Holway calls Charleston "a roundfaced, barrel-chested Hercules with smoldering leonine eyes." The players he interviews comment on those eyes, with Ted Page summing up their views: "Vicious eyes. Steel-gray, like a cat. Greenish-gray. And they were steel." According to those Holway quotes, Charleston was funny and knew how to joke around and have a good time, but that always behind the fun were his cold, deadly eyes. Holway says that "there were three things Oscar Charleston excelled at on the baseball field: hitting, fielding, and fighting"; behind those eyes was someone who brooked no insult, who would fight rather than give an inchhe was "fearless enough to snatch the hood off a Ku Klux Klansman."

Charleston's youth in Indianapolis and his career in the army were fundamental to his development into a tough, resilient, and courageous man.

He was born in 1896 and, according to...