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Larry Doby

Lawrence Eugene Doby (December 13, 1923 – June 18, 2003) was an American professional baseball player in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball (MLB) who was the second black player to break baseball's color barrier and the first black player in the American League. A native of Camden, South Carolina, and three-sport all-state athlete while in high school in Paterson, New Jersey, Doby accepted a basketball scholarship from Long Island University. At 17 years of age, he began his professional baseball career with the Newark Eagles as the team's second baseman. Doby joined the United States Navy during World War II. His military service complete, Doby returned to baseball in 1946, and along with teammate Monte Irvin, helped the Eagles win the Negro League World Series.

In July 1947, three months after Jackie Robinson made history with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Doby broke the color barrier in the American League when he signed a contract to play with Bill Veeck's Cleveland Indians. Doby was the first player to go directly to the majors from the Negro leagues. A seven-time All-Star center fielder, Doby and teammate Satchel Paige were the first African-American players to win a World Series championship when the Indians took the crown in 1948. He helped the Indians win 111 games (second-best in MLB history at the time) and the AL pennant in 1954, finished second in the American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) award voting and was the AL's RBI leader and home run champion. He went on to play for the Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, and Chunichi Dragons before his retirement as a player in 1962.

Doby later served as the second black manager in the majors with the Chicago White Sox, and in 1995 was appointed to a position in the AL's executive office. He also served as a director with the New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was selected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998 by the Hall's Veterans Committee and died in 2003 at the age of 79.

Early life
Doby was born in Camden, South Carolina, to David Doby and Etta Brooks on December 13, 1923. Doby's father served in World War I. David worked as a horse groomer and played semi-professional baseball, but drowned in an accident at age 37 in New York state. Doby's mother, who had divorced David before his death, moved to Paterson, New Jersey; Doby remained in Camden. He lived with his grandmother before moving to live with his father's sister and brother-in-law from 1934 to 1938. He attended Jackson School, which was segregated under South Carolina state law. His first opportunity to play organized baseball came as a student at Boylan-Haven-Mather Academy, a private school affiliated with the Methodist church. Richard Dubose, who had managed Doby's father and was known locally in African-American circles for his baseball expertise, gave Doby some of his first baseball lessons. Reflecting on his years growing up in South Carolina, including how he and playmates used worn down broom handles for bats, Doby said, "Growing up in Camden, we didn't have baseball bats. We'd use a tree here, a tin can there, for bases."

After completing eighth grade, Doby moved north to Paterson at the age of 14 to be reunited with his mother; she visited him weekly while he lived with one of her friends. At Paterson Eastside High School, Doby was a multi-sport athlete; as well as playing baseball and basketball, he was a wide receiver in football and lettered in track. After winning a state football championship, the Eastside team was invited to play in Florida, but the promoters would not allow Doby, the only black player on the team, to participate. Consequently, the team voted to forgo the trip as a gesture of support for Doby.

During summer vacation Doby played baseball with a black semi-pro team, the Smart Sets, where he played with future Hall of Fame shortstop Monte Irvin. He also had a brief stint with the Harlem Renaissance, a professional basketball team, as an unpaid substitute player. Upon completing high school, he accepted an athletic scholarship to play basketball at Long Island University Brooklyn (LIU). Doby had been dating Eastside classmate Helyn Curvy since his sophomore year and, according to Doby, being able to remain close to Paterson was the "main reason" he selected LIU.

In the summer before he enrolled at LIU, Doby accepted an offer to play for the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League (NNL) for the remainder of the 1942 season,  and he transferred to Virginia Union University as a result.

Negro leagues and World War II
Negro league umpire Henry Moore advised Newark Eagles' owners Abe and Effa Manley to give Doby a tryout at Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, which was successful; Doby joined the Eagles in 1942 at the age of 17 for $300. The contract stated Doby would play until September when he would start classes at college; to protect his amateur status he signed using the alias "Larry Walker" and local reporters were told he originated from Los Angeles, California. On May 31, Doby appeared in his first professional game when the Eagles played against the New York Cubans at Yankee Stadium. In the 26 games where box scores have been found, Doby's batting average was .391. Doby recalled a game against catcher Josh Gibson and pitcher Ray Brown of the Homestead Grays:

"My first time up, Josh said, 'We're going to find out if you can hit a fastball.' I singled. Next time up, Josh said, 'We're going to find out if you can hit a curveball.' I singled. Third time up, Josh said, 'We're going to find out how you do after you're knocked down.' I popped up the first time after they knocked me down. The second time, I singled."

Doby's career in Newark was interrupted for two years for service in the United States Navy. Doby spent 1943 and part of 1944 at Camp Robert Smalls at the Great Lakes Naval Training School near Chicago. He appeared on an all-black baseball squad and maintained a .342 batting average against teams composed of white players, some of which featured major leaguers. He then went to Treasure Island Naval Base in San Francisco Bay, California. Before serving in the Pacific Theater of World War II, Doby spent time at Navy sites in Ogden, Utah and San Diego, California. He was stationed on Ulithi in the Pacific Ocean in 1945. Doby heard of Jackie Robinson's minor league contract deal with the Montreal Royals of the International League from his base on Ulithi listening to Armed Forces Radio, and as a result Doby saw real hope in becoming a Major League baseball player. While in Hawaii, Doby met fellow Navy man and future teammate Mickey Vernon. Vernon, then with the Washington Senators, was so impressed with Doby's skills he wrote to Senators owner Clark Griffith, encouraging Griffith to sign Doby should MLB ever allow integration. During his time in the Navy, Doby was described by his colleagues as quiet. Doby was discharged from the Navy in January 1946. In the summer of that year, Doby and Helyn Curvy were married.

After playing for the San Juan Senators in Puerto Rico, Doby rejoined the Eagles in 1946. He made the All-Star roster, batted .360 (fourth in the NNL), hit five home runs (fifth) and led the NNL in triples (six). Manager Biz Mackey led the Eagles, including Doby, Monte Irvin and Johnny Davis, to the Negro World Series championship over Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Monarchs in seven games to conclude the 1946 season. For the Series, Doby hit .372 with one home run, five RBIs, and three stolen bases. Many in the Negro leagues believed Doby or Irvin would be first to break the MLB color barrier, not Robinson. On considering a career in Major League Baseball, Doby said, "I never dreamed that far ahead. Growing up in a segregated society, you couldn't have thought that that was the way it was going to be. There was no bright spot as far as looking at baseball until Mr. Robinson got the opportunity to play in Montreal in '46."

Integration of American League (1947)
Cleveland Indians owner and team president Bill Veeck proposed integrating baseball in 1942, which had been informally segregated since the turn of the century, but this was rejected by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Veeck had begun the process of finding a young, talented player from the Negro leagues, and told a reporter in Cleveland that he would integrate the Indians' roster if he could find a black player with the necessary talent level who could withstand the taunts and pressure of being the first black athlete in the AL. The reporter suggested Doby, whom Veeck had seen at the Great Lakes Naval Training School. Doby's name was also mentioned when Veeck talked with reporters who covered the Negro leagues. Indians scout Bill Killefer rated Doby favorably and perhaps just as important for Veeck, reported Doby's off-field behavior was not a concern. The Dodgers rated Doby their top young Negro league prospect. But unlike the Brooklyn Dodgers' Branch Rickey, who signed Robinson one full season before bringing him to the National League, Veeck used a different strategy, letting Doby remain with the Eagles instead of bringing him through the Indians' farm system. He told the Pittsburgh Courier, "One afternoon when the team trots out on the field, a Negro player will be out there with it."

While Rickey declined to pay for the purchasing rights of Robinson while he played for the Kansas City Monarchs, Veeck was "determined to buy Doby's contract from the Eagles" and had no problem paying purchasing rights. Effa Manley, business manager for the Eagles, believed her club's close relationship with the New York Yankees might put Doby in a Yankees uniform, but they did not take interest in him. Veeck finalized a contract deal for Doby with Manley on July 3. Veeck paid her a total of $15,000 for her second baseman—$10,000 for taking him from the Eagles and another $5,000 once it was determined he would stay with the Indians for at least 30 days. After Manley agreed to Veeck's offer, she stated to him, "If Larry Doby were white and a free agent, you'd give him $100,000 to sign as a bonus." The press were not told that Doby had been signed by the Indians as Veeck wanted to manage how fans in Cleveland would be introduced to Doby. "I moved slowly and carefully, perhaps even timidly", Veeck said. The Eagles had a doubleheader on July 4 but Doby, who had a .415 batting average and 14 home runs to that point in the season, only played in the first as Veeck sent his assistant and public relations personnel member, Louis Jones, for Doby. The two took a train from Newark to Chicago where the Indians were scheduled to play the Chicago White Sox the next day.

On July 5, with the Indians in Chicago in the midst of a road trip, Doby made his debut as the second black baseball player after Robinson to play in the majors after establishment of the baseball color line. Veeck hired two plainclothes police officers to accompany Doby as he went to Comiskey Park. Player-manager Lou Boudreau initially had a hard time finding a place in the lineup for Doby, who had played second base and shortstop for most of his career. Boudreau himself was the regular shortstop, while Joe Gordon was the second baseman. That day, Doby met his new teammates for the first time. "I walked down that line, stuck out my hand, and very few hands came back in return. Most of the ones that did were cold-fish handshakes, along with a look that said, 'You don't belong here", Doby reminisced years later. Four of Doby's teammates did not shake his hand, and of those, two turned their backs to Doby when he tried to introduce himself. During warm-ups, Doby languished for minutes while his teammates interacted with one another. Not until Joe Gordon asked Doby to play catch with him was Doby given the chance to engage. Gordon befriended Doby and became one of his closest friends on the team.

Doby entered the game in the seventh inning as a pinch-hitter for relief pitcher Bryan Stephens and recorded a strikeout. In the 1949 movie The Kid from Cleveland, Veeck tells the story that Gordon struck out on three swings in his immediate at-bat after Doby to save face for his new teammate. However, Doby's second strike was the result of a foul ball, both the Associated Press and Chicago Tribune stated Doby struck out on five pitches instead of three, and in addition, Gordon was standing on third base during Doby's at-bat. From Pride and Prejudice: The Biography of Larry Doby:

"After the game, Doby quickly showered and dressed without incident in the Cleveland clubhouse. His escort, Louis Jones, then took him not to the Del Prado Hotel downtown, where the Indians players stayed, but to the black DuSable Hotel in Chicago's predominantly black South Side, near Comiskey Park. The segregated arrangement established a pattern, on Doby's first day, that he would be compelled to follow, in spring training and during the regular season, in many cities, throughout his playing career."

The Indians had a doubleheader against the White Sox on Sunday, July 6, for which 31,566 were in attendance; it was estimated that approximately 30 percent of the crowd were black. Some congregations of black churches let out early while others walked immediately from Sunday service to Comiskey Park. Boudreau had Doby pinch-hit in the first game but for the second, listed him a starter at first base, a position Doby was not expected to fill when the Indians brought him up to play at second base. Doby had played the position before with the Eagles but was without a proper mitt for first base and met much resistance when attempts were made to borrow one from teammates, including first baseman Eddie Robinson, whom Boudreau had asked Doby to replace that day. Doby said only because Gordon asked in the clubhouse to borrow one of the first baseman's mitts did he have one to use in the second game of the doubleheader as earlier direct requests from Doby were rejected. The mitt was loaned by a White Sox player. Boudreau recounts an incident where Robinson refused the mitt to Doby, but when asked by Indians traveling secretary Spud Goldstein, Robinson obliged. It was the only game Doby started for the remainder of the season. Doby recorded his first major league hit in four at-bats and had an RBI in a 5–1 Indians win.

A columnist wrote in the Plain Dealer on July 8: "Cleveland's man in the street is the right sort of American, as was evidenced right solidly once more by the response to the question: 'How does the signing of Larry Doby by the Indians strike you? Said the man in the street: Can he hit? ... That's all that counts." Conversely, Doby was criticized from players both active and retired. Noted former player Rogers Hornsby said, after watching Doby play one time in 1947:

"Bill Veeck did the Negro race no favor when he signed Larry Doby to a Cleveland contract. If Veeck wanted to demonstrate that the Negro has no place in major league baseball, he could have used no subtler means to establish the point. If he were white he wouldn't be considered good enough to play with a semi-pro club. He is fast on his feet but that lets him out. He hasn't any other quality that could possibly recommend him."

In his rookie year, Doby hit .156 (5-for-32) in 29 games. He played four games at second base and one each at first base and shortstop. Throughout the season, he talked with Jackie Robinson via telephone, the two encouraging each other. "And Jackie and I agreed we shouldn't challenge anybody or cause trouble—or we'd both be out of the big leagues, just like that. We figured that if we spoke out, we would ruin things for other black players." After his rookie season, Doby again pursued time on the basketball court and appeared with the Paterson Crescents of the American Basketball League after signing a contract in January 1948. He was the first black player to join the league.

1948–1950
In 1948, Doby experienced his first spring training with the Indians in Tucson, Arizona. Unlike their white teammates, Doby, along with Satchel Paige and Minnie Miñoso, were not permitted to stay at the nearby Santa Rita hotel but instead stayed with a local black family and used a rental car provided by the Indians for transportation. During spring training, Doby read books concerning outfield play, and received instruction and encouragement from former Indians manager Tris Speaker and Indians' farm system director Hank Greenberg. Doby also credited Indians coach Bill McKechnie with helping him adjust to the majors and learning the outfield. In an exhibition game in Houston against the New York Giants, Doby hit a home run that "may have traveled 500 feet before landing far beyond the fence in center field." As Moore wrote in his biography of Doby, "With that home run, all doubts that Doby would make the 1948 Cleveland team vanished. That year, he played in 121 games and hit .301 for the season with 14 home runs and 66 RBIs. Throughout the regular season Doby was racially abused by opposing teams, and Veeck asked AL president Will Harridge for support in getting players to rein in their animosity towards Doby.

Doby played a major role in Cleveland's World Series victory against the Boston Braves. In Game 4 on October 9, Doby hit the first home run by a black player in World Series history. A picture featuring an embrace between Doby and white teammate Steve Gromek, who had pitched a complete game that day, was on the cover of the next day's Plain Dealer. Richard Goldstein of The New York Times called the photograph "a signature moment in the integration of Major League Baseball." Of the picture, Doby said, "The picture was more rewarding and happy for me than actually hitting the home run. The picture finally showed a moment of a man showing his feelings for me." The Indians defeated the Braves in six games and with it, Cleveland had its first World Series championship since the 1920 season. Doby's .318 batting average during the Series led the Indians. Nationally syndicated columnist Grantland Rice argued that without Doby and Gene Bearden, who had won 20 games that year, the Indians would have finished in fourth or fifth place. After the Series, Doby received a celebratory parade in Paterson, New Jersey, and during the offseason he, along with other teammates, appeared in the 1949 film The Kid From Cleveland. With additional income available due to the post-season run and Series championship, Doby and his wife attempted to buy a home in Paterson in an all-white neighborhood but were kept out by a petition from members of the community. The Dobys were allowed to purchase their desired home when the Paterson city mayor intervened on their behalf.

During the 1949 season, Doby was selected to his first MLB All-Star Game. He was one of five Indians selected by Boudreau and joined Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe as the first black players to be amongst those chosen to participate in the 1949 All-Star Game. Boudreau fined Doby after he attempted to steal home with no outs and bases loaded in a game against the Yankees on July 20. Of the fine, Boudreau said, "It was not based only on that attempt to steal home. Larry has taken several unnecessary chances lately. This should make him more careful." His home run (24) and RBI (85) totals increased during the 1949 season, and by 1950, he was considered the best center fielder in the game by The Sporting News. By the first week in July, Doby's .370 batting average trailed only 1949 AL batting champion George Kell, who had a .375 average. He earned career-bests in batting average (.326), hits (164) and on-base percentage (OBP) (.442), while playing in 142 games. Doby hit the 100-RBI mark (102) for the first time in his career while his OBP led the AL. He finished eighth in AL MVP voting, highest among outfielders. At the end of the season, Cleveland signed him to a new, more lucrative contract. Doby was named by Cleveland sports writers as the Cleveland Baseball Man of the Year after the season, the first time a black player was chosen.

1951–1955
Doby hit 20 home runs and 69 RBIs in 1951, both fewer than the previous season, and his batting average improved to .295. His 21-game hit-streak was the second-longest for the Indians that season, behind Dale Mitchell's mark of 23 games in a row. Indians general manager Hank Greenberg reduced Doby's salary due to the lower home run numbers despite Doby, who attributed the lower numbers to tightness in his legs, stating he would not accept a pay cut. Indians manager Al López confirmed that Doby was injury-riddled throughout the season, stating that he "was beset by first one injury and then another" including "a muscle tear in his thigh, a groin pull, an ankle twist." Doby received blame for the Indians' failure to win the AL pennant and was labeled a "loner" by some in the press, including Plain Dealer sports editor Gordon Cobbledick who in an article in Sport wrote "Larry's a mixed-up guy—a badly mixed-up guy" stemming from "the emotional impact of discovering racial prejudice against him." Cobbledick also took issue with Doby's assertion that opposing pitchers were knocking him down due to Doby being black. The assertion was confirmed by Sam Lacy, who wrote in the Baltimore Afro-American, "Statistics show that eight colored players in the two major leagues were hit by pitches a total of 68 times during the 1951 campaign, an average of $8 1/2$ times per man. No other player was hit as many as eight times in the season."

One month before spring training for the 1952 season, Doby employed former Olympic track and field athlete Harrison Dillard to come to his home in New Jersey to prepare his legs in hopes of eliminating injuries, which had affected him the previous season. Dillard and the Indians' team doctor prescribed lower-body warm-ups to Doby before the start of each game. Leg injuries continued to bother Doby during the start of the season. On June 4, 1952, he hit for the cycle. By the end of the 1952 season, Doby was second in the AL in RBIs to teammate Al Rosen by one, 105 to 104. His .541 slugging percentage, runs scored (104), strikeout (111), and home run (32) totals were all highest in the AL.

Leading up to the 1953 season, Doby asked Greenberg and Indians management for a pay raise after earning $22,000 the previous season. In early March, the raise was granted, and he was slated to make $28,000 that year. For 1953, Doby had a .263 batting average, which was his lowest since joining the league in 1947. He led the AL in strikeouts for the second and final time in his career, a career-high 121 times, but hit 29 home runs and 102 RBIs on the year. He also had 96 walks, which was third in the AL.

For the sixth time in his major league career, Doby was named an All-Star during the 1954 season, one of five Indians named. The game was held at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium and featured the second-largest crowd to watch an All-Star Game (the largest was in 1935 at the same stadium). In what would prove his final career All-Star at bat, Doby hit a pinch-hit solo home run in the eighth inning to tie the game at 9–9; the AL squad went on to win, 11–9. His home run was the first hit by a black player in an All-Star Game. The game, which had a record 17 hits by the AL and was the highest-scoring All-Star Game until 1998, was called the best ever by All-Star Game founder Arch Ward. As the regular season resumed, Doby helped the Indians to win a franchise-record 111 games and the AL pennant. His regular season 32 home runs and career-high 126 RBIs were highest in the AL, which led to him finishing second in AL MVP voting. The Indians were swept in the 1954 World Series by Doby's former Eagles teammate Monte Irvin and the New York Giants.

In his last full season with the Indians in 1955, Doby was selected for his seventh consecutive and final All-Star Game. Doby's leg injuries affected him severely at this point in his career and he did not enter the game. He finished the 1955 season with 26 home runs and 75 RBIs while hitting .291 in 131 games, his fewest played since 1948. Not all in Cleveland were disappointed to see Doby leaving. Wrote one Plain Dealer columnist, Franklin Lewis: "He has been a controversial athlete. Highly gifted, he was frequently morose, sullen, and upon occasion, downright surly to his teammates ... He thought of himself, at the beginning, as the symbol of the Negro in his league." Doby responded, "I was looked on as a Black man, not as a human being. I did feel a responsibility to the Black players who came after me, but that was a responsibility, basically, to people, not just to Black people."

Later years (1956–1960)
After spending nine seasons with Cleveland, Doby was traded on October 25, 1955, to the Chicago White Sox for Chico Carrasquel and Jim Busby. Chicago was looking for a consistent home run hitter after finishing the season with 116 home runs as a team. "The search is over for a long ball hitter. We've certainly needed a consistent one—and we've been eying Doby for some time", said White Sox vice president Chuck Comiskey. White Sox manager Marty Marion believed Doby's bat would be a welcome addition to his club when he said, "The guy used to murder us when we played Cleveland. He'll make a big difference in the number of one-run and two-run decisions we might lose." After winning a doubleheader against the Yankees on June 22, 1956, Doby and the White Sox swept New York, the first time since the 1945 season the Yankees had been swept in a four-game series. The White Sox won eight straight games, the longest winning streak in the AL to that point in the season, and had done so with the help of Doby's six home runs during the eight-game stretch. "You know, when we dealt for Doby, we weren't worried about Larry. We knew he'd come through", Comiskey said. Doby finished the season with a .268 batting average and led the team with 24 home runs and 102 RBIs. Chicago finished 1956 in third place in the AL with an 85–69 record.

In a game on August 20, 1957, against the Washington Senators, Doby helped preserve pitcher Bob Keegan's no-hitter with a backhand catch off a long line drive from Herb Plews, one of "two close calls" for Keegan that game. His 1957 home run total of 14 tied for the team-high, as he managed a .288 average and recorded 79 RBIs, second-highest on the team after former Indians teammate Minnie Miñoso. The White Sox finished second in the AL with a 90–64 record.

Doby was part of a December 3, 1957, multi-player trade between the White Sox and Baltimore Orioles, then was traded again on April 1 to Cleveland along with Don Ferrarese for Gene Woodling, Bud Daley, and Dick Williams. He appeared in 89 games with the Indians that season and had a .289 batting average, 13 home runs, and 45 RBIs. He was sent to the Detroit Tigers on March 21, 1959, in exchange for Tito Francona. Tigers general manager Rick Ferrell said, "this gives us some more power and we just hope Doby hits as well in Briggs Stadium this season as he has in other years." He hit .218 with four RBIs before Detroit sold the 35-year-old Doby to the White Sox on May 13 for $20,000.

After 21 games with the White Sox, he was sent to Triple-A affiliate San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League after hitting .241 with no home runs and 9 RBIs. Doby fractured an ankle while sliding into third base after hitting a triple during a road game the Padres played against Sacramento, and was sent to a local hospital in Sacramento before going to Johns Hopkins Hospital for further evaluation. Doby worked out with the White Sox before the 1960 season but, due to nagging injuries, did not earn a roster spot. In late April he joined the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League on a trial basis but was released by the team on May 6 after X-rays showed bone deterioration in his affected ankle.

Doby finished his 13-year major league career with a .283 batting average, accumulated 1,515 hits, 253 home runs and 970 RBIs in 1,533 games and 5,348 at-bats. Of his 1,533 career games, 1,146 of them were spent with the Indians. "I played against great talent in the Major Leagues and I played against great talent in the Negro Leagues. I didn't see a lot of difference", said Doby.

Nippon baseball (1962)
Doby had participated in baseball clinics in 1962 as a member of a travel delegation from the U.S. Department of State. That year, Doby came out of retirement and became one of the first Americans to play professional baseball in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league when he and Don Newcombe, a former teammate with the Newark Eagles, signed contracts with the Chunichi Dragons. Doby spent the season splitting his time between 1B (36 games) and RF (34 games) and batted .225 with 10 HR, 35 RBI, and 27 runs in 240 at bats. After the season, Doby returned to the U.S. in October and resumed his work as a liquor retailer.

Managerial and executive appointments
After retiring as a player, Doby became a scout with the Montreal Expos in 1969 and served as a minor league instructor with the organization in 1970. He was batting coach under manager Gene Mauch from 1971 to 1973 and again in 1976. He managed various teams during five seasons of winter league baseball in Venezuela, including Águilas del Zulia during the 1970–71 winter season. Doby rejoined the Indians for the 1974 season as first base coach for manager Ken Aspromonte. When Aspromonte was fired after the 1974 season, the Indians named Frank Robinson the club's player-manager and baseball's first black manager.

After Robinson's hire as manager, Doby returned to work for the Expos. In 1976, Bill Veeck purchased the White Sox for a second time and hired Doby to be the team's batting coach. As a team, the White Sox finished the 1976 season with a .255 batting average, 586 runs scored and 73 home runs. By June 29, 1977, the team's average was .284, and had recorded 382 runs scored and 87 home runs. They finished the season second in team batting average (to the Yankees and Red Sox, each with a .281 average) and had 192 home runs and 844 runs scored as a team. After firing the White Sox's manager and former Doby teammate Bob Lemon, Veeck replaced him with Doby on June 30, 1978. At age 53, Doby became the second black manager in the majors after Robinson. "It's so nice to work for a man like Bill Veeck. You just work as hard as you can, and if the opportunity arises, you will certainly get the opportunity to fulfill your dreams", Doby said after being named White Sox manager.

To that point in the season, the White Sox had a 34–40 record. On July 1 in his first game as manager, the White Sox suffered a 10–0 loss to the Minnesota Twins but Doby won his second game, 8–5, the next day against the same team. The White Sox finished 71–90, including 37–50 under Doby, in what would be Doby's sole managerial role. Veeck hired player-manager Don Kessinger to succeed Doby after deciding not to re-hire Doby, although Kessinger resigned as manager in the second half of the 1979 season. After removing Doby from the manager's role and reassigning him to batting coach, the position Doby held before being named manager, Veeck said, "Larry will always have a role on this team in some capacity." He served in that role for one additional season and resigned in October 1979.

After retiring from baseball, Doby was named director of communications for the National Basketball Association's New Jersey Nets from 1980 to 1989 and also served as the Nets' director of community affairs until 1990. Doby was named special assistant to the AL's last president, Gene Budig, on April 17, 1995.

Second man
The New York Times wrote, "In glorifying those who are first, the second is often forgotten ... Larry Doby integrated all those American League ball parks where Jackie Robinson never appeared. And he did it with class and clout." During the 1997 season, when the long-departed Jackie Robinson's number 42 was being retired throughout baseball, and the still-living Doby was being virtually ignored by the media, an editorial in Sports Illustrated pointed out that Doby had to suffer the same indignities that Robinson did, and with nowhere near the media attention and implicit support. Scoop Jackson in 2007 wrote, in response to the tradition of MLB players wearing jerseys in homage of Robinson, "Second place finishers in America are suckers. And so are those who make the story of history less simple than it needs to be. This happens sometimes in America. Those who don't come first or don't do things a certain way get lost. They disappear." In a 1978 interview, Doby said, "Jackie got all the publicity for putting up with it (racial slurs). But it was the same thing I had to deal with. He was first, but the crap I took was just as bad. Nobody said, 'We're gonna be nice to the second Black'".

Doby served as one of the pallbearers at Robinson's funeral. As fellow Hall of Famer Joe Morgan wrote, "Anyone who knew Larry knew that he admired Robinson and was never jealous of the attention Robinson received." Former teammate Al Rosen said:

"Jackie was a college educated man who had been an officer in the service and who played at the Triple-A level. Jackie was brought in by Branch Rickey specifically to be the first black player in major league baseball. Larry Doby came up as a second baseman who didn't have time to get his full college education, and was forced to play a different position in his first major league season. I think, because of those circumstances, he had a more difficult time than Jackie Robinson. I don't think he has gotten the credit he deserves."

Doby experienced many prejudices during his time before, during, and after the majors. One incident took place during a game as Doby was sliding into second base when the shortstop from the opposing team spat tobacco juice on him. Doby called it the worst injustice he experienced on the field. He endured many racial slurs, from the stands and elsewhere, during games. He also received death threats. After he had retired as a player, Doby recalled memories of his days as a barrier-breaker. "You know why I hit so well in Washington and St. Louis? They were major Jim Crow seating parks and when I came to bat, I knew where the noise was coming from and who was making it. I felt like a quarterback with 5,000 cheerleaders calling his name. You know most of them couldn't afford to be there. I never forgot them."

Shortly after the Indians had honored Doby by naming a nearby street after him, The Plain Dealer columnist Bill Livingston wrote, "The Larry Doby way of pioneering was the same as the Jackie Robinson way in the National League, only Doby's debut occurred six short weeks later and with almost no advance preparation by Doby or the Indians." Doby threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the 1997 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, played at Jacobs Field. The decision to have the game in Cleveland coincided with the 1997 season marking the fiftieth anniversary of Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier. It was also 50 years and 3 days since Doby became the first black player in the American League.

Hall of Fame
Doby was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on March 3, 1998, by the Veterans Committee at the age of 74. "This is just a tremendous feeling. It's kind of like a bale of cotton has been on your shoulders, and now it's off", said Doby. When he received word about his election, it was by a telephone call from fellow Hall member Ted Williams. Upon hearing of Doby's election, Gene Mauch, said, "You have to be some kind of special person to go through what Larry and Jackie Robinson went through. They both are. I'm not too sure there's a player in the game today who could handle it."

He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on July 26, 1998. Doby became the first member born in South Carolina elected to the Hall. Although he was the first to play in MLB, Doby was the last member elected to the Hall of the four players to ever play in both a Negro league and MLB World Series, the others being Satchel Paige, Monte Irvin, and Willie Mays.

Death and legacy
Doby and his wife, Helyn, had five children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. When the Dobys moved to Montclair, Yogi Berra and his wife became neighborhood friends and children of the two families played baseball and football together. Doby had a kidney removed in 1997 after a cancerous tumor was detected. Helyn, married to Doby for 55 years, died in 2001 after a six-month battle with cancer.

Doby died on June 18, 2003, at his home in Montclair, New Jersey, at age 79 after suffering from cancer. When Doby died, President George W. Bush made the following statement:

"Larry Doby was a good and honorable man, and a tremendous athlete and manager. He had a profound influence on the game of baseball, and he will be missed. As the first African American player in the American League, he helped lead the Cleveland Indians to their last World Series title in 1948, became a nine-time All-Star and was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998. Laura joins me in sending our condolences to Larry's family during this difficult time."

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig (1992–2015) released a statement a day following Doby's death:

"Like Jackie, he endured the pain of being a pioneer with grace, dignity, and determination and eased the way for all who followed. He achieved another historic second 31 years later he became the second African-American to manage a big league club, following Frank Robinson."

Former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent said:

"Larry's role in history was recognized slowly and belatedly. Jackie Robinson, who broke the color line first but in the same year, quite naturally received most of the attention. Larry played out his career with dignity and then slid gracefully into various front-office positions in basketball and then later in baseball. Only in the 90's did baseball wake up to the obvious fact that Larry was every bit as deserving of recognition as Jackie."

Long before Doby was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame came induction in the Indians Hall of Fame in August 1966. Later, in May 1973, he was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame and in 2010, the New Jersey Hall of Fame. On August 10, 2007, the Indians paid tribute to Doby on Larry Doby Day by collectively using his number (14) on their uniforms. The franchise again honored him when in 2012, Eagle Avenue, next to the Indians' Progressive Field, was renamed "Larry Doby Way" in an on-field postgame ceremony. Among those present at the ceremony were former star pitcher Jim "Mudcat" Grant, Indians president Mark Shapiro, Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson, and various members of Doby's family. The Indians unveiled a life-sized bronze statue of Doby outside Progressive Field on July 25, 2015.

In 1997, Princeton University awarded Doby an honorary Doctorate of Humanities.

The city of Paterson, New Jersey, renamed the Eastside Park baseball field "Larry Doby Field" on June 1, 2002. The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center has a section named the Larry Doby Wing. Of Berra, Doby said, "Yogi was one of the first opposing players to talk to me. As a catcher, Yogi talked to everybody. I finally had to tell the umpire: 'Please tell him to shut up. He asked me how my family was back in the first inning.'"

In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service announced that Doby would be one of the four baseball players (along with Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and Willie Stargell) to appear on a postage stamp in 2012, as part of its "Major League Baseball All-Stars" series. The stamp was released July 21, 2012.

In 2013, the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award honored Doby as one of 37 Baseball Hall of Fame members for his service in the United States Navy during World War II.

In 2022, the Garden State Parkway's Brookdale North Service Area in Bloomfield, New Jersey was renamed the Larry Doby Service Area.

On December 23, 2023, on what would've been his 100th birthday, Doby was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal.

title: Larry Doby


text:
Chronic wasting disease

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), sometimes called zombie deer disease, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) affecting deer. TSEs are a family of diseases thought to be caused by misfolded proteins called prions and include similar diseases such as BSE (mad cow disease) in cattle, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) in humans and scrapie in sheep. Natural infection causing CWD affects members of the deer family. In the United States, CWD affects mule deer, white-tailed deer, red deer, sika deer, elk, caribou, and moose. The transmission of CWD to other species such as squirrel monkeys and humanized mice has been observed in experimental settings.

In 1967, CWD was first identified in mule deer at a government research facility in northern Colorado, United States. It was initially recognized as a clinical "wasting" syndrome and then in 1978, it was identified more specifically as a TSE disease. Since then, CWD has been found in free-ranging and captive animal populations in 30 US states and four Canadian provinces. In addition, CWD has been found in one Minnesota red deer farm, one wild reindeer herd in Norway (March 2016) as well as in wild moose. Single cases of CWD in moose have been found in Finland (March 2018) and in Sweden (March and May 2019, September 2020). CWD was found in South Korea in some deer imported from Canada. CWD is typified by chronic weight loss and clinical signs compatible with brain lesions, aggravated over time, always leading to death.

Although reports in the popular press have been made of humans being affected by CWD, by 2004 a study for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggested, "[m]ore epidemiologic and laboratory studies are needed to monitor the possibility of such transmissions". A 2019 study concluded that "the potential exists for transmission to humans and subsequent human disease". The epidemiological study further concluded, "[a]s a precaution, hunters should avoid eating deer and elk tissues known to harbor the CWD agent (e.g., brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils, lymph nodes) from areas where CWD has been identified". In April 2024, it was revealed that two men from the same hunting group contracted CJD, prompting medical researchers to speculate transmission had occurred from consuming CWD-positive venison.

History
Chronic wasting disease was first discovered by American wildlife veterinarian Beth S. Williams. Williams performed necropsies on deer and elk that had died of an unknown syndrome. She recognized that the brain lesions in these animals were consistent with transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). In 1978, she and neuropathologist Stuart Young cowrote the first scientific paper that named the disease and described it as a TSE.

In February 2003, the Centers for Disease Control published a report of "Fatal degenerative neurologic illnesses in men who participated in wild game feasts--Wisconsin, 2002". It read in conclusion that "Although no association between CWD and CJD was found, continued surveillance of both diseases remains important to assess the possible risk for CWD transmission to humans." In September 2003, Hoey pointed out that one of the three patients (the 55 year-old) "presented with a 3-month history of difficulty in writing and unsteadiness of gait, followed by dementia, speech abnormalities and myoclonic jerking. Pathologic examination of the brain at autopsy 3 months later revealed widespread subcortical spongiform lesions consistent with CJD."

As of 2013 Patrice Klein the CWD Program Manager at USDA/APHIS rejected the somewhat inconclusive findings of Hoey and stated that no evidence had been found of transmission to humans from deer, nor by eating animals in the deer family, but both channels remain a subject of public health surveillance and research.

Quebec farm outbreak
The MFFP ministry in Quebec practiced 9500 tests in the period between 2007 and autumn 2018 before they detected a seropositive case in September 2018.

The September 2018 discovery of CWD on a managed operation in Grenville-sur-la-Rouge Quebec prompted a wholesale slaughter of 3500 animals in two months before the enterprise shut down permanently. The CFIA ordered the cull, as well as the decontamination of 25 cm of soil in certain places on the 400 ha operation. Post-discovery, each animal was tested for CWD by the CFIA before it was released onto the market. Other Quebec producers lamented the glut of supply. A 400 km quarantine area was declared, in which all hunting and trapping activities were banned. The government slaughtered hundreds of wild animals over a two-month period. The routine cull for market was between 70 and 100 animals per week. When the producer was forced to close, the weekly slaughter neared 500 animals per week. One year later, 750 wild specimens had been culled in the 45 km-radius "enhanced monitoring area", and none tested positive for CWD. It came to light in August 2019 that prior to 2014 in Canada, all animals on CWD-infected farms were buried or incinerated. Since 2014, however, the CFIA has allowed animals from CWD-infected farms to enter the food chain because there is "no national requirement to have animals tested for the disease". From one CWD-infected herd in Alberta, 131 elk were sold for human consumption.

For the fall 2019 hunting season in western Quebec, the provincial ministry relaxed the rules for the annual white-tailed deer (WTD) hunt, in an effort to curb the spread of CWD. Any WTD can be hunted with any weapon in certain municipalities in the Outaouais valley and the Laurentides. The MFFP hopes thereby to receive more samples to test for CWD. The quarantine around Grenville was still in place, and the ministry specifically prohibited (only) the "removal" from the quarantine "enhanced monitoring area" zone of "the head, more specifically any part of the brain, the eyes, the retropharyngeal lymph nodes and the tonsils, any part of the spinal column, the internal organs (including the liver and the heart), and the testicles."

Signs and symptoms
Due to CWD taking 18–24 months after initial exposure to onset, most cases of CWD occur in adult animals; the youngest animal to exhibit clinical symptoms of the disease was 15 months. The disease is progressive and always fatal. The first signs are difficulties in movement. The most obvious and consistent clinical sign of CWD is weight loss over time. Behavioral changes also occur in the majority of cases, including decreased interactions with other animals, listlessness, lowering of the head, tremors, repetitive walking in set patterns, and nervousness. Excessive salivation and grinding of the teeth also are observed. Most deer show increased drinking and urination; the increased drinking and salivation may contribute to the spread of the disease. Loss of fear of humans and appearance of confusion are also common. The APHIS summarized it as: Behavioral changes, emaciation, weakness, ataxia, salivation, aspiration pneumonia, progressive death.

Cause
The cause of CWD (like other TSEs, such as scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalopathy) is a prion, a misfolded form of a normal protein, known as prion protein (PrP), that is most commonly found in the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS). The misfolded form has been shown to be capable of converting normally folded prion protein, PrPC ("C" for cellular) into an abnormal form, PrPSc ("Sc" for scrapie), thus leading to a chain reaction. CWD is thought to be transmitted by this mechanism. The abnormality in PrP has its genetic basis in a particular variant of the protein-coding gene PRNP that is highly conserved among mammals and has been found and sequenced in deer. The build-up of PrPd in the brain is associated with widespread neurodegeneration.

Genetics
The allele which encodes leucine, codon 132 in the family of Elks, is either homozygous LL, homozygous MM, or heterozygous ML. Individuals with the first encoding seem to resist clinical signs of CWD, whereas individuals with either of the other two encodings have much shorter incubation periods.

In white-tailed deer, polymorphisms at codons 95 (Q->H) and 96 (G->S) dramatically affect CWD progression and prion strain specification. Deer containing the 96S allele have delayed progression to clinical disease onset.

When deer with the 95H polymorphism become infected, they select for altered strains of CWD.

Spread
Researchers in July 2019 stated that "with all the research on the malignity of prions, and the permanence of prions in the wider environment, and their resistance to destruction and degradation, it is necessary to reduce the potential sources of exposure to CWD." In fact an APHIS scientist observed that, while the longevity of CWD prion is unknown, the scrapie prion has been measured to endure for 16 years. The PrPCWD protein is insoluble in all but the strongest solvents, and highly resistant to digestion by proteases. PrPCWD converts the normal protein PrPC into more of itself upon contact, and binds together forming aggregates. Prusiner noted in 2001 that:

In the prion diseases, the initial formation of PrPSc leads to an exponential increase in the protein, which can be readily transmitted to another host

However, it is noted that, although CWD prions were transmissible within the cervidae family, CWD was not considered transmissible to humans or to cattle.

How the prions that cause CWD spread is unknown, but recent research indicates that prions can be excreted by deer and elk, and are transmitted by eating grass growing in contaminated soil. Animals born in captivity and those born in the wild have been affected with the disease. Transmission of CWD is thought to be lateral (from animal to animal). Maternal transmission may occur, although it appears to be relatively unimportant in maintaining epidemics. An infected deer's saliva is able to spread the CWD prions. Exposure between animals is associated with sharing food and water sources contaminated with CWD prions shed by diseased deer.

Direct
CWD may be directly transmitted by contact with infected animals, their bodily tissues, and their bodily fluids. Spread may result from contact with infected deer regardless of if they are symptomatic.

Recent research on Rocky Mountain elk found that with CWD-infected females, many subclinical, a high rate (80%) of maternal-to-offspring transmission of CWD prions occurred, regardless of gestational period. While not dispositive relative to disease development in the fetus, this does suggest that maternal transmission may be yet another important route of direct CWD transmission.

Modern news stories and anecdotal evidence from treating physicians suggest that a human may have contracted Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease via the consumption of squirrel brains infected with CWD.

Experimental transmission
In addition to the cervid species in which CWD is known to naturally occur, black-tailed deer and European red deer have been demonstrated to be naturally susceptible to CWD. Other cervid species, including caribou, are also suspected to be naturally vulnerable to this disease. Many other non-cervid mammalian species have been experimentally infected with CWD, either orally or by intracerebral inoculation. These species include monkeys, sheep, cattle, prairie voles, mice, and ferrets.

An experimental case study of oral transmission of CWD to reindeer shows certain reindeer breeds may be susceptible to CWD, while other subpopulations may be protective against CWD in free-ranging populations. None of the reindeer in the study showed symptoms of CWD, potentially signifying resistance to different CWD strains.

Indirect
Environmental transmission has been linked to contact with infected bodily fluids and tissues, as well as contact with contaminated environments. Once in the environment, CWD prions may remain infectious for many years. Thus, decomposition of diseased carcasses, infected "gut piles" from hunters who field dress their cervid harvests, and the urine, saliva, feces, and antler velvet of infected individuals that are deposited in the environment, all have the potential to create infectious environmental reservoirs of CWD.

In 2013, researchers at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado, successfully infected white-tailed deer with the misfolded prion via the nasal passage, when the prions were mixed with clay. This was important because the prions had already been shown by 2006 to bind with sandy quartz clay minerals.

One avian scavenger, the American crow, was recently evaluated as a potential vector for CWD. As CWD prions remain viable after passing through the bird's digestive tract, crows represent a possible mechanism for the creation of environmental reservoirs of CWD. Additionally, the crows' extensive geographic range presents ample opportunities for them to come in contact with CWD. This, coupled with the population density and longevity of communal roosting sites in both urban and rural locations, suggests that the fecal deposits at roosting sites may represent a CWD environmental reservoir. Conservative estimates for crows' fecal deposits at one winter roosting site for one winter season ranged from 391,552 to 599,032 kg.

CWD prions adhere so tightly to soil surface particles that the ground becomes a source of infection and may be a major route of transmission due to frequent ground contact when animals in the deer family graze.

Prevention
By 2012, a voluntary system of control was published by APHIS in the US Federal Register. It depended on voluntary minimum standards methodology, and herd certification programs to avoid interstate movement of the disease vector. It was based on a risk management framework. As of August 2019, APHIS law in 9 CFR Part 55 - CONTROL OF CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE dealt with this problem.

Introduced for the 2019 Minnesota hunting season, a no-cost deer carcass-incineration program was rolled out by Crow Wing County officials hoping to stem the spread of CWD in the region. CWD was found among wild deer in Crow Wing County for the first time in January 2019. The voluntary program encourages both residents and visiting hunters to bring harvested deer carcasses to the county landfill east of Brainerd, Minnesota for incineration and disposal.

In 2023, Minnesota funded a Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) project to assemble 70 public health experts from around the world to devise a response plan for potential human spillover. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, stressed the urgency of preparedness, noting that the prion responsible for CWD is evolving and becoming more capable of infecting humans. Despite these concerns, a 2022 study by the National Institutes of Health indicated that the likelihood of prions infecting human brain cells remains remote.

Diagnosis
Diagnosis is based on post mortem examination (necropsy) and testing; examination of the dead body is not definitive, as many animals die early in the course of the disease and conditions found are nonspecific; general signs of poor health and aspiration pneumonia, which may be the actual cause of death, are common. On microscopic examination, lesions of CWD in the CNS resemble those of other TSEs. In addition, scientists use immunohistochemistry to test brain, lymph, and neuroendocrine tissues for the presence of the abnormal prion protein to diagnose CWD; positive IHC findings in the obex is considered the gold standard. Conventional CWD diagnostic strategies and seeded amplification methods for amplifying CWD prions in vitro include: immunohistochemistry (IHC), western blotting (WB), enzyme immunoassay (EIA), protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA), and real time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC).

Available tests, as of July 2019, at the CFIA were not sensitive enough to detect the prion in specimens from animals younger than a year old. Strategies are being developed to allow for the quantification of prion burden in a tissue, body fluid, or environmental sample.

As of 2015, no commercially feasible diagnostic tests could be used on live animals. As early as 2001 an antemortem test was deemed urgent. Running a bioassay, taking fluids from animals in the deer family suspected of infection and incubating them in transgenic mice that express the cervid prion protein, can be used to determine whether the cervid is infected, but ethical issues exist with this, and it is not scalable.

A tonsillar biopsy technique has been a reliable method of testing for CWD in live deer, but it only seems to be effective on mule deer and white-tailed deer, not elk. Biopsies of the rectal mucosa have also been effective at detecting CWD in live mule deer, white-tailed deer, and elk, though detection efficacy may be influenced by numerous factors including animal age, genotype, and disease stage.

It is possible for CWD prions to survive sterilization procedures involving an autoclave.

North America
The disease was first identified in 1967 in a closed herd of captive mule deer in contiguous portions of northeastern Colorado. In 1980, the disease was determined to be a TSE. It was first identified in wild elk and mule deer and white-tailed deer in the early 1980s in Colorado and Wyoming, and in farmed elk in 1997. The disease did not affect Canada until 1996.

In May 2001, CWD was also found in free-ranging deer in the southwestern corner of Nebraska (adjacent to Colorado and Wyoming) and later in additional areas in western Nebraska. The limited area of northern Colorado, southern Wyoming, and western Nebraska in which free-ranging deer, moose, and/or elk positive for CWD have been found is referred to as the endemic area. The area in 2006 has expanded to six states, including parts of eastern Utah, southwestern South Dakota, and northwestern Kansas. Also, areas not contiguous (to the endemic area) areas in central Utah and central Nebraska have been found. The limits of the affected areas are not well defined, since the disease is at a low incidence and the amount of sampling may not be adequate to detect it. In 2002, CWD was detected in wild deer in south-central Wisconsin and northern Illinois and in an isolated area of southern New Mexico. In 2005, it was found in wild white-tailed deer in New York and in Hampshire County, West Virginia. In 2008, the first confirmed case of CWD in Michigan was discovered in an infected deer on an enclosed deer-breeding facility. It is also found in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

In February 2011, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources reported the first confirmed case of the disease in that state. The affected animal was a white-tailed deer killed by a hunter.

CWD has also been diagnosed in farmed elk and deer herds in a number of states and in two Canadian provinces. The first positive farmed-elk herd in the United States was detected in 1997 in South Dakota. Since then, additional positive elk herds and farmed white-tailed deer herds have been found in South Dakota (7), Nebraska (4), Colorado (10), Oklahoma (1), Kansas (1), Minnesota (3), Montana (1), Wisconsin (6), and New York (2). As of fall of 2006, four positive elk herds in Colorado and a positive white-tailed deer herd in Wisconsin remain under state quarantine. All of the other herds have been depopulated or have been slaughtered and tested, and the quarantine has been lifted from one herd that underwent rigorous surveillance with no further evidence of disease. CWD also has been found in farmed elk in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. A retrospective study also showed mule deer exported from Denver to the Toronto Zoo in the 1980s were affected. In June 2015, the disease was detected in a male white-tailed deer on a breeding ranch in Medina County, Texas. State officials euthanized 34 deer in an effort to contain a possible outbreak.

In February 2018, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks announced that a Mississippi deer tested positive for chronic wasting disease. Another Mississippi whitetail euthanized in Pontotoc County on 8 October 2018 tested positive for CWD. The disease was confirmed by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa on 30 October 2018.

Species that have been affected with CWD include elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, black-tailed deer, and moose. Other ruminant species, including wild ruminants and domestic cattle, sheep, and goats, have been housed in wildlife facilities in direct or indirect contact with CWD-affected deer and elk, with no evidence of disease transmission. However, experimental transmission of CWD into other ruminants by intracranial inoculation does result in disease, suggesting only a weak molecular species barrier exists. Research is ongoing to further explore the possibility of transmission of CWD to other species.

By April 2016, CWD had been found in captive animals in South Korea; the disease arrived there with live elk that were imported from Canada for farming in the late 1990s.

In the summer of 2018, cases were discovered in the Harpur Farm herd in Grenville-sur-la-Rouge, Quebec.

Over the course of 2018, 12% of the mule deer that were tested in Alberta, had a positive result. More than 8% of Alberta deer were deemed seropositive.

In 2022, it had been recorded that outbreaks of CWD had shown themselves in both the United States and Canada. CWD was present in 29 states, infecting herds of moose, deer and elk in 391 different counties. Alabama (1), Arkansas (19), Colorado (27), Idaho (1), Illinois (19), Iowa (12), Kansas (49), Louisiana (1), Maryland (1), Michigan (9), Minnesota (7), Mississippi (9), Missouri (21), Montana (23), Nebraska (43), New Mexico (3), New York (1), North Carolina (1), North Dakota (7), Ohio (2), Pennsylvania (14), South Dakota (19), Tennessee (14), Texas (7), Utah (7), Virginia (10), West Virginia (5), Wisconsin (37) and Wyoming (22).

In June 2023, as the spread continued, CWD was found in Oklahoma (1) in the wild and Florida (1) for the first time. A case in October 2023 in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, whose ecosystem supports the greatest and most diverse array of large wild mammals in the continental US, was reported. The first case in Kentucky was confirmed in December 2023.

In January 2024, British Columbia's surveillance program identified its first two positive deer samples from the Kootenay region of the province.

Scandinavia
In 2016, the first case of CWD in Europe was from the Nordfjella wild reindeer herd in southern Norway. Scientists found the diseased female reindeer as it was dying, and routine CWD screening at necropsy was unexpectedly positive. The origin of CWD in Norway is unknown, whereas import of infected deer from Canada was the source of CWD cases in South Korea. Norway has strict legislation and rules not allowing importation of live animals and deer into the country. Norway has a scrapie surveillance program since 1997; while no reports of scrapie within the range of Nordfjella reindeer population have been identified, sheep are herded through that region and are a potential source of infection.

In May and June 2016, two infected wild moose (Alces alces) were found around 300 km north from the first case, in Selbu. By the end of August, a fourth case had been confirmed in a wild reindeer shot in the same area as the first case in March.

In 2017, the Environment Agency of the Norwegian government released guidelines for hunters hunting reindeer in the Nordfjella areas. The guidelines contain information on identifying animals with CWD symptoms and instructions for minimizing the risk of contamination, as well as a list of supplies given to hunters to be used for taking and submitting samples from shot reindeer.

In March 2018, Finnish Food Safety Authority EVIRA stated that the first case of CWD in Finland had been diagnosed in a 15-year-old moose (Alces alces) that had died naturally in the municipality of Kuhmo in the Kainuu region. Before this case in Kuhmo, Norway was the only country in the European Economic Area where CWD has been diagnosed. The moose did not have the transmissible North American form of the disease, but similar to the Norwegian variant of CWD, an atypical or sporadic form which occurs incidentally in individual animals of the deer family. In Finland, CWD screening of fallen wild deer has been done since 2003. None of the roughly 2,500 samples analyzed so far have tested positive for the disease. The export of live animals of the deer family to other countries has been temporarily banned as a precautionary measure to stop the spread of the CWD, and moose hunters are going to be provided with more instructions before the start of the next hunting season, if appropriate. The export and sales of meat from deer will not be restricted and moose meat is considered safe to eat as only the brain and nervous tissue of infected moose contains prions.

In March 2019, the Swedish National Veterinary Institute (SVA) diagnosed the first case of CWD in Sweden. A 16-year old emaciated female moose was found in the municipality of Arjeplog in the county of Norrbotten, circling and with loss of shyness towards humans, possibly blind. The moose was euthanized and the head was sent for CWD screening in the national CWD surveillance program. The brainstem tissue, but not lymph nodes, was positive for CWD (confirmed with Western Blot). A second case of CWD was diagnosed in May 2019, with very similar case history, about 70 km east of the first case. This second case, in the municipality of Arvidsjaur, was also an emaciated and apathic 16-year-old female moose that was euthanized. The circumstances of these Swedish cases are similar to the CWD cases in moose in both Norway and Finland. The EU regulated CWD surveillance runs between 2018 - 2020. A minimum of 6 000 deer are to be tested, both free-ranging animals in the deer family, farmed red deer, and semi-domesticated reindeer. The finding of CWD-positive moose initiated an intensified surveillance in the affected municipalities. Adult hunter-harvested moose and slaughtered semi-domesticated reindeer from the area are tested for CWD. In September 2019, a third moose was found positive for CWD, a hunter-harvested 10-year-old apparently healthy female moose from Arjeplog. A fourth case of CWD in moose was verified in September 2020, in a euthanized 14-year-old lame and unshy female moose in the municipality of Robertsfors, in the county of Västerbotten, approximately 200 km from the previous moose cases in the neighboring county of Norrbotten.

Research
Research is focused on better ways to monitor disease in the wild, live animal diagnostic tests, developing vaccines, better ways to dispose of animals that died from the disease and to decontaminate the environment, where prions can persist in soils, and better ways to monitor the food supply. Deer harvesting and management issues are intertwined.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Chronic wasting disease


text:
Bine

Bine can mean any of the following:

 * Bine (botany), a category of climbing plants which support themselves by the shoots growing in a helix around a support
 * Bine language, a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea
 * Binə, Baku, a settlement in Baku, Azerbaijan
 * Jēkabs Bīne (1895–1955), Latvian artist
 * Binə, Khojavend, a village in Khojavend Rayon, Azerbaijan
 * Bine Rogelj (1929–2023), Yugoslavian ski jumper
 * National Identity Bloc in Europe, Romanian electoral alliance abbreviated as BINE

title: Bine


text:
Lamashtu

In Mesopotamian mythology, Lamashtu (Akkadian dLa-maš-tu; Sumerian Dimme dDim3-me or Kamadme ) was a female demon/monster/malevolent goddess or demigoddess who menaced women during childbirth and, if possible, kidnapped their children while they were breastfeeding. She would gnaw on their bones and suck their blood, and was charged with a number of other evil deeds. She was a daughter of the Sky God Anu.

Lamashtu is depicted as a mythological hybrid, with a hairy body, a lioness' head with donkey's teeth and ears, long fingers and fingernails, and the feet of a bird with sharp talons. She is often shown standing or kneeling on a donkey, nursing a pig and a dog, and holding snakes. She thus bears some functions and resemblance to the demon Lilith in Jewish mythology.

Mythology
Lamashtu's father was the Sky god Anu. Unlike many other usual demonic figures and depictions in Mesopotamian lore, Lamashtu was said to act in malevolence of her own accord, rather than at the gods' instructions. Along with this her name was written together with the cuneiform determinative indicating deity. This means she was a goddess or a demigoddess in her own right.

She bore seven names and was described as seven witches in incantations. Her evil deeds included (but were not limited to): slaying children, unborns, and neonates; causing harm to mothers and expectant mothers; eating men and drinking their blood; disturbing sleep; bringing nightmares; killing foliage; infesting rivers and lakes; and being a bringer of disease, sickness, and death.

Pazuzu, a god or demon, was invoked to protect birthing mothers and infants against Lamashtu's malevolence, usually on amulets and statues. Although Pazuzu was said to be bringer of famine and drought, he was also invoked against evil for protection, and against plague, but he was primarily and popularly invoked against his fierce, malicious rival Lamashtu.

Incantation against Lamashtu:

In another incantation against her, she appears to be identified with Inanna:

In modern culture

 * Lamashtu is a demon lord and the goddess of monsters, called the Mother of Beasts and Mistress of Insanity, in the role-playing game setting Pathfinder.
 * Lamashtu appears as a character in the NBC television series Constantine in the episode "The Saint of Last Resorts".
 * Lamashtu is the title of a 2015 audiobook by Paul E Cooley.
 * Lamashtu appears as the antagonist in the 2017 film Still/Born.
 * The song "lamashtu" by Necrophobic on their 2018 album Mark of the Necrogram is named for Lamashtu.
 * Lamashtu is depicted on the Ankaran Sarcophagus in the videogame Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.
 * Lamashtu appears as the demon who possesses two young girls in The Exorcist: Believer.
 * Lamashtu is worshipped in the 2022 Spanish horror film Venus.

Ritual
An Akkadian incantation and ritual against Lamashtu is edited in Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments vol. 2 (1988) It is glossed as an "incantation to dispel lasting fever and Lamashtu". The prescribed ritual involves a Lamashtu figurine. A sacrifice of bread must be placed before the figurine and water must be poured over it. A black dog must be made to carry the figurine. Then it is placed near the head of the sick child for three days, with the heart of a piglet placed in its mouth. The incantation must be recited three times a day, besides further food sacrifices. At dusk on the third day, the figurine is taken outdoors and buried near the wall.

title: Lamashtu


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Ninurta

Ninurta (: DNIN.URTA, possible meaning "Lord [of] Barley"), also known as Ninĝirsu (: DNIN.ĜIR2.SU, meaning "Lord [of] Girsu"), is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was first worshipped in early Sumer. In the earliest records, he is a god of agriculture and healing, who cures humans of sicknesses and releases them from the power of demons. In later times, as Mesopotamia grew more militarized, he became a warrior deity, though he retained many of his earlier agricultural attributes. He was regarded as the son of the chief god Enlil and his main cult center in Sumer was the Eshumesha temple in Nippur. Ninĝirsu was honored by King Gudea of Lagash (ruled 2144–2124 BC), who rebuilt Ninĝirsu's temple in Lagash. Later, Ninurta became beloved by the Assyrians as a formidable warrior. The Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) built a massive temple for him at Kalhu, which became his most important cult center from then on.

In the epic poem Lugal-e, Ninurta slays the demon Asag using his talking mace Sharur and uses stones to build the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to make them useful for irrigation. In a poem sometimes referred to as the "Sumerian Georgica", Ninurta provides agricultural advice to farmers. In an Akkadian myth, he was the champion of the gods against the Anzû bird after it stole the Tablet of Destinies from his father Enlil and, in a myth that is alluded to in many works but never fully preserved, he killed a group of warriors known as the "Slain Heroes". His major symbols were a perched bird and a plow.

It has been suggested that Ninurta was the inspiration for the figure of Nimrod, a "mighty hunter" who is mentioned in association with Kalhu in the Book of Genesis, although the view has been disputed. He may also be mentioned in the Second Book of Kings under the name Nisroch. In the nineteenth century, Assyrian stone reliefs of winged, eagle-headed figures from the temple of Ninurta at Kalhu were commonly, but erroneously, identified as "Nisrochs" and they appear in works of fantasy literature from the time period.

Worship

Ninurta was worshipped in Mesopotamia as early as the middle of the third millennium BC by the ancient Sumerians, and is one of the earliest attested deities in the region. His main cult center was the Eshumesha temple in the Sumerian city-state of Nippur, where he was worshipped as the god of agriculture and the son of the chief-god Enlil. Though they may have originally been separate deities, in historical times, the god Ninĝirsu, who was worshipped in the Sumerian city-state of Girsu, was always identified as a local form of Ninurta. According to the Assyriologists Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, the two gods' personalities are "closely intertwined". As the city-state of Girsu declined in importance, Ninĝirsu became increasingly known as "Ninurta". He became primarily characterized by the aggressive, warlike aspect of his nature.

In later times, Ninurta's reputation as a fierce warrior made him immensely popular among the Assyrians. In the late second millennium BC, Assyrian kings frequently held names which included the name of Ninurta, such as Tukulti-Ninurta ("the trusted one of Ninurta"), Ninurta-apal-Ekur ("Ninurta is the heir of [Ellil's temple] Ekur"), and Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur ("Ninurta is the god Aššur's trusted one"). Tukulti-Ninurta I (ruled 1243–1207 BC) declares in one inscription that he hunts "at the command of the god Ninurta, who loves me." Similarly, Adad-nirari II (ruled 911–891 BC) claimed Ninurta and Aššur as supporters of his reign, declaring his destruction of their enemies as moral justification for his right to rule. In the ninth century BC, when Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) moved the capital of the Assyrian Empire to Kalhu, the first temple he built there was one dedicated to Ninurta.

The walls of the temple were decorated with stone relief carvings, including one of Ninurta slaying the Anzû bird. Ashurnasirpal II's son Shalmaneser III (ruled 859–824 BC) completed Ninurta's ziggurat at Kalhu and dedicated a stone relief of himself to the god. On the carving, Shalmaneser III's boasts of his military exploits and credits all his victories to Ninurta, declaring that, without Ninurta's aid, none of them would have been possible. When Adad-nirari III (ruled 811–783 BC) dedicated a new endowment to the temple of Aššur in Assur, they were sealed with both the seal of Aššur and the seal of Ninurta.

After the capital of Assyria was moved away from Kalhu, Ninurta's importance in the pantheon began to decline. Sargon II favored Nabu, the god of scribes, over Ninurta. Nonetheless, Ninurta still remained an important deity. Even after the kings of Assyria left Kalhu, the inhabitants of the former capital continued to venerate Ninurta, who they called "Ninurta residing in Kalhu". Legal documents from the city record that those who violated their oaths were required to "place two minas of silver and one mina of gold in the lap of Ninurta residing in Kalhu." The last attested example of this clause dates to 669 BC, the last year of the reign of King Esarhaddon (ruled 681 – 669 BC). The temple of Ninurta at Kalhu flourished until the end of the Assyrian Empire, hiring the poor and destitute as employees. The main cultic personnel were a šangû-priest and a chief singer, who were supported by a cook, a steward, and a porter. In the late seventh century BC, the temple staff witnessed legal documents, along with the staff of the temple of Nabu at Ezida. The two temples shared a qēpu-official.

Iconography

On kudurrus from the Kassite Period (c. 1600 – c.  1155 BC), a plough is captioned as a symbol of Ninĝirsu. The plough also appears in Neo-Assyrian art, possibly as a symbol of Ninurta. A perched bird is also used as a symbol of Ninurta during the Neo-Assyrian Period. One speculative hypothesis holds that the winged disc originally symbolized Ninurta during the ninth century BC, but was later transferred to Aššur and the sun-god Shamash. This idea is based on some early representations in which the god on the winged disc appears to have the tail of a bird. Most scholars have rejected this suggestion as unfounded. Astronomers of the eighth and seventh centuries BC identified Ninurta (or Pabilsaĝ) with the constellation Sagittarius. Alternatively, others identified him with the star Sirius, which was known in Akkadian as šukūdu, meaning "arrow". The constellation of Canis Major, of which Sirius is the most visible star, was known as qaštu, meaning "bow", after the bow and arrow Ninurta was believed to carry. In the MUL.APIN Ninurta is consistently identified with Mercury, as it is read: "Mercury whose name is Ninurta travels the (same) path the Moon travels." In Babylonian times, Ninurta was also associated with the planet Saturn, and Mercury later became associated with Nabu.

Family

Ninurta was believed to be the son of Enlil. In Lugal-e, his mother is identified as the goddess Ninmah, whom he renames Ninhursag, but, in Angim dimma, his mother is instead the goddess Ninlil. Under the name Ninurta, his wife is usually the goddess Gula, but, as Ninĝirsu, his wife is the goddess Bau. Gula was the goddess of healing and medicine and she was sometimes alternately said to be the wife of the god Pabilsaĝ or the minor vegetation god Abu. Bau was worshipped "almost exclusively in Lagash" and was sometimes alternately identified as the wife of the god Zababa. She and Ninĝirsu were believed to have two sons: the gods Ig-alima and Šul-šagana. Bau also had seven daughters, but Ninĝirsu was not claimed to be their father. As the son of Enlil, Ninurta's siblings include: Nanna, Nergal, Ninazu, Enbilulu, and sometimes Inanna.

Lugal-e
Second only to the goddess Inanna, Ninurta probably appears in more myths than any other Mesopotamian deity. In the Sumerian poem Lugal-e, also known as Ninurta's Exploits, a demon known as Asag has been causing sickness and poisoning the rivers. Ninurta confronts Asag, who is protected by an army of stone warriors. Ninurta slays Asag and his armies. Then Ninurta organizes the world, using the stones from the warriors he has defeated to build the mountains, which he designs so that the streams, lakes and rivers all flow into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, making them useful for irrigation and agriculture. Ninurta's mother Ninmah descends from Heaven to congratulate her son on his victory. Ninurta dedicates the mountain of stone to her and renames her Ninhursag, meaning "Lady of the Mountain". Finally, Ninurta returns home to Nippur, where he is celebrated as a hero. This myth combines Ninurta's role as a warrior deity with his role as an agricultural deity. The title Lugal-e means "O king!" and comes from the poem opening phrase in the original Sumerian. Ninurta's Exploits is a modern title assigned to it by scholars. The poem was eventually translated into Akkadian after Sumerian became regarded as too difficult to understand.

A companion work to the Lugal-e is Angim dimma, or Ninurta's Return to Nippur, which describes Ninurta's return to Nippur after slaying Asag. It contains little narrative and is mostly a praise piece, describing Ninurta in larger-than-life terms and comparing him to the god An. Angim dimma is believed to have originally been written in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 – c.  2004 BC) or the early Old Babylonian Period (c.  1830 – c.  1531 BC), but the oldest surviving texts of it date to Old Babylonian Period. Numerous later versions of the text have also survived. It was translated into Akkadian during the Middle Babylonian Period (c. 1600 — c.  1155 BC).

Anzû myth

In the Old, Middle, and Late Babylonian myth of Anzû and the Tablet of Destinies, the Anzû is a giant, monstrous bird. Enlil gives Anzû a position as the guardian of his sanctuary, but Anzû betrays Enlil and steals the Tablet of Destinies, a sacred clay tablet belonging to Enlil that grants him his authority, while Enlil is preparing for his bath. The rivers dry up and the gods are stripped of their powers. The gods send Adad, Girra, and Shara to defeat the Anzû, but all of them fail. Finally, the god Ea proposes that the gods should send Ninurta, Enlil's son. Ninurta confronts the Anzû and shoots it with his arrows, but the Tablet of Destinies has the power to reverse time and the Anzû uses this power to make Ninurta's arrows fall apart in midair and revert to their original components.

Ninurta calls upon the south wind for aid, which rips the Anzû's wings off. The god Dagan announces Ninurta's victory in the assembly of the gods and, as a reward, Ninurta is granted a prominent seat on the council. Enlil sends the messenger god Birdu to request Ninurta to return the Tablet of Destinies. Ninurta's reply to Birdu is fragmentary, but it is possible he may initially refuse to return the Tablet. In the end, however, Ninurta does return the Tablet of Destinies to his father. This story was particularly popular among scholars of the Assyrian royal court.

The myth of Ninurta and the Turtle, recorded in UET 6/1 2, is a fragment of what was originally a much longer literary composition. In it, after defeating the Anzû, Ninurta is honored by Enki in Eridu. Enki senses his thoughts and creates a giant turtle, which he releases behind Ninurta and which bites the hero's ankle. As they struggle, the turtle digs a pit with its claws, which both of them fall into. Enki gloats over Ninurta's defeat. The end of the story is missing; the last legible portion of the account is a lamentation from Ninurta's mother Ninmah, who seems to be considering finding a substitute for her son. According to Charles Penglase, in this account, Enki is clearly intended as the hero and his successful foiling of Ninurta's plot to seize power for himself is intended as a demonstration of Enki's supreme wisdom and cunning.

Other myths

In Ninurta's Journey to Eridu, Ninurta leaves the Ekur temple in Nippur and travels to the Abzu in Eridu, led by an unnamed guide. In Eridu, Ninurta sits in assembly with the gods An and Enki and Enki gives him the me for life. The poem ends with Ninurta returning to Nippur. The account probably deals with a journey in which Ninurta's cult statue was transported from one city to another and the "guide" is the person carrying the cult statue. The story closely resembles the other Sumerian myth of Inanna and Enki, in which the goddess Inanna journeys to Eridu and receives the mes from Enki. In a poem known as the "Sumerian Georgica", written sometime between 1700 and 1500 BC, Ninurta delivers detailed advice on agricultural matters, including how to plant, tend, and harvest crops, how to prepare fields for planting, and even how to drive birds away from the crops. The poem covers nearly every aspect of farm life throughout the course of the year.

The myth of the Slain Heroes is alluded to in many texts, but is never preserved in full. In this myth, Ninurta must fight a variety of opponents. Black and Green describe these opponents as "bizarre minor deities"; they include the six-headed Wild Ram, the Palm Tree King, the seven-headed serpent and the Kulianna the Mermaid (or "fish-woman"). Some of these foes are inanimate objects, such as the Magillum Boat, which carries the souls of the dead to the Underworld, and the strong copper, which represents a metal that was conceived as precious. This story of successive trials and victories may have been the source for the Greek legend of the Twelve Labors of Heracles.

In antiquity

In the late seventh century BC, Kalhu was captured by foreign invaders. Despite this, Ninurta was never completely forgotten. Many scholars agree that Ninurta was probably the inspiration for the biblical figure Nimrod, mentioned in as a "mighty hunter". Though it is still not entirely clear how the name Ninurta became Nimrod in Hebrew, the two figures bear mostly the same functions and attributes and Ninurta is currently regarded as the most plausible etymology for Nimrod's name. Eventually, the ruins of the city of Kalhu itself became known in Arabic as Namrūd because of its association with Ninurta.

Later in the Old Testament, in both and, King Sennacherib of Assyria is reported to have been murdered by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer in the temple of "Nisroch", which is most likely a scribal error for "Nimrod". This hypothetical error would result from the Hebrew letter מ (mem) being replacing with ס (samekh) and the letter ד (dalet) being replaced with ך (kaf). Due to the obvious visual similarities of the letters involved and the fact that no Assyrian deity by the name of "Nisroch" has ever been attested, most scholars consider this error to be the most likely explanation for the name. If "Nisroch" is Ninurta, this would make Ninurta's temple at Kalhu the most likely location of Sennacherib's murder. Other scholars have attempted to identify Nisroch as Nusku, the Assyrian god of fire. Hans Wildberger rejects all suggested identifications as linguistically implausible.

Although the Book of Genesis itself portrays Nimrod positively as the first king after the Flood of Noah and a builder of cities, the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible refers to him as a giant and mistranslates the Hebrew words meaning "before Yahweh" as "in opposition against God." Because of this, Nimrod became envisioned as the archetypal idolator. Early works of Jewish midrash, described by the first-century AD philosopher Philo in his Quaestiones, portrayed Nimrod as the instigator of the building of the Tower of Babel, who persecuted the Jewish patriarch Abraham for refusing to participate in the project. Saint Augustine of Hippo refers to Nimrod in his book The City of God as "a deceiver, oppressor and destroyer of earth-born creatures."

In modernity

In the sixteenth century, Nisroch became seen as a demon. The Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer listed Nisroch in his Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577) as the "chief cook" of Hell. Nisroch appears in Book VI of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (first published in 1667) as one of Satan's demons. Nisroch, who is described as frowning and wearing beaten armor, calls into question Satan's argument that the fight between the angels and demons is equal, objecting that they, as demons, can feel pain, which will break their morale. According to Milton scholar Roy Flannagan, Milton may have chosen to portray Nisroch as timid because he had consulted the Hebrew dictionary of C. Stephanus, which defined the name "Nisroch" as "Flight" or "Delicate Temptation".

In the 1840s, the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard uncovered numerous stone carvings of winged, eagle-headed genii at Kalhu. Remembering the Biblical story of Sennacherib's murder, Layard mistakenly identified these figures as "Nisrochs". Such carvings continued to be known as "Nisrochs" in popular literature throughout the remaining portion of the nineteenth century. In Edith Nesbit's classic 1906 children's novel The Story of the Amulet, the child protagonists summon an eagle-headed "Nisroch" to guide them. Nisroch opens a portal and advises them, "Walk forward without fear" and asks, "Is there aught else that the Servant of the great Name can do for those who speak that name?" Some modern works on art history still repeat the old misidentification, but Near Eastern scholars now generally refer to the "Nisroch" figure as a "griffin-demon".

In 2016, during its brief conquest of the region, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) demolished Ashurnasirpal II's ziggurat of Ninurta at Kalhu. This act was in line with ISIL's longstanding policy of destroying any ancient ruins which it deemed incompatible with its militant interpretation of Islam. According to a statement from the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR)'s Cultural Heritage Initiatives, ISIL may have destroyed the temple to use its destruction for future propaganda and to demoralize the local population.

In March 2020, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 5,000-year-old cultic area filled with more than 300 broken ceremonial ceramic cups, bowls, jars, animal bones and ritual processions dedicated to Ningirsu at the site of Girsu. One of the remains was a duck-shaped bronze figurine with eyes made from bark which is thought to be dedicated to Nanshe.

In February 2023, the E-ninnu temple (Temple of the White Thunderbird), the primary sanctuary of Ningirsu was identified during the excavations led by British Museum and Getty Museum archaeologists at the site of Girsu.

title: Ninurta