Jackie Robinson Moments
By
Harvey Frommer
Jack
Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia. He remains
for me and so many others one of the most important figures in sports and
American history.
My
newest book billed a Harvey Frommer Baseball Classic was just published. http://www.lyonspress.com/book/9781630761578
While
there were a few black players in the 1880s and a few others with
African-American blood were described by their teams as "Cuban,"
"Mexican" or "Indian" in the first part of the 20th
century, it was Jackie Robinson who shattered the color barrier post-World War
II.
The
struggle to break the color line in the Major Leagues included many sorry
stories like this one from July 27, 1943. Wire services announced that three
Negro National League players would be given tryouts with the Pittsburgh
Pirates. But, the three Roy Campanella, Sam Hughes of the Baltimore Elite
Giants and Dave Barnhill of the New York Cubans -- never received their
tryouts.
Farcical Tryouts at Fenway Park
Each season, the Boston Red Sox had routinely
received a waiver from the Boston City Council permitting them to play Sunday
baseball. Now Councilman Isadore Muchnick, who represented the Mattapan section
of Boston, teamed with African-American journalist Wendell Smith. They had an offer for Tom Yawkey that they
knew he could not refuse. A trade, of sorts.
For the BoSox to keep the long-held waiver in
place, the team would have to allow three black baseball prospects to try out
at Fenway Park. Yawkey, as the story was reported later, reluctantly agreed to
the tryouts of Jackie Robinson, Marvin Williams and Sam Jethroe. His one
condition was that all decisions about them would be the province of his
baseball people.
Black
ballplayers from the Negro Leagues from time to time had played at Fenway when
the Red Sox were on the road. The color barrier was firmly in effect at this
time, but owners thought nothing of picking up spare change through this
business arrangement. Now they would have chance to break the big club’s color
line at Fenway Park, or so was the understanding.
April 16, 1945 began damp and
drizzly. At about 10:00 A.M. Muchnick and Smith were in the stands, They
watched as the tryout got underway. Just
back from army service in World War II, Jackie Robinson was set to play with
the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues that season. Marvin Williams was a member of the
Philadelphia Stars. Sam Jethroe was an outfielder for the Cleveland
Buckeyes.
Red Sox Manager Joe Cronin sat in the
stands, according to one account, “stone-faced.'' Eddie Collins, the general
manager, reportedly was unable to attend the tryout “because of a previous
engagement.”
Near
the end of the one-hour workout, according to Clifford Keane, reporter for the Boston Globe, someone called out, “Get
those niggers off the field!”
Boston Red Sox immortal and Coach
Hugh Duffy, 78, was one of those who conducted the workouts. Later that year he
would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. “You boys look like pretty good players,” he
was quoted as saying. “I hope you enjoyed the workout.” Later he remarked: “After one workout, it was
not possible to judge their ability."
When the tryout was over, Robinson
said: “It was April, 1945. Nobody was
serious about black players in the majors, except maybe for a few politicians.”
According to United Press
International, Jethroe and Williams “seemed tense and both their hitting and
fielding suffered.” According to the Red Sox front office, the players were not
ready for the majors and would not be comfortable playing for the team's
Triple-A affiliate in Louisville, Kentucky.
According to Sam Jethroe, the entire
experience was “a sham.” The Red Sox
front office would never contact the players.
There was a need for players with the
abilities of Jethroe, Robinson and Williams. As the 1945 baseball season began
and the war still raged, Major League rosters were stocked with not quite ready
for prime time players, a few underage ones and quite a few who were long in
the tooth. But the game went on at Fenway Park in 1945 and other big league
venues, as it had always gone on, only with white players.
By April of 1947, there were
sixteen blacks in organized baseball, half of them in the Dodger organization.
Branch Rickey had signed Dan Bankhead who would pitch ten innings late in the
season. John Wright, Roy Parlow, Don Newcombe, and Roy Campanella were in the
minor leagues Hank Thompson and Willard J. Brown would join the St. Louis
Browns in July.
The Cleveland Indians had signed
Larry Doby in 1947, and he would play in twenty-nine games for them.
But Jackie Robinson was the main man,
the first of the black stars who would change forever the way things were in
Major League Baseball. He was history's wall-breaker, history’s messenger.
The Pee Wee Reese Moment
As the story goes, during Robinson’s rookie season his
southern-born teammate Pee Wee Reese stood up for him at a game in Cincinnati
after hearing racial slurs. The little shortstop allegedly put his arm around
Robinson and said, “You can hate a man for many reasons. Color is not one of
them,”
There
is a statue of Reese and Robinson outside the playing field of the Brooklyn
Cyclones in Coney Island to commemorate that moment in time that probably never
took place. Rachel Robinson was opposed to that statue suggesting another
moment be found. Her opposition went unheeded. There is no mention in
newspapers, and according to Newsweek no
mention of it can be unearthed. Ken Burns, creator of the documentary on
Robinson, calls the moment “mythology.”
Dr. Harvey Frommer, a professor at Dartmouth College in the MALS program, is in his 4ist year of writing books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, he is the author of 43 sports books including the classics: best-selling “New York City Baseball, 1947-1957″ and best-selling Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,as well as his acclaimed Remembering Yankee Stadium and best-selling Remembering Fenway Park. His highly praised When It Was Just a Game: Remembering the First Super Bowl was published last fall.
A link to purchase autographed copies of Frommer Sports Books is at: http://frommerbooks.com/
