Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0001/00017.txt

Text File | 1994-01-04 | 34KB | 489 lines

$Unique_ID{BAS00017}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Jackie Robinson's Signing:  The Real, Untold Story}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Thorn, John
Tygiel, Jules}
$Subject{Jackie Robinson Signing Terrell Rickey black managers manager blacks
integration Negro League Tygiel Mann}
$Log{
Robinson, Jackie*0049301.scf}

Total Baseball:  The History


Jackie Robinson's Signing:  The Real, Untold Story

John Thorn and Jules Tygiel


     October 1945. As the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs faced off in the
World Series, photographer Maurice Terrell arrived at an almost deserted minor
league park in San Diego to carry out a top-secret assignment:  to
surreptitiously photograph three black baseball players.
     Terrell shot hundreds of motion-picture frames of Jackie Robinson and the
two other players. A few photos appeared in print but the existence of the
additional images remained unknown for four decades. In April 1987, as major
league baseball prepared a lavish commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of
Robinson's debut, John Thorn unearthed a body of contact sheets and
unprocessed film from a previously unopened carton donated in 1954 by Look
magazine to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. This
discovery triggered an investigation which led to startling revelations
regarding Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and his
signing of Jackie Robinson to shatter baseball's longstanding color line; the
relationship between these two historic figures; and the still controversial
issue of black managers in baseball.
     The popular "frontier" image of Jackie Robinson as a lone gunman facing
down a hostile mob has always dominated the story of the integration of
baseball. But new information related to the Terrell photos reveals that
while Robinson was the linchpin in Branch Rickey's strategy, in October 1945
Rickey intended to announce the signing of not just Jackie Robinson, but of
several other Negro League stars. Political pressure, however, forced
Rickey's hand, thrusting Robinson alone into the spotlight. And in 1950,
after only three years in the major leagues, Robinson pressed Rickey to
consider him for a position as field manager or front office executive,
raising an issue with which the baseball establishment still grapples.
     The story of these revelations began with the discovery of the Terrell's
photograph. The photos show a youthful, muscular Robinson in a battered cap
and baggy uniform fielding from his position at shortstop, batting with a
black catcher crouched behind him, trapping a third black player in a rundown
between third and home, and sprinting along the basepaths more like a former
track star than a baseball player. All three players wore uniforms emblazoned
with the name "Royals." A woman with her back to the action is the only
figure visible amid the vacant stands. The contact sheets are dated October
7, 1945.
     The photos were perplexing. The momentous announcement of Jackie
Robinson's signing with the Montreal Royals took place on October 23, 1945.
Before that date his recruitment had been a tightly guarded secret. Why,
then, had a Look photographer taken such an interest in Robinson two weeks
earlier?  Where had the pictures been taken?  And why was Robinson already
wearing a Royals uniform?
     Thorn called Jules Tygiel, the author of Baseball's Great Experiment:
Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, to see if he could shed some light on the
photos. Tygiel knew nothing about them, but he did have in his files a 1945
manuscript by newsman Arthur Mann, who frequently wrote for Look. The
article, drafted with Rickey's cooperation, had been intended to announce the
Robinson signing but had never been published. The pictures, they concluded,
had doubtless been shot to accompany Mann's article, and so they decided to
find out the story behind the photo session.
     The clandestine nature of the photo session did not surprise the
researchers. From the moment he had arrived in Brooklyn in 1942, determined
to end baseball's Jim Crow traditions, Rickey had feared that premature
disclosure of his intentions might doom his bold design. No blacks had
appeared in the major leagues since 1884 when two brothers, Welday and Moses
Fleetwood Walker, had played for Toledo in the American Association. Not
since the 1890s had black players appeared on a minor league team. During the
ensuing half century all-black teams and leagues featuring legendary figures
like pitcher Satchel Paige and catcher Josh Gibson had performed on the
periphery of Organized Baseball. Baseball executives, led by Commissioner
Kenesaw Mountain Landis, had strictly policed the color line, barring blacks
from both major and minor leagues. In 1943 when young Bill Veeck attempted to
buy the Philadelphia Phillies and stock the team with Negro League stars,
Landis had quietly but decisively blocked the move. Rickey therefore moved
slowly and secretly to explore the issue and cover up his attempts to scout
black players during his first three years in Brooklyn. He informed the
Dodger owners of his plans but took few others into his confidence.
     In the spring of 1945, as Rickey prepared to accelerate his scouting
efforts, advocates of integration, emboldened by the impending end of World
War II and the recent death of Commissioner Landis, escalated their campaign
to desegregate baseball. On April 6, 1945, black sportswriter Joe Bostic
appeared at the Dodgers' Bear Mountain training camp with Negro League stars
Terris McDuffie and Dave "Showboat" Thomas and forced Rickey to hold tryouts
for the two players. Ten days later black journalist Wendell Smith, white
sportswriter Dave Egan and Boston city councilman Isadore Muchnick engineered
an unsuccessful audition with the Red Sox for Robinson and two other black
athletes. In response to these events the major leagues announced the
formation of a Committee on Baseball Integration. (Reflecting Organized
Baseball's true intentions on the matter, the group never met.)
     In the face of this heightened activity, Rickey created an elaborate
smokescreen to obscure his scouting of black players. In May 1945 he
announced the formation of a new franchise, the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers, and a
new Negro League, the United States League. Rickey then dispatched his best
talent hunters to observe black ballplayers, ostensibly for the Brown Dodgers,
but in reality for the Brooklyn National League club.
     A handwritten memorandum in the Rickey Papers offers a rare glimpse of
Rickey's emphasis on secrecy in his instructions to Dodger scouts. The
document, signed by Chas. D. Clark and accompanied by a Negro National League
schedule for April-May 1945, is headlined "Job Analysis," and defines the
following "Duties:  under supervision of management of club":

  1. To establish contact (silent) with all clubs (local or general).
  2. To gain knowledge and abilities of all players.
  3. To report all possible material (players).
  4. Prepare weekly reports of activities.
  5. Keep composite report of outstanding players. . .
     To travel and cover player whenever management so desire.

     Clark's "Approch" [sic] was to "Visit game and loose [sic] self in
stands; Keep statistical report (speed, power, agility, ability, fielding,
batting, etc.) by score card;" and "Leave immediately after game."
     Clark's directions, however, contain one major breach in Rickey's
elaborate security precautions. According to his later accounts, Rickey had
told most Dodger scouts that they were evaluating talent for a new "Brown
Dodger" franchise. But Clark's first "Objective" was "To Cover Negro teams
for possible major league talent." Had Rickey confided in Clark, a figure so
obscure as to escape prior mention in the voluminous Robinson literature?
Dodger superscout and Rickey confidante Clyde Sukeforth has no recollection of
Clark, raising the possibility that Clark was not part of the Dodger family,
but perhaps someone connected with black baseball. Had Clark himself
interpreted his instructions in this manner?
     Whatever the answer, Rickey successfully diverted attention from his true
motives. Nonetheless, mounting interest in the integration issue threatened
Rickey's careful planning. In the summer of 1945 Rickey constructed yet
another facade. The Dodger President took Dan Dodson, a New York University
sociologist who chaired Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's Committee on Unity, into
his confidence and requested that Dodson form a Committee on Baseball
ostensibly to study the possibility of integration. In reality, the committee
would provide the illusion of action while Rickey quietly completed his own
preparations. "This was one of the toughest decisions I ever had to make
while in office," Dodson later confessed. "The major purpose I could see for
the committee was that it was a stall for time. . . . Yet had Mr. Rickey not
delivered . . . I would have been totally discredited."
     Thus by late August, even as Rickey's extensive scouting reports had led
him to focus on Jackie Robinson as his standard bearer, few people in or out
of the Dodger organization suspected that a breakthrough was imminent. On
August 28 Rickey and Robinson held their historic meeting at the Dodgers'
Montague Street offices in downtown Brooklyn. Robinson signed an agreement to
accept a contract with the Montreal Royals, the top Dodger affiliate, by
November 1. Rickey, still concerned with secrecy, impressed upon Robinson the
need to maintain silence. Robinson could tell the momentous news to his
family and fiancee, but no one else.
     For the conspiratorial Rickey, keeping the news sheltered while
continuing arrangements required further subterfuge. Rumors about Robinson's
visit had already spread through the world of black baseball. To stifle
speculation Rickey "leaked" an adulterated version of the incident to black
sportswriter Wendell Smith. Smith, who had recommended Robinson to Rickey and
advised Rickey on the integration project, doubtless knew the true story
behind the meeting. On September 8, however, he reported in the Pittsburgh
Courier that the "sensational shortstop" and "colorful major league dynamo"
had met behind "closed doors." "The nature of the conference has not been
revealed," Smith continued. Rickey claimed that he and Robinson had assessed
"the organization of Negro baseball," but Smith noted that "it does not seem
logical [Rickey] should call in a rookie player to discuss the future
organization of Negro baseball." He closed with the tantalizing thought that
"it appears that the Brooklyn boss has a plan on his mind that extends further
than just the future of Negro baseball as an organization." The subterfuge
succeeded. Neither black nor white reporters pursued the issue.
     Rickey, always sensitive to criticism by New York sports reporters and
understanding the historic significance of his actions, also wanted to be sure
that his version of the integration breakthrough and his role in it be
accurately portrayed. To guarantee this he persuaded Arthur Mann, his close
friend and later a Dodger employee, to write a 3,000 word manuscript to be
published simultaneously with the announcement of the signing.
     Although it was impossible to confirm this in 1987 (it has since been
confirmed by Maurice Terrell himself, who was eventually located) it seemed
highly likely that Terrell's photos, commissioned by Look, were destined to
accompany Mann's article. Clearer prints of the negatives revealed that
Terrell had taken the pictures in San Diego's Lane Stadium. This fit in with
Robinson's autumn itinerary. After his meeting with Rickey, Robinson had
returned briefly to the Kansas City Monarchs. With the Dodger offer securing
his future and the relentless bus trips of the Negro League schedule wearing
him down, he had left the Monarchs before season's end and returned home to
Pasadena, California. In late September he hooked up with Chet Brewer's
Kansas City Royals, a postseason barnstorming team which toured the Pacific
Coast, competing against other Negro League teams and major and minor league
all-star squads. Thus the word "Royals" on Robinson's uniform, which had so
piqued the interest of Thorn and Tygiel, ironically turned out not to relate
to Robinson's future team in Montreal, but rather to his interim employment in
California.
     For further information Tygiel contacted Chet Brewer, who at age eighty
still lived in Los Angeles. Brewer, one of the great pitchers of the Jim Crow
era, had known Robinson well. He had followed Robinson's spectacular athletic
career at UCLA and in 1945 they became teammates on the Monarchs. "Jackie was
major league all the way," recalled Brewer. "He had the fastest reflexes I
ever saw in a player."
     Robinson particularly relished facing major league all-star squads.
Against Bob Feller, Robinson once slashed two doubles. "Jack was running crazy
on the bases," a Royal teammate remembered. In one game he upended Gerry
Priddy, Washington Senator infielder. Priddy angrily complained about the
hard slide in an exhibition game. "Any time I put on a uniform," retorted
Robinson, "I play to win."
     Brewer recalled that Robinson and two other Royals journeyed from Los
Angeles to San Diego on a day when the team was not scheduled to play. He
identified the catcher in the photos as Buster Haywood and the other player as
Royals third baseman Herb Souell. Souell was no longer living, but Haywood,
who, like Brewer lived in Los Angeles, vaguely recalled the event, which he
incorrectly remembered as occurring in Pasadena. Robinson recruited the
catcher and Souell, his former Monarch teammate, to "work out" with him. All
three wore their Royal uniforms. Haywood found neither Robinson's request nor
the circumstances unusual. Although he was unaware that they were being
photographed, Haywood described the session accurately. "We didn't know what
was going on," he stated. "We'd hit and throw and run from third base to home
plate."
     The San Diego pictures provide a rare glimpse of the pre-Montreal
Robinson. The article which they were to accompany and related correspondence
in the Library of Congress offer even rarer insights into Rickey's thinking.
The unpublished Mann manuscript was entitled "The Negro and Baseball:  "The
National Game Faces a Racial Challenge Long Ignored." As Mann doubtless based
his account on conversations with Rickey and since Rickey's handwritten
comments appear in the margin, it stands as the earliest "official" account of
the Rickey-Robinson story and reveals many of the concerns confronting Rickey
in September 1945.
     One of the most striking features of the article is the language used to
refer to Robinson. Mann, reflecting the racism typical of postwar America,
portrays Robinson as the "first Negro chattel in the so-called National
pastime." At another point he writes, "Rickey felt the boy's sincerity,"
appropriate language perhaps for an 18-year-old prospect, but not for a
26-year-old former army officer.
     "The Negro and Baseball" consists largely of the now familiar
Rickey-Robinson story. Mann recreated Rickey's haunting 1904 experience as
collegiate coach when one of his black baseball players, Charlie Thomas, was
denied access to a hotel. Thomas cried and rubbed his hands, chanting, "Black
skin!  Black skin!  If I could only make 'em white." Mann described Rickey's
search for the "right" man, the formation of the United States League as a
cover for scouting operations, the reasons for selecting Robinson, and the
fateful Rickey-Robinson confrontation. Other sections, however, graphically
illustrate additional issues Rickey deemed significant. Mann repeatedly cites
the costs the Dodgers incurred:  $5,000 to scout Cuba, $6,000 to scout Mexico,
$5,000 to establish the "Brooklyn Brown Dodgers." The final total reaches
$25,000, a modest sum considering the ultimate returns, but one which Rickey
felt would counter his skinflint image.
     Rickey's desire to show that he was not motivated by political pressures
also emerges clearly. Mann had suggested that upon arriving in Brooklyn in
1942, Rickey "was beseiged by telephone calls, telegrams and letters of
petition in behalf of black ball players," and that this "staggering pile of
missives [was] so inspired to convince him that he and the Dodgers had been
selected as a kind of guinea pig." In his marginal comments, Rickey
vehemently wrote "No!" in a strong dark script. "I began all this as soon as
I went to Brooklyn." Explaining why he had never attacked the subject during
his two decades as general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, Rickey referred
to the segregation in that city. "St. Louis never permitted Negro patrons in
the grandstand," he wrote, describing a policy he apparently had felt
powerless to change.
     Mann also devoted two of his twelve pages to a spirited attack on the
Negro Leagues, repeating Rickey's charges that "they are the poorest excuse
for the word league" and documented the prevalence of barnstorming, the uneven
scheduling, absence of contracts, and dominance of booking agents. Mann
revealingly traces Rickey's distaste for the Negro Leagues to the "outrageous"
guarantees demanded by New York booking agent William Leuschner to place black
teams in Ebbets Field while the Dodgers were on the road.
     Rickey's misplaced obsession with the internal disorganization of the
Negro Leagues had substantial factual basis. But Rickey had an ulterior
motive. In his September 8 article, Wendell Smith addressed the issue of
"player tampering," asking "Would [Rickey] not first approach the owners of
these Negro teams who have these stars under contract?" Rickey, argued Smith
in what might have been an unsuccessful preemptive strike, "is obligated to do
so and his record as a businessman indicated that he would." As Smith may
have known, Rickey maintained that Negro League players did not sign valid
contracts and so became free agents at the end of each season. Thus the
Mahatma had no intention of compensating Negro League teams for the players he
signed. His repeated attacks on black baseball, including the Mann article,
served to justify this questionable position.
     The one respect in which "The Negro and Baseball" departs radically from
common picture of the Robinson legend is in its report of Robinson as one of a
group of blacks about to be signed by the Dodgers. Mann's manuscript and
subsequent correspondence from Rickey reveal that Rickey did not intend for
Robinson to withstand the pressures alone. "Determined not to be charged with
merely nibbling at the problem," wrote Mann, "Rickey went all out and brought
in two more Negro players," and "consigned them, with Robinson, to the
Dodgers' top farm club, the Montreal Royals." Mann named pitcher Don Newcombe
and, surprisingly, outfielder Sam Jethroe as Robinson's future teammates.
Whether the recruitment of additional blacks had always been Rickey's
intention or whether he had reached his decision after meeting with Robinson
in August is unclear. But by late September, when he provided information to
Mann for his article, Rickey had clearly decided to bring in other Negro
League stars.
     During the first weekend in October, Dodger Coach Chuck Dressen fielded a
major league all-star team in a series of exhibition games against Negro
League standouts at Ebbets Field. Rickey took the opportunity to interview at
least three black pitching prospects, Newcombe, Roy Partlow and John Wright.
The following week he met with catcher Roy Campanella. Campanella and
Newcombe, at least, believed they had been approached to play for the "Brown
Dodgers."
     At the same time Rickey decided to postpone publication of Mann's
manuscript. In a remarkable letter sent from the World Series in Chicago on
October 7, Rickey informed Mann:

       We just can't go now with the article. The thing isn't dead; not at
     all. It is more alive than ever and that is the reason we can't go with
     any publicity at this time. There is more involved in the situation than
     I had contemplated. Other players are in it and it may be that I can't
     clear these players until after the December meetings, possibly not until
     after the first of the year. You must simply sit in the boat . . .
       There is a November 1 deadline on Robinson; you know that. I am
     undertaking to extend that date until January 1st so as to give me time
     to sign plenty of players and make one break on the complete story.
     Also, quite obviously it might not be good to sign Robinson with other
     and possibly better players unsigned.

     The revelations and tone of this letter surprised Robinson's widow,
Rachel, forty years after the event. Rickey "was such a deliberate man," she
recalled, "and this letter is so urgent. He must have been very nervous as he
neared his goal. Maybe he was nervous that the owners would turn him down and
having five people at the door instead of just one would have been more
powerful."
     Events in the weeks after October 7 justified Rickey's nervousness and
forced him to deviate from the course stated in the Mann letter. Candidates
in New York City's upcoming November elections, most notably black Communist
City Councilman Ben Davis, made baseball integration a major issue in the
campaign. Mayor LaGuardia's Democratic party also sought to exploit the
issue. The Committee on Baseball had prepared a report outlining a modest,
long range strategy for bringing blacks into the game and describing the New
York teams, because of the favorable political and racial climate in the city,
as in a "choice position to undertake this pattern of integration." LaGuardia
wanted Rickey's permission to make a pre-election announcement that "baseball
would shortly begin signing Negro players," as a result of the committee's
work.
     Rickey, a committee member, had long ago subverted the panel to his own
purposes. By mid-October, however, the committee had become "an election
football." Again unwilling to risk the appearance of succumbing to political
pressure and thereby surrendering what he viewed as his rightful role in
history, Rickey asked LaGuardia to delay his comments. Rickey hurriedly
contacted Robinson, who had joined a barnstorming team in New York en route to
play winter ball in Venezuela, and dispatched him to Montreal. On October 23,
1945, with Rickey's carefully laid plans scuttled, the Montreal Royals
announced the signing of Robinson, and Robinson alone.
     Mann's article never appeared. Look, having lost its exclusive,
published two strips of the Terrell pictures in its November 27, 1945 issue
accompanying a brief summary of the Robinson story, by then old news. The
unprocessed film and contact sheets were loaded into a box and nine years
later shipped to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, where they remained,
along with a picture of Jethroe, unpacked until April 1987.
     Newcombe, Campanella, Wright and Partlow all joined the Dodger
organization the following spring. Jethroe became a victim of the "deliberate
speed" of baseball integration. Rickey did not interview Jethroe in 1945.
Since few teams followed the Dodger lead, the fleet, powerful outfielder
remained in the Negro Leagues until 1948, when Rickey finally bought his
contract from the Cleveland Buckeyes for $5,000. Jethroe had two spectacular
seasons at Montreal before Rickey, fearing a "surfeit of colored boys on the
Brooklyn club," profitably sold him to the Boston Braves for $100,000.
Jethroe won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1950, but his delayed entry into
Organized Baseball foreshortened what should have been a stellar career.
Until informed by the authors of this essay, Jethroe remained unaware of how
close he came to joining Robinson, Newcombe and Campanella in the pantheon of
integration pioneers.
     For Robinson, who had always occupied center stage in Rickey's thinking,
the early announcement intensified the pressures and enhanced the legend. The
success or failure of integration rested disproportionately on his capable
shoulders. He became the lightning rod for supporter and opponent alike,
attracting the responsibility, the opprobrium, and ultimately the acclaim for
his historic achievement.
     Beyond these revelations about the Robinson signing, the Library of
Congress documents add surprisingly little to the familiar story of the
integration of baseball. The Rickey Papers copiously detail his post-Dodger
career as general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, but are strangely silent
about the critical 1944-1948 period. Records for these years probably
remained with the Dodger organization, which claims to have no knowledge of
their whereabouts. National League documents for these years remain closed to
the public.
     In light of the controversy engendered by former Dodger General Manager
Al Campanis' remarks about blacks in management, however, one exchange
between Rickey and Robinson becomes particularly relevant. In 1950, after his
fourth season with the Dodgers, Robinson appears to have written Rickey about
the possibility of employment in baseball when his playing days ended.
Robinson's original letter cannot be found in either the Rickey papers or the
Robinson family archives. However, Rickey's reply, dated December 31, 1950,
survives. Rickey, who had recently left the Dodgers after an unsuccessful
struggle to wrest control of the team from Walter O'Malley, responded to
Robinson's inquiry with a long and equivocal answer.
     "It is not at all because of lack of appreciation that I have not
acknowledged your good letter of some time ago," began Rickey. "Neither your
writing, nor sending the letter, nor its contents gave me very much surprise."
On the subject of managing, Rickey replied optimistically, "I hope that the
day will soon come when it will be entirely possible, as it is entirely right,
that you can be considered for administrative work in baseball, particularly
in the direction of field management." Rickey claimed to have told several
writers that "I do not know of any player in the game today who could, in my
judgement, manage a major league team better than yourself," but that the news
media had inexplicably ignored these comments.
     Yet Rickey tempered his encouragement with remarks that to a reader today
seem gratuitous. "As I have often expressed to you," he wrote, "I think you
carry a great responsibility for your people . . . and I cannot close this
letter without admonishing you to prepare yourself to do a widely useful work,
and, at the same time, dignified and effective in the field of public
relations. A part of this preparation, and I know you are smiling, for you
have already guessed my oft repeated suggestion--to finish your college course
meritoriously and get your degree." This advice, according to Rachel
Robinson, was a "matter of routine" between the two men ever since their first
meeting. Nonetheless, to the thirty-one-year-old Robinson, whose nonathletic
academic career had been marked by indifferent success and whose endorsements
and business acumen had already established the promise of a secure future,
Rickey's response may have seemed to beg the question.
     Rickey concluded with the promise, which seems to hinge on the completion
of a college degree, that "It would be a great pleasure for me to be your
agent in placing you in a big job after your playing days are finished.
Believe me always." Shortly after writing this letter Rickey became the
general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Had Robinson ended his playing
career before Rickey left the Pirates, perhaps the Mahatma would have made
good on his pledge. But Rickey resigned from the Pirates at the end of the
1955 season, one year before Robinson's retirement, and never again had the
power to hire a manager.
     Robinson's 1950 letter to Rickey marked only the beginning of his quest
to see a black manager in the major leagues. In 1952 he hoped to gain
experience by managing in the Puerto Rican winter league, but, according to
the New York Post, Commissioner Happy Chandler withheld his approval, forcing
Robinson to cancel his plans. On November 30, 1952, the Dodger star raised
the prospect of a black manager in a televised interview on "Youth Wants to
Know," stating that both he and Campanella had been "approached" on the
subject. In 1954, after the Dodgers had fired manager Chuck Dressen,
speculation arose that either Robinson or Pee Wee Reese might be named to the
post. But the team bypassed both men and selected veteran minor league
manager Walter Alston, who held the job for more than two decades.
     Upon his retirement in 1956, Robinson, who had begun to manifest signs of
the diabetes that would plague the rest of his life, had lost much of his
enthusiasm for the prospect of managing, but nonetheless would probably have
accepted another pioneering role. "He had wearied of the travel," states
Rachel, "and no longer wanted to manage. He just wanted to be asked as a
recognition of his accomplishments, his abilities as a strategist and to show
that white men could be led by a black."
     Ironically, in the early years of integration Organized Baseball had
bypassed a large pool of qualified and experienced black managers:  former
Negro League players and managers like Chet Brewer, Ray Dandridge, and Quincy
Trouppe. In the early 1950s Brewer and several other Negro League veterans
managed all-black minor league teams, but no interracial club at any level
offered a managerial position to a black until 1961, when former Negro League
and major league infielder Gene Baker assumed the reins of a low-level
Pittsburgh Pirate farm team, one of only three blacks to manage a major league
affiliate before 1975.
     This lack of opportunity loomed as a major frustration for those who had
broken the color line. "We bring dollars into club treasuries while we play,"
protested Larry Doby, the first black American Leaguer, in 1964, "but when we
stop playing, our dollars stop. When I retired in '59 I wanted to stay in the
game, to be a coach or in some other capacity, or to manage in the minors
until I'd qualify for a big league job. Baseball owners are missing the boat
by not considering Negroes for such jobs." Monte Irvin, who had integrated
the New York Giants in 1949 and clearly possessed managerial capabilities,
concurred. "Among retired and active players [there] are Negroes with
backgrounds suited to these jobs," wrote Irvin. "Owning a package liquor
store, bowling alley or selling insurance is hardly the vocation for an
athlete who has accumulated a lifetime knowledge of the game."
     Had Robinson, Doby, Irvin or another black been offered a managerial
position in the 1950s or early 1960s, and particularly if the first black
manager had experienced success, it is possible that this would have opened
the doors for other black candidates. As with Robinson's ascension to the
major leagues, this example might ultimately have made the hiring and firing
of a black manager more or less routine. Robinson dismissed the notion that a
black manager might experience extraordinary difficulties. "Many people
believe that white athletes will not play for a Negro manager," he argued in
1964. "A professional athlete will play with or for anyone who helps him make
more money. He will respect ability, first, last and all the time. This is
something that baseball's executives must learn--that any experienced player
with leadership qualities can pilot a ball club to victory, no matter what the
color of his skin."
     On the other hand, the persistent biases of major league owners and their
subsequent history of discriminatory hiring indicate that the solitary example
of a Jackie Robinson regime would probably not have been enough to shake the
complacency of the baseball establishment. Few baseball executives considered
hiring blacks as managers even in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1960 Chicago White
Sox owner Bill Veeck, who had hired Doby in 1947 and represented the most
enlightened thinking in the game, raised the issue, but even Veeck defined
special qualifications needed for a black to manage. "A man will have to have
more stability to be a Negro coach or manager and be slower to anger than if
he were white," stated Veeck. "The first major league manager will have to be
a fellow who has been playing extremely well for a dozen years or so so that
he becomes a byword for excellence." The following year Veeck sold the White
Sox; other owners ignored the issue entirely.
     Robinson himself never flagged in his determination to see a black
manager. In 1972 baseball commemorated the 25th anniversary of Robinson's
major league debut at the World Series at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. A
graying, almost blind, but still defiant Robinson told a nationwide television
audience, "I'd like to live to see a black manager." Nine days later he was
dead.
     "I would have eagerly welcomed the challenge of a managerial job before I
left the game," Robinson revealed in his 1972 autobiography, I Never Had It
Made. "I know I could have been a good manager." But despite his obvious
qualifications, no one offered him a job. Thus, Jackie Robinson once again
had been the first--the first of many worthy black baseball players denied the
chance to manage in the major leagues.