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After Jerry Falwell died, a couple of obituaries mentioned Falwell turned down a career in baseball to go into preaching. A few people on the Society for American Baseball Research listserv asked if anyone knew anything about Falwell’s baseball past.
A member, Merritt Clifton, responded with the following anecdote. Clifton since told me he’s writing it up for Animal People, a monthly about animal protection that he edits:
I recently stumbled over an early connection between Jerry Falwell and a “sport” of sorts, but it wasn’t baseball.
The July 1938 edition of The National Humane Review, published 1913-1933 by the American Humane Association, reported that Jerry Falwell’s father Carey H. Falwell, proprietor of the Merry Garden Night Club in Lynchburg, Virginia, was fined $200 for hosting dog fights on February 6 and May 2, 1938. He was also fined $100 for having a gaming table at the May 2 dog fight.
These were major fights, at a time when dogfighting, cockfighting, and pigeon shoots were among the fundraising mainstays of the Ku Klux Klan. Involved parties in the Falwell fights came from as far away as Texarkana.
Jerry Falwell was only five years old at the time. However, dogfighters with two separate convictions usually remain involved for as long as they stay out of jail. Almost certainly Jerry Falwell was exposed to dogfighting from an early age.
Testified Carey Falwell on the witness stand, “I like dog fights. I would go to one tonight if they were going to have one.”
Who knew Jerry Falwell and Michael Vick had so much in common?
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