The date was May 17, 1935.
The Cubs were in the midst of a pennant winning season, one that would include a 21-game winning streak.
On the same day that the Cubs instituted a new Ladies Day policy (only a few thousand free tickets would be available instead of 20,000) and a new parking policy to crack down on the kids who would direct people into parking spaces (and let air out of the tires of anyone who didn't give them a tip), a sprinter from Ohio State appeared in Evanston. He drew a much bigger crowd than the Cubs.
His first collegiate appearance in the Chicago area was big news, because Jesse Owens was already being billed as the fastest man in the world. He didn't disappoint the crowd, setting a world record in the 220-yard low hurdles, and tying the world record in the 100-yard dash (9.4 seconds).
While Jesse was setting records in Evanston, the Cubs were being shut out at Wrigley Field by a converted third baseman named William "Bucky" Walters (photo). The Cub fans in attendance that day must have been upset to be humiliated in such a way, but at least they left the game content in the knowledge that the air would still be in their tires.
The next summer the Cubs were still a good team (although they wouldn't repeat as NL Champs), but they were overshadowed by Jesse Owens once again. This time all ears were glued to the radio listening to Jesse make an international name for himself in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Legend has it that Adolf Hitler refused to acknowledge Jesse on the medal stand, but Jesse didn't remember it that way.
“Hitler didn't snub me—it was [FDR] who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram," he says in Triumph, a book about the 1936 Olympics written by Jeremy Schaap.
Hitler may not have openly snubbed Owens, but there were reports that he angrily left the stadium after Owens won. It might not have been the victory itself that angered Hitler, it may have been the reaction of the German athletes (who swarmed Owens to congratulate him) and the German crowd (who chanted his name "Jesse-Jesse-Jesse"). Owens won four gold medals in those Olympic games.
When he returned home, he wasn't greeted nearly as warmly. He was financially destitute, and the only way he could earn money was by participating in promotions racing against cars and horses. He earned enough money at those events to finance the rest of college, and once he got his degree, Jesse Owens decided to make his home in the area that greeted him so enthusiastically on May 17, 1935: Chicago, Illinois.
He lived here during the 50s, 60s and most of the 1970s, running a successful public relations firm. It was during those years that a long-time wrong was finally righted. In 1976, exactly 40 years after he won those medals in Berlin, Owens was invited to the White House. President Gerald Ford, who had been a contemporary athlete of Owens in the 1930s, awarded him with the Medal of Freedom.
Jesse moved his business to Arizona in the late 70s for health reasons, and that's where he died on March 31, 1980.
