigers of the '30s, who won two pennants and one world championship, their first ever (they only have four total in almost 120 years). Erik Larson, with his book The Devil in the White City, kind of invented, or at least made popular, the juxtaposition of two stories linked by geography or something else. Sometimes, like with that book, it works. Stanton's book, while he covers both subjects well, can't convince that they had anything to do with each other except it was Detroit.

"Within a six-month period in 1935 and 1936, the Tigers, Red Wings, and Lions all captured titles as Detroit’s own Joe Louis reigned as boxing’s uncrowned champion. Detroit remains the only city to score the trifecta of a
World Series, a Stanley Cup, and an NFL championship in one season." Stanton (who wrote a fine book called The Final Season about the last Tiger campaign in Tiger Stadium) knows his baseball. He begins with the arrival of Mickey Cochrane, who had been a star catcher for Connie Mack's A's during their three straight World Series wins. Cochrane was hired by Tiger Owner Frank Navin to be player-manager. Cochrane is the through-line in this story. He was surprisingly sophisticated, loved to fly airplanes, but was also riddled with anxiety.

"By mid-1934 the legion had expanded in southeast Michigan to four regiments of 1,600 men in Detroit, one regiment in Highland Park, one in the downriver area south of the Ford Rouge plant, two farther south near Monroe, two north of Detroit in Pontiac, one or two in Flint, one in Saginaw, and possibly others. There were regiments in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois as well." The Klu Klux Klan had flourished in Michigan in the '20s, but faded out, but the sentiments remained. A new organization started up, based on nativism. They were anti-Black, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, and anti-leftist. Men would be invited to a gathering and forced to swear an oath at gunpoint. Though Stanton's description of most of then make them sound hapless, like the guys who know tote around machine guns at the CVS, they were deadly. In Lansing, it was thought that Earl Little, father of Malcolm X, was murdered by the legion. Two of them killed a black man just because he was black.

Stanton alternates between these two stories, touching somewhat on Louis, who was antithesis of Jack Johnson and thus acceptable to white fans, and very briefly mentioning the Lions and Red Wings. I would have liked more about them, especially since the games are so much different now than then (no one wore helmets in hockey, and it football they were leather). I was interested to learn that the Red Wings had no American players--they were all Canadian, except for one Englishman.

The main thread through the Black Legion story is Dayton Dean, who was eager to prove his mettle and accepted many assignments to kill people, such as the mayor of Highland Park. Perhaps because of feet of clay, he never did, not until he and Harvey Davis killed Charlie Poole for erroneously believing he beat his wife (he was murdered in Dearborn, my home town. Why didn't I ever hear of this?) This murder finally brought the law down on the Legion, who had escaped punishment because it was thought many police and judges were members. The prosecutor of the case against Dean and Davis was an ex-member himself.

There's no telling how many people they killed--a sink-hole was rumored to contain at least seven bodies. The Legion faded away, but the racial attitudes remained. A popular clergyman, Father Coughlin, held sway on the airwaves with anti-Semitic rhetoric, aimed at keeping America out of the war in Europe. All of this went away after Pearl Harbor.

As for the Tigers, they won the pennant in '34 but lost to the Cardinals in a seven-game series (they just couldn't hit Dizzy Dean or or his brother Paul). They came back in '35 to beat the Cubs in the series. In addition to Cochrane, they had three other Hall of Famers on the squad--Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer (I'm a distant relative of his), and Goose Goslin. The city was ecstatic about the victory. They were tough times in Detroit: "The Great Depression had devastated the whole nation, but Detroit had suffered more than most. The year had brought bank panics and closures, unemployment of 45 percent, winding food lines, burgeoning public-relief rolls, and severe wage cuts for surviving auto workers. Car sales fell by four million units between 1929 and 1932. Almost half the city’s population qualified for assistance, limited as it was." But the stands were packed for the World Series.

To fully enjoy this book you have to be a sports fan (preferably for Detroit teams) and a true crime buff, especially about secret societies. I enjoyed the book moderately, feeling Stanton straining at times for metaphors ("Rumors of trades swirled around Walker like Kansas twisters.") and relying on old-time sports reporting styles that went out with the transistor. I think his biggest success is giving the reader a very good insight into what living in Detroit during that time period was like.

[Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though Stanton is a very good writer and a stellar historian of the Detroit Tigers, the plot lines of this book seemed to be only parallel stories and not connected to one another. It's an interesting period in Detroit's history, one I was unaware of, and the parallel stories each pulled me along, but I kept looking for connections that really weren't there.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed the history and the suspense of this true story. Pretty incredible. I love the way this author writes.

[Zackery Finn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed learning more history about my fair city of Detroit, but would have preferred more attention and greater depth on the Black Legion and far less (ideally no) talk about sports.

[Jeff Jellets · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoods, robes, and guns. Midnight initiations. Red lights in dark rooms. The Black Oath with its death pledge.

The mix of championship sports and a secret society of terrorists in depression-era Detroit is an odd blend of story elements, but author Tom Stanton makes it work, painting a vivid picture of the grit and grime of the Motor City during the mid-nineteen thirties. As the Tigers, Lions, and Redwings took – to this day -- the only trifecta of national sports championships in a single season (with Joe Louis as the uncrowned champ of professional boxing to boot(!), hooded, black robed men intimidated and murdered labor organizers, minorities, and political opponents with beatings, floggings, hangings, and shootings.

Being far from a baseball aficionado myself, Stanton was still able to captivate me in the Tigers’ quest to go from worst to best and bring home their first World Series Championship to owner Frank Navin. While Stanton might only be recounting ballgames on paper, his pen captures all the drama of the critical contests between Tigers, Cardinals, and Cubs. Even as a relative non-sports fan, the competitions made for fascinating reading, especially as Stanton does such a good job telling the backstories of the star players. By the time the games start, Stanton has got you caring about these long-ago ballplayers, convincing the modern reader to route just as hard for the team’s success as contemporary Detroit fans did decades past.

Juxtaposed against the game of baseball (and to a lesser extent football, hockey, and boxing) is the specter of the Black Legion, which through a process of threats and deceit impressed an ever-growing number of men into its order across several Midwest states. Evil and heartless, Stanton ties the sect to a number of murders – many racially or politically motivated, others coldblooded killings that made widows and orphans of some of the area’s poorest people. Again, Stanton does a really good job of profiling some of the Legion’s most notorious members (and their most heinous actions), peeling away the group’s penchant for forcing people into membership and frightening them into silence.

In addition to these main threads, Stanton packs an amazing amount of detail into his book; by the time the reader is finished, it feels as if you’ve walked the streets of old Detroit and nearby rural environs for at least a baseball season. For pure sports fans, the level of detail may be a bit too much and the tale does end-up slightly uneven: there’s lots more baseball up front, less of some of the other sports, while most of the fallout coming from cracking from the Black Legion case is saved to the end. However, I kind of liked the pacing, but if you’ve come for one and not the other, you may be missing sports or history connections a little depending on where you are in the book.

Recommended … even for the non-sports fan … Stanton will still make you a faithful Tigers fan at least for one magical season and be glad the Black Legion got put out of business.