99. Marathon mania reaches its peak, April 3, 1909, Polo Grounds

Look at them awaiting the starting gun. Such a motley collection from around the globe, a surreal lineup for the quaintly named “Marathon Derby.” The roster reads like something conjured up by T. Correghessan Boyle or maybe the Marx Brothers: an Italian candymaker who earned lasting fame for collapsing in front of the Queen of England; an Irish-American who brought as much glory to his employer, Bloomingdale’s, as he did to his homeland; an Onondaga Indian from Canada stained by doping controversy and so caught up in the marathon craze that he was running himself into the ground; an Englishman who held countless records at shorter distances but was unable to complete a marathon; an Irishman from Yonkers whose recent world record was disregarded because the distance was considered considerably off; and a waiter from France about whom no one knew anything .º.º. yet.

        But this wasn’t satire, and it wasn’t slapstick. This was the climax of the first modern marathon era. “It is a craze such as athletic America has not known for years,” the New York Herald wrote in 1909. “This was the greatest professional athletic event ever held in America.º.º.º. If the Man from Mars had only been there wouldn’t he have had a tale to tell of the ‘crazy Americans’ and the ‘Marathon Derby.’”

        The passion began with the birth of the Olympics in 1896 and the first American marathon (from Connecticut to New York City) and the Boston Marathon, both the following year. But the fuse for the explosion of events leading to the Marathon Derby was the 1908 Olympics.

        The International Olympic Committee had standardized the race’s length at 26 miles, but England’s Queen Alexandra wanted the runners, who departed from Windsor Castle, to finish right in front of her Olympic Stadium royal box, so she had insisted that the course run 26 miles and 385 yards to her preferred spot. England, meanwhile, had angered the Irish and American delegations, in the latter case by failing to raise an American flag; the Americans retaliated by refusing to dip their flag while passing before King Edward.

        On a day of searing heat, the front-runner, the Italian Pietri Dorando, entered the stadium but was so disoriented—from the weather or, some alleged, from gobbling strychnine as a performance enhancer—that he headed the wrong way. Then he collapsed. Officials helped him to his feet, and the crowd, knowing Irish-American Johnny Hayes was closing in, urged him on. Dorando collapsed three more times, and each time he was lifted and carried forward by sympathetic Brits. Although Dorando reached the finish line first, a lengthy American protest earned the deserving Hayes the gold. But Dorando, given his own gold trophy by the Queen as consolation, emerged as the popular hero in Europe.

        Hayes—the Bloomingdale’s employee who, some speculated, was paid not for working there but to train because of the publicity he brought to the store—agreed to a rematch with Dorando on his home turf at Madison Square Garden on November 25. The Amateur Athletic Union had begun staging marathons locally the previous year, and the Millrose Games had debuted in 1908, so New York sports fans were primed for a track spectacle—especially a grudge match (as professionals this time) between an Irish-American and an Italian whom immigrants from both countries could rally around.

        Lines snaked around the block for tickets, and scalpers had a field day. Dorando, struggling not through heat this time but through the clouds of cigar smoke, grabbed an early lead and turned back each Hayes charge. He shook free with a spurt in the last three laps to win by 60 yards as Italian supporters, overwhelming police and officials, rushed the track. Marathon madness had begun: in the four months after the rematch, nine major marathons were run in the New York area alone, including another Dorando-Hayes rematch and match races between Dorando and Onondaga Indian Tom Longboat and between Longboat and Englishman Alfred Shrubbs, both of whom would run in the Derby. (Dorando ran six marathons during that stretch, along with eleven shorter races.)

        Finally, promoters thought to move beyond match races to stage a splashy major event. The $10,000 Marathon Derby on April 3, 1909, at the Polo Grounds would crown the greatest marathoner once and for all. With bands playing, flags from the runners’ native countries adorning the track, and 30,000 fans screaming and chanting despite persistently damp weather, the six men lined up: Hayes, with his gold medal but subsequent string of defeats; Dorando, with his international acclaim and desire for revenge against Hayes; Longboat, who had faltered in the Olympics under strychnine accusations but had since bested Dorando and Shrubbs and emerged as the betting favorite; Shrubbs, who was the greatest middle-distance runner of his time but faded over the long haul; Matt Maloney, fresh off his disputed marathon record run from Rye to New York; and Henri St. Yves, a chubby, diminutive 20-year-old Parisian who worked in a restaurant in London and had won a marathon in Edinburgh, but went off here at ten-to-one odds and was so unknown that he was “looked upon as a rank outsider and practically despised in the betting,” according to the New York Times.

        New York was riveted—people crammed Times Square to watch the updates posted in the Times Building windows. The Times would make it the lead story the following day, the Herald would spread four photos and three columns of coverage across its front page, and the Tribune would feature a huge three-column photo and a lengthy story.

        Dorando, the crowd favorite, raced out front, but St. Yves, barely five feet tall, stayed at his shoulder, passed him at the one-mile mark, and was soon two-thirds of a mile ahead. In contrast to the long, graceful strides of Shrubb, Dorando, and especially Longboat, the Frenchman’s short, choppy gait looked awkward, yet on the soggy track its concision proved helpful. Many questioned his judgment in setting such a furious pace—“the majority of the spectators laughed in derision,” the Times reported—but St. Yves burst forth at each challenge.

        At Mile 11, Shrubb overtook him, and the critics smiled smugly. But St. Yves remained dogged in pursuit. At the 19th mile, Shrubb finally wilted and St. Yves regained his lead, maintaining his brisk pace the last seven miles. Shrubb eventually dropped out near collapse, and Longboat, running through excruciating foot pain caused by his heavy schedule, quit too. Dorando was in second four laps behind, while Hayes, closing in a rush, had waited far too long and was unable to even catch Dorando. (Maloney finished a distant fourth.)

        St. Yves was unstoppable, finishing in a record 2:40:50. “He came down the final stretch like a quarter miler,” the Herald sang. His performance was so remarkable that all the nationalism faded away, and as a band played the French national anthem, the Tribune observed, “a veritable wall of humanity rose as one man to welcome a new idol.”

        St. Yves won a follow-up race against nine men at the Polo Grounds in May on a day that also witnessed amateur marathons in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Although the boom soon faded, the marathon was now established as a significant sport, and Henri St. Yves had earned a place in history as its first undisputed champion.