6.
“Four teams!” Reuben couldn’t help shouting. No one had told him this in college.
Berkman spoke softly. “That’s right, four. You know about the blues and greens, of course, but there were also the reds and whites, who didn’t participate in the riots.” He paused to let the information sink in.
“When the reds and whites are mentioned at all, people say they were minor teams that folded into the dominant blues and greens. But thanks to the work of reference librarians, we now know differently. It was Teodora’s greatest stroke. She took the Reds, removed them from the races, and put them in the front office. Their sole purpose became the manipulation of the sport through the business side—ticket prices, the price of a cup of wine and a gyro at the stadium, setting team budgets—they were her puppets, and by controlling the business side of the races, she and the Reds controlled Byzantium.”
Reuben was stunned. It all made sense, but something still nagged at the back of his mind. “But wait, what happened to the Whites?”
“Justinian wouldn’t build the owner a new stadium, so he moved the team to Alexandria.”
Reuben was still troubled. “I’m still troubled,” he said. “This is all ancient history. What’s it got to do with Purpura and Garner?”
“Aren’t you listening?” Berkman was angry. “What do you think this is, a long shaggy dog story that’s going to end in a stupid joke? You should be so lucky."
Admonished, Reuben sat quietly, waiting for Berkman to explain.
“It’s part of the history. Teodora kept the Red’s secret from Justinian. Justinian was a fan of the racing, and she was afraid his heart would overrule his head. She died before him, but when she died she passed control of the Reds to her niece, Sophia. Sophia used her power to force a marriage to Justinian’s successor, Justin II. Sophia meant to fold the Reds into the government—but when Justin went mad, his successor Tiberius was outside her family. She held onto the reigns of the Reds to hold power. She later passed power to the Emperor Maurice’s wife. When Maurice was murdered, the Reds were forever separated from the government.
“The closest they came to folding the Reds into the government and taking their control out of the hands of a woman was in 1045, when Constantine IX founded the first law school. At his wife the empress’s urging, sports management was part of the course of study. Do you know they offer sports management at Rice today? The courses are the most difficult at the University, more difficult than Physics 301, and its students are secretly recruited from the brightest of the brightest.
“The Reds didn’t stay in Byzantium, though. After the first Crusade, they became closely allied with both the Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers. The Hospitallers were ultimately incorporated into the Reds, and are known today for the Shriners Hospitals. When Constantinople was sacked in 1204, Theodore Komnene, the mother of the Emperor Alexis, tricked the Gallic invaders with the help of the Templars into allowing the Reds to arrange tournaments. After awhile the French couldn’t get along without them, and the Reds made inroads into France and ultimately Germany and England.
“By the time Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, the chariot races were over, but now the Reds, under their female leadership, were spread throughout Western Europe, and they used the Ottoman Empire to spread through tne Near East and North Africa. There are even historians who think that the Reds allowed Constantinople to fall, to reinvigorate the East. By the 1700s, the Reds were running camel races on the sands of Arabia, polo matches in India, and they were lining their coffers selling red coats for fox-hunting in England. They had invented cricket. Haven’t you ever wondered about the Byzantine rules of cricket?
“But their biggest success, the success that has ultimately overshadowed all others, was across the Atlantic. In 1863 the Reds started the first professional baseball team in Cincinatti.”
