BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Lawrence Eugene "Larry" Doby December 13, 1923 – June 18, 2003 was an American professional baseball player in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball (MLB). 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 became the Newark Eagles' second basemen. 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 1947 at the age of 23, Doby joined Jackie Robinson in breaking the MLB color barrier as he became the first black player to integrate theAmerican League (AL) 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 consecutive All-Star center fielder, Doby and teammate Satchel Paige were the first African-American players to win a World Series championship when the Indians won in 1948. He was also the first black player to hit a home run in the World Series and All-Star Game. He helped the Indians win a franchise-record 111 wins and AL pennant in 1954 and finished second in the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) award voting as he was the season's RBI leader and home run champion for the second time in three seasons. In 1978 he became the second African-American manager in the majors when he joined the Chicago White Sox.
Doby later served as a director with the New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and in 1995 was appointed to a position in the AL's executive office. 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.
Lawrence Eugene Doby was born December 13, 1923, in Camden, South Carolina to parents David and Etta. Doby's father served inWorld War I and worked as a horse groomer and played semi-pro baseball but died at the age of 37 from a drowning accident in New Yorkstate when the younger Doby was eight years old. Doby's mother, who had already been divorced from David, moved to Paterson, New Jersey while Doby remained in Camden. He first lived with his grandmother but eventually moved in with his father's sister and brother-in-law, where he lived from 1934 to 1938. Doby attended Jackson School, which was segregated under South Carolina state law. The first opportunity the school boy had to play organized baseball was while a student at Browning Home-Mather Academy, a private school affiliated with the Methodist church. Richard Dubose, known in local African-American circles for his baseball expertise and who had also managed Doby's father, gave Doby some of his first baseball lessons. Reflecting on his years growing up in South Carolina, including how he and play mates would use 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 Doby had completed eighth grade, he moved north to Paterson at the age of 14 to be reunited with his mother, although he would be living full-time with a friend of his mother's and visit his mother once per week. Doby lettered in track and was an all-state athlete in baseball, football as a wide receiver and basketball while at Paterson Eastside High School. Eastside won a state championship in football and the team was subsequently invited to participate in a game in Florida. After the promoters of the game informed the team Doby, the only black player on the team, would not be allowed to participate, the team voted in support of Doby to forgo the trip.
During summer vacation Doby played baseball with a black semi-pro team, the Smart Sets. Doby played with shortstop teammate, Monte Irvin. He also enjoyed a brief stint with the professional basketball team, the Harlem Renaissance, as a non-paid substitute player. Upon completion of high school, he was offered an athletic scholarship to play basketball from head coach Clair Bee and so enrolled at Long Island University Doby had since his sophomore year been dating Eastside classmate Helyn Curvy and according to Doby, being able to remain close to Paterson was the "main reason" he selected
In the summer before he enrolled at LIU, Doby accepted an offer to play for the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League for the remainder of the 1942 season. He later transferred to Virginia Union University.In order to keep his eligibility at LIU, he played under the name Larry Walker with the Newark Eagles. (Sports Illustrated, 1981)
Negro leagues (1942–43, 1946–1947) and WWII
Doby tried out for the Eagles at Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson. A Negro league umpire, Henry Moore, advised Eagles' owners Abe and Effa Manley to give Doby a tryout. Doby joined the Eagles in 1942 at the age of 17 for $300.[1]:p.20 The contract stated Doby would play until September when he would start classes at LIU. 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. Of the games Doby played in, 26 box scores have been found and concluded his 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 Schoolnear Chicago. He appeared on an all-black baseball squad and maintained a .342 batting average against squads 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 would spend time at Navy sites in Ogden, Utah and San Diego, California. For one year 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. Doby saw real hope in being a professional baseball player instead of his aspirations to be a teacher and coach. While in Hawaii, Doby would meet 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 owne Clark Griffith, encouraging Griffith to sign Doby should the MLB ever allow integration. Doby was discharged from the Navy in January 1946. Later that year in the summer, Doby and Helyn Curvy were married.
After playing for the San Juan Senators in Puerto Rico, Doby then rejoined the Eagles in 1946. He made the All-Star roster and batted .360 (fourth in the NNL), hit five home runs (fifth) and led the NNL in triples (6). 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 the MLB, 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."
Major League Baseball career
Integration of American League (1947)
Cleveland Indians owner and team president Bill Veeck had since the winter of 1941 considered integrating baseball. In 1942 his proposal to do so was rejected by Commissioner of BaseballKenesaw Mountain Landis.[1]:p.19 In 1947, Veeck gave a speech in an Ohio town and afterward was asked a question regarding Jackie Robinson's chances of making it as a major leaguer, to which Veeck responded he did not believe Robinson would fare well. When Veeck returned to Cleveland, he was asked by reporter Cleveland Jackson with the Call and Post when the Indians would have a black player on its roster. Veeck had already undertaken efforts in hopes of locating a young, talented player from the Negro leagues. Veeck told Jackson he would integrate the Indians' roster if he could find a black player with the necessary talent level, to which Jackson mentioned Doby. Veeck also desired someone who could withstand the taunts and pressure of being the first black athlete in the AL. Veeck was aware of Doby when Doby played at the Great Lakes Naval Training School and later promised to a Navy friend of Doby's, Arthur Grant, he would scout Doby. Doby's name was 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 was not cause for concern with off-the-field behavior concerns and did not frequent bars. The Dodgers also rated Doby as their top young Negro league prospect.But unlike the Dodgers' Branch Rickey, who signed Robinson one full season before bringing him to the National League, or as Jackson of the Call and Post wrote, "planned Robinson's entrance as carefully as a man would plan building a house matchsticks," Veeck used a different strategy. By letting Doby remain with the Eagles, rather than bringing him through the Indians' farm system or joining the team during spring training, Veeck hoped a quick arrival to Cleveland would keep the pressure Doby would feel to a minimum. He told the Pittsburgh Courier, "One afternoon when the team trots out on the field, a Negro player will be out there with it."
Unlike the Brooklyn Dodgers' Branch Rickey who in 1945 declined to pay for the purchasing rights of Robinson with the Kansas City Monarchs, and other owners and general managers in later seasons who felt Negro leagues' owners did not have to be compensated for luring away their talent, Veeck was "determined to buy Doby's contract from the Eagles." 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 her second basemen. 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." Word of Doby being signed by the Indians was not released to the press, as Veeck wanted to also heavily manage how fans in Cleveland would be introduced to Doby. "I moved slowly and carefully, perhaps even timidly," Veeck said. While the public may have been kept from knowing Veeck's plan for Doby, it was only two days from the time he had signed Doby before he would appear in an Indians uniform. 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.
Doby was signed to the Indians on July 5, 1947. The Indians were at Chicago in the midst of a road trip. Veeck hired two plainclothes police officers to accompany Doby as he went toComiskey Park to prevent the large number of black fans from affecting the first black player to enter an American League stadium. Player-manager Lou Boudreau initially had a hard time finding a place in the lineup for Doby. Doby had played second base and shortstop for most of his career. Boudreau himself was the regular shortstop, while Joe Gordon was the second baseman.
Eventually, Boudreau listed Doby as a starter in the Indians' match-up with the White Sox and accompanied Doby as he met his new teammates for the very 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 with his one-day teammates. Gordon befriended Doby and would become one of Doby's closest friends on the team. Doby entered the game in the seventh inning as a pinch-hitter for Bryan Stephens and recorded a strikeout. It was rumored Gordon struck out on three swings in his immediate at-bat after Doby to save face for his new teammate, but Doby's second strike was the result of a foul ball, both the Associated Press andChicago 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, which 31,566 were in attendance for, some 30 percent which was estimated to be black patrons. Some congregations of black churches let out early while others walked immediately from Sunday service to Comiskey Park.[1]:p.53 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 glove for first base and met much resistance when attempts were made to borrow one from teammates, including first baseman Eddie Robinson, for whom Boudreau had asked Doby to replace that day.[5]:p.32 Doby said only because Gordon asked in the clubhouse to borrow one of the first baseman's glove did he have one to use in the second game of the doubleheader as earlier direct requests from Doby were rejected. The glove was loaned by a White Sox player. Boudreau recounts an incident where Robinson refused the glove to Doby, but when asked by Indians traveling secretary Spud Goldstein, Robinson obliged. It would be the only game Doby would start for the remainder of the season. Doby finished the game 1-for-4, recording his first major league hit and 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."
Doby endured unfriendly teammates and fans and was criticized from players both active and retired. Said noted former player Rogers Hornsby
, 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 5-for-32 in 29 games. He played at second base in four games and one each at first base and shortstop. Throughout the season he talked with 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." Doby roomed alone his rookie year, and in some cities, namely Chicago and St. Louis, was not allowed to stay in the same hotels as his white teammates. After his rookie season, Doby again pursued time on the basketball court and appeared with the Paterson Crescents of the American Basketball Leagueafter signing a contract in January 1948. He was the first black player to join the league.
No comments:
Post a Comment