(8 votes)
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Professional baseball player Rollie H. got sober in Akron 1939. He’s certainly an AA Pioneer, but probably not #77 exactly.
The Rollie Hemsley Affair (c.May 1940) is erroneously believed to be the reason for Tradition 11. In fact, Bill W’s own anonymity breaches were much bigger and more egregious, self-serving. That’s ignored or forgiven by AAs: ‘blame Rollie.’
The story is more complex. On his One Year anniversary (from 4/18/1939), Cleveland Indians’ baseball catcher Ralston Burdett (aka “Rollicking Rollie” Hemsley) reported his sobriety and publicly credited the Oxford Group instead of “Alcoholics Anonymous.” That was no mistake: when Hemsley got sober in Akron in April 1939, he went to “The Oxford Group.” He also didn’t get sober out of the book nor did he follow Twelve or Six Steps (contrary to misinformation, there was no “Six Step Program”), as his recorded story shows. There were no “Steps” : Rollie did what Lloyd Tate, Bill Jones, Dr. Bob, and other OGs told him to do. It is certain Dr. Bob’s people remained Groupers until the winter of 1939/40; Cleveland had split in May 1939. Only one or two websites get the story right: “When the Akron A.A.s left the Oxford Group, Rollie stayed with the Oxford Group for a time, but then joined the A.A. group in Cleveland.” Since the Oxford Group did not practice anonymity, this publicity was also no scandal to them. The problem was Bill Wilson’s.
When Hemsley (and the Oxford Group) began receiving national attention, Wilson was furious. He raced out to Cleveland, ostensibly to ‘correct the record’ (and most of the newspapers did) but more to claim credit and the limelight. Wilson’s cry for attention (publicly advertising himself) during the Summer of 1940 has been buried in later, revisionist AA myth-making. Spiteful AA stories said Rollie drank again: he didn’t, according to his qualification.
AAs have forgotten their Tradition 11 was born out of Founder Bill W.’s own Envy. Ironic? No, hypocritical: Bill Wilson himself simply wasn’t anonymous at the level of press, radio and films. If this is an Honesty Program, we need to get honest about Bill W. and AA history. Enough with the myths and Bill W’s make-believe, already!
Rollie’s Talk has a few inconsistencies & errors – he OMITS any mention of the Oxford Group fracas, or the way Bill W. ‘blamed’ him for Tradition 11. Also: he mis-recollects reading the book AA (1939) in the hospital: it had NOT been printed yet (very doubtful he saw the 1938 multilith, either.) After 30 years, stories change in the details. And sorry: my timestamps are slightly off, I notated a different version of this same talk.
…
@ 25:35 Bill Jones and Lloyd Tate, two sponsors; the Akron club was called “The Alcoholic Anonymous” {Error: not until 1940};
29:15 met Dr. Bob “the originator”;
29:45 “Bill Wilson was a traveling salesman”;
30:00 Lloyd Tate was a sailor;
30:25 40 members came to talk to him, sometimes at 3am;
31:00 Kent State Professor’s story {who?};
31:35 claims he read the unpublished Red Book {impossible};
32:45 his farm story, Winter 1939/40 sobriety w/o meetgs;
33:50 Wednesday Night meetgs in Akron, not Cleveland {Kings School Group, later called “Akron Group No.1”};
35:00 drinking Coca Cola {“Hemsley Highball”};
35:45 other players would spike his drinks to prank;
36:00 Feller’s No-Hitter 4/18/1940;
36:45 small press conference to reveal how he got sober;
37:35 “last summer I joined the AAs” “the Alcohol Anonymous”
37:50 “group down in Akron”;
38:15 “I don’t know how it works” “first time it was made public, nobody had ever heard of Alcoholic Anonymous in the paper”;
38:25 “I’m the 77th member”
38:50 “in 1939 there were 76, in 1940 there was thousands”;
40:15 two groups in 1939, in Akron and New York;
41:15 doesn’t like anonymity in AA meetgs; you shouldn’t be ashamed of the AA;
42:50 “make up your mind to quit for a year”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollie_Hemsley