Many big-league baseball clubs were profiting from Negro baseball. In fact, there were no contracts at all, except for a few box-office stars like Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson. They did not have uniform player contracts. The Negro teams played as many as 10 and 12 exhibition games each week - sometimes three in a single day. The teams played an inconsistent number of ball games in league competition those with the better rosters would play between 40 and 45 league games a year, while the poorer teams had as few as 25. He soon concluded that they were not leagues in the recognized sense of the word. He was now scrutinizing the so-called Negro Leagues in the United States. He simply felt that if they could be great athletes in other sports, why not in baseball?īy the middle of 1944 he had a fair idea of what Negro talent was available in the Caribbean countries, Central and South America, and Mexico. But he had watched Negro athletes come to the front in sports like boxing and track and field. Naturally, Rickey was conscious of the sociological importance of the move. The motivating force was and always had been better baseball players. Despite subsequent hue and cry to the contrary, this was not a long-range sociological scheme. This was the first step in a carefully drawn plan for tapping the ignored talent pool of Negro baseball players. “You might come up with something.”Īfter this, Rickey tested the various stockholders and board members of the Dodgers. The banker eyed the baseball man for an instant, and then emitted a characteristic grunt. “And that might include a Negro player or two.” “We are going to beat the bushes, and we will take whatever comes out,” Rickey said, with a twinkle in his eye. He was consulted not only as a banker but as a former New York City police commissioner, a civic leader and a man with a deep knowledge of social affairs.
#Baseball commentator dying alone in a hotel room full
I served as assistant to Dodger President Branch Rickey during much of this period, and I feel that the full story should be told, not only for the enlightenment of the Brooklyn club in the days of heavy credit financing.
Some of this got into print, but much of it never went beyond the inner councils of the Brooklyn club.
And various ballplayers engaged in undercover protest movements. There were official prophecies of rioting and bloodshed. Jackie Robinson came into the Brooklyn organization over the expressed opposition of much of base- ball’s top brass. In fact, the general public never did realize just how violent a storm it was. Now that Jackie Robinson is one of the established stars of baseball, and Negro players are becoming commonplace in the major leagues, it is hard to realize that there was such a storm over the entrance of this pioneering player into organized baseball four seasons ago. For accuracy, we chose not to change certain words that might be unacceptable in a contemporary piece, but were in common use at the time. *Editor’s note: We’re presenting this 1950 article with only minor cuts for length. This article and other features about baseball can be found in the Post’ s Special Collector’s Edition, Baseball: The Glory Years.
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