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Robbie McKerr

Professor Tinsley

Race and Ethnicity in American History

5-5-09

The Integration of beyond

April 9th 1947, this was a monumental day in American baseball and society as a whole.

This was the day that controversial owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, , signed now legendary baseball star Jackie Robinson to play baseball in the all-white major leagues1. What

many fail to recognize is that although this day was the first step in the integration of Major

League Baseball (MLB), many other men helped tear down the color barrier that kept blacks out

of the game of organized baseball.

There is a nearly endless list of men who helped play a role in the integration of the MLB

and the farm system, especially in the Jim Crow south. Although these men deserve to be

recognized, a focus should be dedicated to the men who helped the integration of the game by

advocating the involvement of blacks in baseball along with the men who faced the racial

injustices firsthand by playing the game. There are three different aspects of the MLB that

deserve recognition as pioneers in diversifying baseball. These groups include owners of MLB

teams, the of the MLB, along with other players that played in the first season of

integrated baseball. Two innovative owners in the late 1940’s that believed integration would

benefit baseball were Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers and of the

1 Effrat, Louis “Dodgers Purchase Robinson, First Negro in Modern .” New York Times [New York] 10 Apr 1947.

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Indians. While the owners played a pivotal role, the commissioner of the MLB had to initially allow blacks in the game, which is why the transition of Judge to

A.B. “Happy” Chandler as commissioner in 1944 played an integral part in the transition to integrated baseball. The last group, and possibly the most important of the three, is the players that followed Jackie Robinson into the MLB. The player that deserves a great deal of recognition for his success through the struggles of integrating is of the , beginning in 1947.

The was first installed in 1921 in order to clean up baseball after the of 1919. The first commissioner was Judge Kenesaw Mountain

Landis, a former federal judge in with a reputation as an autocrat because of a series of controversial rulings that were overturned in higher courts2. In 1921 he stepped down from his judge position and accepted the role of commissioner, which gave him total power over the

MLB. Once he took this position, he immediately began reshaping the game into a legitimate sport instead of a corrupt one. By the 1940’s he had done many great things for the game of baseball, but there was one issue that he was an ardent opponent of; the integrating of blacks into

MLB.

The Daily Worker was a Communist newspaper with a fairly high circulation in the

1940’s, and the main issue the sports section dealt with was the lack of support from the commissioner to integrate the game of baseball. Judge Landis was criticized in the spring of

1942 by sportswriter Lester Rodney of the Daily Worker as the sole reason for the color line in

2 Fetter, Henry D. "From Stooge to : Judge Landis, the Daily Worker and the Integration of Baseball." American Communist History Vol. 6 No. 1 2007. Herman B Wells Library, Bloomington. Pg. 38

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baseball3. Judge Landis went on to dispel many attempts by Negro League stars and MLB owners to host tryouts for the baseball players. Judge Landis never came out and said he was against the integration of baseball; however Rodney quoted on the actions that Landis performed:

“Judge Landis, you like to cultivate the impression that you are fair and just, but YOUR ACTIONS DISPROVE THAT. You claim that you are a friend of the Negro people, BUT YOUR ACTIONS DISPROVE THAT.”4 Judge Landis died suddenly in 1944, thus passing his reigns over to a new commissioner with differing views than Landis on the issue of blacks in baseball.

The new commissioner was Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler. He believed that blacks deserved a fair shot at making it in baseball and was even quoted as saying “If a black boy can make it in Okinawa and Guadalcanal, hell he can make it in baseball.” The first step that

Chandler took was to allow the scouting and tryouts of colored players on major league teams.

The first of these tryouts came in Sam Jethro, Marvin Williams, and Jackie Robinson tryout with the Red Sox, but the Red Sox showed no interest in signing any of the Negro League stars5.

Happy Chandler also allowed Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to do a mass amount of scouting in the Negro Leagues, something Landis would not have allowed in previous

3 Fetter, Henry D. "From Stooge to Czar: Judge Landis, the Daily Worker and the Integration of Baseball." American Communist History Vol. 6 No. 1 2007. Pg. 37.

4 Fetter, Henry D. “From Stooge to Czar: Judge Landis the Daily Worker and the Integration of Baseball”. Pg. 51. 5 Rader, Benjamin. Baseball: A History of America’s Game. Urbana IL: University of Illinois P, 2002. Pg. 165

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seasons. This innovation for Rickey led to a new generation where owners could tap into new

talent that was commonly referred to as “black gold” by Rickey6.

Branch Rickey was a unique man with an extraordinary amount of quarks in his

character. He was known as “The Mahatma” after Mahatma Gandhi because of his frequent

moral lectures7. Joe Williams of the New York World Telegram put it beautifully when he claimed:

“Not since the days of William Jennings Bryant and Billy Sunday has a man fallen so in love with the sound of his own voice as Branch Rickey”8 Although Rickey had all these odd quarks, he was very adamant about bringing Negro stars into

the MLB. It is well documented that he signed Jackie Robinson for the 1946 season to the Triple-

A affiliate of the Dodgers in Montreal, however it is not as well documented that he continually

signed Negro stars such as and Don Newcombe over the next two seasons.

Rickey was very meticulous about how he brought new Negroes into the major leagues. He

would have them groomed in the minors for a year or two before bringing them into the big

leagues; to make sure they could take the heat of discrimination prior to putting them on the

biggest stage. The main motivation Rickey had was to win, and by signing the best talent

available in the Negro leagues his teams did just that. The Dodgers won the 1947 pennant and

continually had success over the next 10 seasons due to the MVP seasons by both Robinson and

Campanella (who is arguably the best catcher ever to play the game). The other man to integrate

6 Rossi, John P. The National Game: Baseball and American Culture. Chicago: Ivan R Dee, 2000. Pg. 154

7 Rossi, John P. The National Game: Baseball and American Culture. Chicago: Ivan R Dee, 2000. Pg. 154

8 Baseball: The National Pastime 1940-1950. Dir. Ken Burns. Prod. Lynn Novick. DVD. Warner Bros, 1994. Manchester College Library

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his team in the 1947 season was Bill Veeck of the Cleveland Indians (who had intentions to integrate the Phillies in 1942 but was rejected by Judge Landis).

Veeck was a very rich man that was also dedicated to making his team the best they could possibly be by spending as much money as it took to succeed. He was unafraid of breaking the color barrier in the (AL) because he knew it would bring great amounts of profit to his ball club. He went out and signed a young Negro League star named Larry Doby, the second Negro man in the MLB. He also made strides to fix pitching problems in the 1948 season by signing legendary Negro League pitcher Satchell Paige. Not only did the hiring of these two black men attract large crowds to Cleveland’s games, it also helped them win. The 1948 season was a huge success for Veeck and his Indians, winning the pennant and the . For how meticulous Rickey was at grooming his players and bringing them to the big league club,

Veeck had the opposite approach. He signed Doby on July 5th at a press conference, and that afternoon Doby was in uniform for his first game against Chicago White Sox9. Veeck did not understand grooming of players in the minors whom had already been groomed in the Negro

Leagues; his philosophy was stated in Jules Tygiel’s work “ Great Experiment”:

“I’m not going to sign a Negro player and send him to a farm club. I am going to get one I think can play in Cleveland. One afternoon when the team trots out on the field, a Negro player will be out there with them.”10

9 Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. Pg. 214

10 Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 1983.Pg. 214

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With this philosophy, Doby was made the second black man in organized white baseball, and suddenly he had become a symbol of his race, something the young Doby was not ready for or accustomed too.

Possibly the most underappreciated man in the integration of baseball is Larry Doby. He lived in the shadow of Jackie Robinson, yet went through many of the same torments that plagued Robinsons early years of pioneering. Doby had a different personality than that of

Robinson, instead of acting quiet and well mannered as Robinson was told to do by Branch

Rickey, Doby was naturally a shy man. He did was he was told and was a hard worker, but dreaded the media and heckling from opposing teams. According to Cleveland sports writer and black rights activist ‘Doc” Young:

“Robinson dressed himself in a cloak of humility and made it a perfect fit through one of the greatest acting jobs in baseball history; Doby wore the cloak as a gift of nature”11 It did not help that Doby’s first season was accompanied by failures and loneliness. Doby was the lone black on the Indians team and he felt a lot of criticism and racial bigotry towards him.

Veeck attested to receiving over 20,000 letters from violent and obscene fans claiming to be furious about the acquisition of Doby12. Players throughout the American League were not happy, according to one anonymous player, the influx of Negroes in the

Major Leagues.

11 Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. Pg. 214

12 Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. Pg. 215

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The players throughout the league believed that Doby had to be tested just like any other

MLB player had to do. The same New York Yankees player that was upset about the “influx” of

Negroes into the game stated:

“The influx of Negroes discriminate[s] against the white player because he is white. I fought my way through the minors for five years. I rode buses all night… so I could get a chance in the majors… and Doby gets a job without any previous schooling in white baseball”13 These players felt this way largely because of Doby’s poor performance throughout the 1947 season. Doby hit a miserable .156 with only 5 hits on the season. He was benched by the Indians mainly because he was under such horrible odds to succeed. Not only did Doby have troubles with his hitting in the 1947 season, but his fielding was in question the entire season as well. In the Negro Leagues Doby played shortstop and second base, however he was not a very polished infielder and he had very small hands, which made it difficult to turn double plays in MLB. The Indians attempted to switch him to the outfield, a position in which he never played. Due to this inconsistency of where he was going to play in the field he struggled mightily, never truly polishing his skills in the infield and never really grasping how to play the outfield due to lack of experience. “Doc” Young believed that the struggles Doby faced were due to this being the first time he was recognized as a symbol for his people, and at the same time, the first time he realized just how bad racism was throughout the :

“Doby for the first time was a symbol, for the first time he had been made aware of being different by the initial coolness of the Indians dressing room, by the teeming sportswriters who sought to grill him, and by the markedly accentuated cheering of Negro fans.”14

13 Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. Pg.216 14 Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. Pg.218 McKerr 8

After this disappointing season, Doby was considered by many a huge let down for the progress of integration. Many of his critics had written him off and assumed he would play the next season in one of the farm teams for Cleveland. The critics were flawed in their thinking though; they drastically underestimated the determination of the young Doby to make it in MLB.

When started for the Cleveland Indians in 1948, Larry Doby was one of eight men in contention for a starting outfield position with the Indians. Doby came with a new attitude, a little more relaxed and anxious to learn15. Doby began the 1948 season as the starting right fielder for the Indians and according to Cleveland sportswriter Gordon Cobbledick Doby was “murdering practically everything tossed his way.”16 In this season the Veeck signed a fellow Negro League star, pitcher Satchell Paige, to help the team make the playoffs as well as take some of the pressure off of Doby. Doby continued his pounding of the baseball throughout the season and ended with a remarkably better .301 average with 14 home runs and 65 RBI’s in the 1948 season. With his guidance, the Indians ended up winning the pennant and World Series in 1948.

There were numerous men who contributed to the integration of baseball throughout the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Branch Rickey, Bill Veeck, Larry Doby, and A.B. “Happy”

Chandler were only a few on the long list that helped the game evolve. The discussion could be extended to men such as , Satchell Paige, Wendell Smith, along with numerous others that contributed to the cause. The fact that integration began in 1947 began a societal change along with it. The United States saw the struggle of the baseball world as a “great

15 Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. Pg.235 16 Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. Pg.237 McKerr 9

experiment” that would show how not just baseball would react, but how the entire population would react to the end of Jim Crow in the United States.

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Bibliography

Baseball: The National Pastime 1940-1950. Dir. Ken Burns. Prod. Lynn Novick. DVD. Warner Bros, 1994. Manchester College Library Effrat, Louis “Dodgers Purchase Robinson, First Negro in Modern Major League Baseball.” New York Times [New York] 10 Apr 1947. www.digitalhistory.uh.edu Fetter, Henry D. "From Stooge to Czar: Judge Landis, the Daily Worker and the Integration of Baseball." American Communist History Vol. 6 No. 1 2007. Herman B Wells Library, Bloomington.

Rader, Benjamin. Baseball: A History of America’s Game. Urbana IL: University of Illinois P, 2002. Rossi, John P. The National Game: Baseball and American Culture. Chicago: Ivan R Dee, 2000. Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy. New York: Oxford UP, 1983.