Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators [American League], called Branch Rickey a “carpetbagger,” accusing Rickey of attempting to set himself up as the “czar of Negro baseball.”
—MARK RIBOWSKY, Don’t Look Back
I am not a racist. I employ dozens of blacks on my plantation in South Carolina.
—TOM YAWKEY, owner of the Boston Red Sox, quoted in Fromer, Rickey and Robinson
The Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers, both American League teams, were the last Major League Baseball teams to integrate, with Boston being the very last, in 1959.1 In that year the Bosox added Elijah Pumpsie Green to their roster.2
In less guarded moments Boston owner Tom Yawkey had said, “There will be no niggers on this ball club as long as I have anything to say about it.”3 Boston was termed “the most racist organization in baseball.”4 The entire Boston management as well as many of the players and fans were imbued with an unrefined, rough-cut brand of racism. “The top management of the Red Sox was Irish, the most powerful group in Boston”: Their “established pecking order . . . in essence regarded WASPs with respect and admiration.” They regarded “Jews with admiration” but with “suspicion for being smart.” They treated “Italians with disdain for being immigrants and Catholic” yet not Irish. Last of all, at the bottom of the pecking order, or even below it were blacks, “well below the Italians.”5
A short way south, in New York, Yankees general Manager George Weiss and field manager Casey Stengel were racists.6 Stengel used racist language openly (see, e.g., chapter 17). The Yankees elevated a black player, Elston Howard, to their team only in 1955. According to some they did so only after determining that Howard fit the same mold that the Yankees applied to their white recruits: “He was the perfect Yankee, soft-spoken, well-mannered, well-educated, dedicated to excellence, a proven team player [and] also black.”7
The Yankees’ attitude was not only the product of latent racism but racism mixed with arrogance or hubris. The hubris part: “The Yankees thought of themselves as the elite team of baseball. They did not need black players (as their poor cousins in Brooklyn, the Dodgers, did) because their teams were already so good.”8 The racist part: “The [Yankees] whites-only policy reflected the attitudes of men who felt that the use of black players [would taint] their operation.”9 Black players, Yankees management felt, would draw black fans, which, in turn, would scare away good middle-class white fans. In Brooklyn Jackie Robinson told the press, “I feel the New York Yankees’ management is prejudiced against black ballplayers.”10 Even in the late 1950s, Casey Stengel openly continued to call Elston Howard “my n—r.”
Meanwhile, over in the senior circuit (National League), black players garnered Rookie of the Year honors in six of the seven years since Jackie Robinson broke in: Robinson (1947), Sam Jethroe (1949), Don Newcombe (1950), Willie Mays (1951), Joe Black (1952), and Junior Gilliam (1953).11
The American League did not have an African American as Rookie of the Year until nineteen years after Robinson broke in with the Dodgers (Tommy Agee, 1966).12 In fact, from 1947, the year in which Robinson and Doby broke in, until 1960, the National League had eight black Rookies of the Year and nine African American MVPs. In the same period the American League had none, zip, in either category, and only one black player of note, Larry Doby.13
In all respects regarding integration, the National League was far ahead of the American League:
In 1949 five blacks played Major League Baseball.14 Doby was the sole American League player.
By 1950 eleven blacks played Major League Baseball.15 Larry Doby and Luke Easter, both Cleveland Indians, were the sole American League players.
In 1953 twenty-three black players populated Major League rosters, six of eight rosters in the National League and only one of eight in the American League (only the Cleveland Indians again).16
In 1955 half of the Major League teams still had completely white rosters. Seven of the eight lily-white teams were in the American League, only one (the Phillies) in the National.17
“In 1964 the National League had fifteen .300 hitters. Twelve of them were [black]. The year before, the National League had eleven .300 hitters. Ten of them were [black].”18
By 1960 fifty-seven African Americans held Major League roster spots, of four hundred then available (14 percent), which included several in the American League.19 Only then, in 1960 or so, many years after the Dodgers had signed Jackie Robinson and the Indians had signed Larry Doby, could it be argued that integration of the major leagues had begun in earnest.
But the latter point is somewhat beside the focus of this chapter. Rather, here we have two hypotheses to be tested. The first hypothesis is that, over the intermediate or longer term, being the first black in the American League (Doby) was more difficult than being the first black in the National (Robinson). The alleged differential in difficulty would be because the National League, and by implication National League fan bases and National League ball clubs, were more accustomed and therefore receptive to black players.
The second hypothesis to be tested is that Doby played in the shadows because he played in the American rather than National League. The counterhypothesis is that, to the contrary, Doby stood out because he was at times the only black player, and at other times one of only a few black players, in the American League. A footnote to the counterhypothesis is that, for most of his career, Doby worked at not standing out. By nature a somewhat reserved and retiring player (some said “aloof”; see chapter 15), Doby would not have attracted the attention bestowed on National League players such as Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, or Roy Campanella.
The eight teams in the National League were the Boston (later Milwaukee, still later Atlanta) Braves; the New York Giants; the Brooklyn Dodgers; the Philadelphia Phillies; the Pittsburgh Pirates; the Cincinnati Reds; the Chicago Cubs; and the St. Louis Cardinals. The American League teams were the Boston Red Sox; the New York Yankees; the Philadelphia (later Kansas City, still later Oakland) Athletics; the Washington Senators (now Minnesota Twins); the Cleveland Indians; the Detroit Tigers; the Chicago White Sox; and the St. Louis Browns (now Baltimore Orioles).
Although a northern city and home to Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Wellesley, Brandeis, Simmons, Babson, and many other colleges and universities, Boston had a reputation of being very racist. Whether that is true or not, in their beginning years both Doby and Robinson played there, against the Red Sox and the Braves, respectively. They faced similar opponent attitudes and fan bases.
Similarly, St. Louis, although located in a border state, is considered a southern city in which racial bias may have been frequently encountered. But, again, this represented an advantage to no one because both Doby and Robinson had to play there, against the Browns and the Cardinals, respectively.
We can suppose New York and Chicago to have enlightened and relatively cosmopolitan populations. In their early years and for the rest of their careers, both Doby and Robinson made an equal number of yearly appearances playing baseball there.
Philadelphia has a reputation of having the meanest crowds in sports. The Ben Chapman (Phillies’ manager in 1947) incident in which Chapman and his team baited and hurled racist comments at Jackie Robinson was graphically depicted in the movie 42.20 But in Philadelphia Doby experienced something of the same thing. The Philadelphia Athletics hired a full-time heckler not only to distract and possibly disarm Doby when he came to bat but also to follow him to at least one other city (see chapter 4). But both Doby and Robinson had to play ballgames in Philadelphia. Advantage to neither.
So that leaves Detroit and Washington for Doby, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati for Robinson. The latter noted that he always had particularly good-sized supporting black crowds in Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh.21 For two or three decades before Robinson played there, Pittsburgh had been home to the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays, two of the more powerful teams in the Negro Leagues. In particular, then, Pittsburgh was an epicenter of Negro League baseball, used to seeing African Americans take to the playing field.
Doby said similar things about Washington DC as Robinson said of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. Although Washington was a city southern in character, and black fans were relegated to a certain area of the stands, fenced off with chicken wire, the black fan base was large and supportive. Larry Doby always stated that he enjoyed playing before the Washington black fans.
So who, Doby or Robinson, had it tougher? Based on the lineup of cities in which they had to play, and an amateurish review of those cities, the results are inconclusive. Jackie Robinson did say that “in a number of cities, we [black baseball players on the Dodgers team] had very little pressure.”22
But in most cities in which they played, both Larry Doby and Jackie Robinson had to endure insults and discrimination the likes of which no one ever should have to tolerate. But again and on balance, both Doby and Robinson probably had to put up with roughly equal amounts of it, at least on the playing fields and in Major League stadiums. We can’t with any certainty say that breaking in as the first black was tougher or more arduous in the American as opposed to the National League, or vice versa.
Yes, he was, but it is difficult to unpack that fact and its ramifications from other confounding events that surround the issue, such as the semi-obscurity resulting from playing in Cleveland, Ohio, as opposed to playing in New York City, seen in the preceding chapter.
Willie Mays, a great ballplayer who played in New York, received national publicity while Doby, who played in Cleveland, received none. Author Allen Barra calls Mays “the greatest centerfielder in baseball history.”23 Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, undoubtedly biased, thought the contrary, thinking Doby the best center fielder in baseball, qua fielder.24
In early August 1955, in a game against the Yankees, Doby set the record for consecutive games by an outfielder without an error, 421 chances in center field without a miscue.25 The record held for seventeen years, finally broken by Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers.26 Nonetheless, Doby’s record is routinely ignored.
Authors also term Mays, who broke in in 1951, the first black “five tool player,” and no one questions that assertion.27 But Larry Doby, who broke in four years earlier, was in reality the first five-tool black player in the major leagues, another fact seemingly ignored or sloughed over by knowledgeable baseball historians and authors alike.
Mays appeared on the cover of Time, under the caption “A Boy in a Hurry”: “He plays baseball with a boy’s glee, a pro’s sureness, and a champion’s flair.”28 He appeared repeatedly on national television: Ed Sullivan, The Today Show, and What’s My Line? A network featured an hour of programing following Mays’s day as he went about Harlem.29 Collier’s and Look, highly polished magazines that in those days reached scores of American households, ran features on Willie Mays. In its feature on Mays, Newsweek headlined the article “The Hottest Thing since Babe Ruth.”30
Larry Doby received very little, almost none, of that media attention.
Other confounding events were, for instance, that Mays was a great player but only a notch or two above Doby. A second, or third, confounding condition was that Doby was reserved and quiet, while Mays played the game and seemed to approach life with abandon and glee.
The contention, not provable, is that part of Doby’s obscurity resulted from his being the only black star playing in the American League, and an understated person and player at that. Meanwhile, the buzz surrounded and the attention went to the flamboyant Willie Mays; the outspoken Jackie Robinson (magical on the base paths); the large, lanky Don Newcombe; the smooth, intelligent, and well-spoken Monte Irvin; the sparky Roy Campanella; and the other talented black players, soon to number a dozen, and then a score, and then still more, all in the National League. The effect of that would be felt for years to come, as the National League came to dominate the All-Star Game year after year.31 One reason certainly was the National League’s much earlier and more pervasive efforts at integrating Major League Baseball.32
Playing his entire career in the laggard American League cast another shadow over the accomplishments and achievements of Larry Doby. Another factor must also be added to those discussed here: the marginal relevance of being the only noteworthy black player in the American League. It is undoubtedly a reason, unquantified though it may be, why baseball history retains so little memory of Cleveland All-Star center fielder Larry Doby.