SBR Extra Chapter 1
~How the Steel Ball Run Race Got Started~ (~スティール・ボール・ラン レース開催のいきさつ~, ~Sutīru Bōru Ran Rēsu Kaisai no Ikisatsu~) is the first extra chapter of Steel Ball Run.
Summary
This flashback narrates the past of Steven Steel.
Born in 1840 as the 4th child of a family of Irish immigrants, Steven Steel fell in love at 15 with the daughter of a florist. When the girl died from a carriage accident, Steven enlisted in the cavalry to flee his sadness, yet spent the war sick from typhoid fever. Steven would in the later years do a number of odd jobs and live highs and lows:
- 1858: Steven works in a circus disguised as a Chinese, his specialty being swallowing goldfishes and make them come out of his nose. The attraction is a great success.
- 1859: Steven becomes the star of his circus.
- 1860: Steven goes on a tour in America.
- 1861: Steven invents and promotes new shows in the circus, among others "Midget Women Wrestling", "The Bug-Eyed Man", and "Pigs On a Tightrope". All are great hits.
- 1863: Steven is thrown out of the circus for acting self-important.
- 1865: Steven becomes a heavyweight boxer.
- 1866: Steven becomes a debt collector.
- 1867: Steven refuses to throw a rigged fight and a gang knee-caps him.
- 1868: Steven disappears, rumored to have fled the country as a sailor.
- 1881: Steven is seen in San Francisco, informing the E&W Newspapers that he's going to Costa Rica look for dinosaurs, the story is a hit.
- 1883: Steven becomes promoter from several stories such as "Capturing the Yeti in the Rocky Mountains", "Looking for the 3-legged Cavefish", "In search for the 20-meters long penguin", "The Newlyweds in a Haunted Mausion: a Documentary". All of these stories become great successes.
- 1884: Rich, Steven buys a mansion in San Jose with 4 servants and indulges himself in many hobbies. His appliance to a university is rejected.
When a scandal exploded about a promoter passing a shaved monkey as an alien, Steven's credibility went down the drain despite having nothing to do with it. He became heavily indebted and it is as a drunk bum that he met Lucy Pendleton, then a young child. Interested in his bumblings about his former glory, Lucy suggested that he organizes a great horse race across America. Finding the idea ridiculous, Steven went to a bar drinking again. However, soon, many important representatives approached him, interested in the idea and offered to sponsor the race. Two years later, as the race was still being organized, Steven remembered Lucy and went looking for her to thank her. At Lucy's doorstep, Steven found out that Lucy looked exactly like his first love, and sobbingly asked her hand in marriage.
Appearances
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