Team First: History of Baseball Integration & Civil Rights

By Lloyd H. H. Barrow

The year 2017 is a special year, the seventieth anniversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers' Jackie Robinson integrating modern baseball. Robinson's successes and challenges have been documented by baseball and civil rights historians. This three-part book presents the chronological history of baseball integration along with the major civil rights events of the 1940s and 1950s. Team First focuses upon each of the sixteen Major League teams and players (with life stories) who were the first to integrate each team. Some individuals were players of the Negro League, Hall of Famers, and World Series players and others whose notable contribution was only being the first to integrate. Information about owners, general managers, and managers influenced teams' orientation about integration. Rates of integration varied by team. The final three teams to integrate happened ten years after Robinson won the 1947 Rookie of the Year Award. Find out how your favorite team approached integration. How did your team compare to other National League and American League teams? How was your favorite team influenced by early civil rights events?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641383844

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Team First

History of Basketball Integration & Civil Rights

Lloyd H. Barrow

Copyright © 2018 Lloyd H. Barrow

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64138-383-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64138-385-1 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-64138-384-4 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Foreword

My long-term interest in baseball started when I was listening to a game on the radio. The announcers and fans were disturbed because the St. Louis Cardinals had just traded fan favorite Enos Slaughter to the Yankees. As a twelve-year-old, I had played some ball, generally softball in my rural community. I did not understand why people were upset with the trade of Slaughter. Rains (1992) provided a thorough explanation of fans’ displeasure to Cardinal management trade on youth movement. This started my long-term love of the Cardinals. I learned to visualize the game from the radio descriptions by Harry Carey, Jack Buck, and others.

From studying history, I knew that in 1947 Jackie Robinson integrated the National League with the Brooklyn Dodgers. I was also aware that Larry Doby accomplished a similar feat for the Cleveland Indians in the same 1947 season. But I did not know who came next. Who were the African American players to integrate the other original fourteen Major League teams? I did not know of the Negro Leagues until much later and which stars played in Major League Baseball. My visit to Negro Leagues Hall of Fame in Kansas City, Missouri, provided me with the answers. I then began to delve more deeply into each team and how they addressed integration, whether they did this aggressively or reluctantly.

Many of these players, as a white fan, I had never heard of before. For each team, it was not just the player but the owner, the general manager, the field manager, and others who influenced the team’s integration. Baseball has even been called the great integration experiment (Tygiel, 1983), but my science background causes me to avoid the term experiment.

The history of civil rights from 1947 when Robinson started the team integration till the Boston Red Sox brought Elijah Pumpsie Green to the Major Leagues in 1959 provides interesting insights. Robinson’s successes resulted in increased attendance in the National League. However, not all the owners moved toward integration. Some of the Negro League players were beyond their prime years so were unsuccessful in Major League Baseball. The increased Dodger attendance at home and away games encouraged other teams in recruiting African American players. The integration of Major League Baseball destroyed one of the most successful businesses for the African American community, for it caused the demise of the Negro Leagues. African American fans stopped attending Negro League games and started attending Major League Baseball games, which had African American players.

In my rural home in southeastern Iowa, I knew of only two African Americans—a married couple who were the school janitors. I was unaware of the integration of baseball until much later in my life. During my receptionist job at Iowa State University, I met Harvey Gantt. He was trying to return to his native South Carolina, but Clemson University would not allow him to enroll. Our visits and TV news stories about others trying to integrate Southern colleges opened my eyes. This became even clearer when a reporter, Howard K. Smith, came to the campus to interview Harvey. College life expanded my view of the United States and all its citizens.

Some readers will want to read about their favorite team and which player was the first to integrate. Others will read the chronological story (which is also influenced by civil rights activities) as it proceeds through the three parts of this book. Throughout the book, I will ignore the use of the N-word, even though it is frequently used in sources. Integration is a long-term process that is still ongoing in our society. I am thankful that Jim Crow laws are not currently followed, but there are remnants of segregation that still exist in society today.

It was difficult to retrieve data on performance in Negro League games. Clark and Lester (1994) compiled records for the Society for American Baseball Research; however, some omission and errors have been found in their account. For example, John Kennedy’s 1956 season with the Kansas City Monarchs is absent, but this could be because the Monarchs never played league games. Their yearly roster concludes with the 1955 season. They list Kennedy’s two years with the Black Barons before he went to the Phillies. However, only data for the 1954 season is provided. Records of the Negro Leagues focused upon games played typically on weekends, in the shorter season because of their barnstorming during the week. Many of these barnstorming games were against local players. Sometimes future players would be discovered in these games, such as Elston Howard, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, and so on. Barnstorming after the World Series would occur in the South and in Latin America where players could supplement their season’s salaries. These games sometimes would pit Negro League stars against Major League stars. Negro League games would be reported only in the traditional weekly African American newspapers. Box scores were not always provided for all games.

I hope that reading Team First will be enlightening and enhance your baseball literacy. The title identifies the player who was the first African American to play for the original sixteen Major League teams. Since eleven of these players were veterans of the Negro Leagues, Team First will help educate the populace about the Negro Leagues and some of its players. It has been seventy years since Jackie Robinson started the integration process. His memory is recognized by his number 42 being retired by all thirty Major League teams. But we should not forget those who came after him, players who had to deal with racial taunts from other players and from fans; travel restrictions, especially in spring training; and the separate but equal orientation of the United States during this twelve-year period, which concluded when Pumpsie Green joined the Boston Red Sox in 1959. Unfortunately today remnants of segregation still exist.

Organization of Team First

The title for this baseball book, Team First, describes the first African American player to join each of the original sixteen Major League teams. Each chapter is based upon the chronological order of appearance as they integrated Major League Baseball. Table 1 presents the chronological order of team integration and players. Some of the individuals are universally recognized while others are known only to true baseball historians. Eleven individuals are veterans of the Negro Leagues. This list includes individuals who were stars of Negro Leagues, future Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, and some individuals whose original baseball contract was their contribution to one of the sixteen Major League teams. From 1947 to 1959, there were several events that also influenced integration in the United States. Dominant was the US Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling, in 1954, that separate was not equal in K–12 education throughout the nation, especially in the South. President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 sent the National Guard to facilitate school integration of the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The civil rights movement started in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the Montgomery bus. Prior to this, African Americans had to sit in the back (inferring ride) of the bus. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had fought against segregation since 1909. The Southern Christian League marchers, led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., became national news on television and newspapers. Also, the integration of African American players on Major League teams resulted in the disbanding of the Negro Leagues in 1960.

According to Biondi (2003) the signing of Robinson to a Montreal contract in 1945 was the start of the civil rights movement. Eig (2007) identified other 1947 African Americans who made contributions to integration. These included the Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell; Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters leader Philip Randolph; UN diplomat Ralph Bunch, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating peace between Israel and Palestine; and General Benjamin Davis, who only directed African American troops during World War II.

Lloyd H. Barrow

University of Missouri

Professor Emeritus

Table 1. The Team and Players Who Integrated for the Original Sixteen Teams

Chapter 1

Prior to Integration of Baseball

Introduction

Every year, April 15 is a date that adult Americans know as the last day to pay their income tax for the previous year. In central Missouri the day marks the typical arrival of the hummingbirds, this being the date to start mixing the hummingbird solution for feeders. April 15 is also a famous date in baseball history.

The year was 1947 and the date April 15, when twenty-eight-year-old rookie Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field to play first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was the first African American to appear in the modern era of baseball. This event occurred eighty-four years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Declaration of Emancipation. African Americans were granted the right to vote in 1867, eighty years before Robinson made his appearance as a Brooklyn Dodger. McPherson (2009), a noted Lincoln authority, describes how the president’s original purpose of fighting the Civil War was to preserve the Union rather than to abolish slavery. Checking the box score, Robinson was 0 of 3, 1 run scored, 0 stolen bases, 1 sacrifice bunt, 0 errors, 11 putouts, and 0 strikeouts. This game was won by Brooklyn (5–3) over Boston Braves pitching ace Johnny Sain. Although not an impressive start, Robinson on his sacrifice bunt was hit by a thrown ball and reached second where he scored on Pete Reiser’s hit. The headline was not about Robinson breaking the color line. This event was ignored by the white press. The game attendance was slightly over twenty-six thousand, which included an estimated fourteen thousand African Americans who witnessed Robinson breaking the color lines. As Treder (2002a) put it, following Robinson’s dazzling debut [1947 season], the color line did not crumble easily; in fact, it stubbornly resisted the effect of decency and logic (p. 4). This 1947 event changed both baseball and American society. According to Katz, Ceresi, and Michel (2009), this event was a precursor to the civil rights activities of the 1950s and the 1960s. Eig (2007) identified other important events of 1947:

Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier; Jackson Pollock dripped paint on canvas for the first time; Jawaharlal Nehru declared the people of India free at last from British colonial rule; scientists at Bell Lab assembled the first transmitter from strips of gold foil on a plastic triangle held down gently by a piece of germanium; Thor Heyerdahl sailed a balsa raft called Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia; Miles Davis joined Charlie Parker’s quintet, which reshaped the sound of music. (p. 60)

American society was finally recovering from the Great Depression and World War II. Many former soldiers took advantage of the GI Bill to continue their education. In 1941, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded was 109,546 for males and 81,457 for females. In contrast, one decade later (1950) the levels were 278,240 for males and 104,306 for females. In addition to going to college or trade school, education was the ticket for the journey toward achieving successful American dreams. However, segregation was still entrenched in America. In the South it was de jure, while in the North it was de facto (Pollack, 2006, p. 306).

Life on college campuses changed, with an influx of married students requiring cheap housing. On many campuses, Quonset huts were built for married student housing. The closeness of these half-moon steel huts caused high population density of married couples and their babies. There were 2,559,000 live births in 1940, compared to 3,132,000 in 1950. The high number of births was, in part, because of a lack of available birth control, as the first birth control pill would not be available until the early 1960s. College communities needed to provide part-time jobs for students. Some women provided child care for families whose mother found a job outside the home. College majors for the returning soldiers tended to be more career oriented than the liberal arts focus of earlier generations. After graduation, the former soldiers joined the workforce, generally in the larger cities where the best-paying positions existed.

Changing Face of Baseball

Major League Baseball of 1947 was quite different from baseball of today. In 1947, there were only eight teams in the senior National League (Boston Braves, Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, New York Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, and St. Louis Cardinals). There were also eight junior American League teams (Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Browns, and Washington Senators). Five of these cities (Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis) each had at least two teams. In 1947, St. Louis was the only Major League city west of the Mississippi River. In addition to being the furthest west, St. Louis was the team that was farthest south. All other teams were north of the Mason Dixon Line (Rosenthal, 1979). Today, Major League Baseball ranges from the East Coast to the West Coast and all the way from Washington to Florida.

Baseball fans of today might not recognize some of these sixteen teams from 1947; some moved to a new city (some more than once) and some adopted a new name. For example, the Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves in 1953 and the Atlanta Braves in 1966. The Browns moved from St. Louis in 1954 and became the Baltimore Orioles. Connie Mack’s original Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1955 and then became the Oakland Athletics in 1968. At the end of the 1957 season, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moved across the country to Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively. The Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins in 1961. The 1962 additions to the National League were the New York Mets and Houston Colt 45s (now the Astros and moved to the American League in 2013). The Los Angeles / Anaheim / California Angels were first formed in 1961. The 1969 expansion included the Montreal Expos, Seattle Pilots, San Diego Padres, and Kansas City Royals. The Milwaukee Brewers (1970), originally in the American League, started as the Seattle Pilots in 1969. The Washington Nationals (2005) were originally the Montreal Expos (1969). The Mariners reappeared in Seattle in 1977 along with the Toronto Blue Jays. The Texas Rangers (1972) were originally established as another team called the Washington Senators (1961). The Colorado Rockies and the Florida (now Miami) Marlins joined the National League in 1993. Finally, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Rays joined the majors in 1998. Today, there are fifteen teams each in the National League and American Leagues. The Division Champion Series started in 1969.

The 1947 season was 154 games long rather than today’s 162. Each team played 22 games against teams in their league. There were no National League versus American League games except for the All-Star Game and the World Series. Radio was the way the country knew baseball. Away games were originally re-created from telegraph messages. Sound effects were added to provide authenticity to the program. Sometimes, the telegraph messages were interrupted. Wills (1987) summarizes former President Ronald Reagan’s improvisation of a series of twenty-seven foul balls broadcast on WHO radio (Des Moines) which was used to fill a fifteen-minute void in telegraph transmissions. The minimum salary for Major League Baseball players in 1946 was $5,000 with $25 a day spring training expenses, 25 percent maximum annual salary cut, and player pension funded by revenue from World Series and All-Star Game (Moffi, 2006). Eig (2007) reported that the 1946 median national income was $3,000, which was about twice the annual income earned by most African Americans. By today’s standard, this seems very low. It was common for players, even stars, to have an off-season job or to participate in barnstorming tours or playing winter Latin Leagues. Players typically arrived at spring training without the conditioning common today. Prior to Robinson’s arrival in 1947, Major League Baseball only had white players. Brashler (1994) explains that the segregation of baseball was due to Major League owners maintaining private businesses of the teams and stadiums. The owners determined who could play and what their mostly white customers wanted.

After the end of the World Series, several baseball players barnstormed throughout the continental United States. Barthel (2007) provides a detailed description of annual tours from 1901 to 1962. Games between All-Star teams provided entertainment to fans from cities throughout the South and West that lacked Major League teams. Fans were able to see their favorite players, and players were able to supplement their income. Generally, barnstorming was done in October and November before the Latin Leagues started their season (Pollock, 2006). All-Star teams included the Negro League (e.g., the 1946 Leroy Satchel Paige and Flying Tigers tour) and Major League players (e.g., Bob Feller). Sometimes the All-Star teams of the Negro League faced Major League All-Stars. According to Nelson (2008), Rogosin (1983), and Barthel (2007), the Negro League teams won 60 percent of the games against Major League teams. According to Barthel (2007), barnstorming disappeared for several reasons: increased salaries (so players did not need additional money), increased television exposure, the dictator Fidel Castro’s banning of Cuban baseball, the demise of the Negro Leagues, greater number of Major League teams, and the establishment of the Instructional League in Florida and Arizona.

Segregation

After the end of the Civil War in 1865, several Southern states passed legislation to limit the voting rights of former slaves. These laws were called Jim Crow laws after an old popular minstrel song, which ended with Jim Crow. Brashler (1994) suggests the source of Jim Crow was Thomas Dartmouth Daddy Rice who created a blackface routine entitled Jump Jim Crow. This popular act was copied by other minstrel actors across the United States. Brashler (1994) also reported that the nickname for a blackbird was Jim Crow. It became an insulting term for African Americans. Jim Crow orientation, local laws of separating African Americans from whites, became enforced by tradition even in the North. Racial segregation was established for schools, hotels, hospitals, parks, and public transportation. The US Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 ruled that racial segregation was legal and did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. This became known as the separate but equal provision. In addition, several approaches were utilized to prevent African Americans from voting. A literacy test was used so that only individuals who could read would be allowed to vote. Another requirement was the paying of a poll tax before a person was allowed to vote. A grandfather clause—for descendants of fathers or grandfathers who had voted—allowed whites who were illiterate or unable to pay the poll tax to vote. These laws were eventually found to be unconstitutional, but it took many years before significant changes occurred.

James (2001) noted that according to the 1920 census the African American population was about 10.5 million with the vast majority living in the rural South. In contrast, there were 13.5 million African Americans in 1945, and many had migrated north. However, most Negro League players were from the South. During the off-season, players spent time hunting for other players who could help their team win. This was necessary because the Negro Leagues had no farm system, such as existed in the Major Leagues.

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which forbade businesses who had government contracts to discriminate among employees based upon race. However, Executive Order 8802 excluded the military. Consequently, the military in World War II was still segregated. It would not be until July 26, 1948, that President Harry S. Truman granted equal treatment to all armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin (Bullock, 2004). It was more than a year after Robinson integrated baseball before Executive Order 9981 was signed by President Truman. As Eig (2007) described segregation:

Black Americans were excluded not only from certain schools but also from parks, beaches, playground, department stores, night clubs, roller skating rinks, theaters, restrooms, barber shops, railroad cars, bus seats, military units, libraries, factory floors, and hospitals. In the North, whites only signs were far less evident than in the South, but the veiled message was often the same. Black men on business in Chicago, Detroit, or Cleveland usually stayed in black-owned hotels, rode in black-owned taxis, and dined in black-owned restaurants. If a white man became acquainted with a black man, odds were good that the acquaintance stemmed from some service the black man performed for the white man—shining his shoes, for example or mowing his lawn, or mixing his cocktail. (p. 2)

The world Eig (2007) described is very different from today. Things changed over a short period during the civil rights activities of the 1950s and 1960s. This change was initiated when African American Jackie Robinson first appeared in a baseball game in 1947. According to Katz et al. (2009), The . . . abolition [of baseball’s segregation] paved the way for integration elsewhere (p. 171). It needs to be mentioned that discrimination against women is ignored by Eig’s (2007) description of the United States during the segregation era.

Some Major League Baseball teams were slow in integrating their team, travel, and housing at out-of-town sites, spring training, and so on. A commission of owners in 1946 identified three reasons that Major League Baseball should not integrate: (1) the Negro Leagues lacked a farm system (a system used by the Minor Leagues to develop Minor League players), (2) African American communities should be maintained, and (3) owners wanted to maintain their revenue from rental for Negro League games (Vignola, 2003). James (2001) notes that the failure to have a standard contract resulted in players jumping to another team, which also weakened the Negro Leagues. The final Major League team to integrate was the Boston Red Sox, who finally integrated in 1959.

The Negro Leagues

The exploits of the Negro Leagues and their stars, such as Josh Gibson, Leroy Satchel Paige, Walter Buck Leonard, James Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Jimmy Crutchfield, and others, were primarily reported by the African American newspaper. Records of the results of Negro League games and barnstorming tours are incomplete, at best, or have been totally lost (Brashler, 1994). Therefore, Negro League players’ accomplishments have been overlooked throughout baseball’s history. Gardner and Shortelle (1993) consider that the Negro Leagues played three types of games: (1) other Negro League teams, (2) local semipro teams, and (3) entertainment like basketball’s Harlem Globetrotters. Rogosin (1983) describes the Negro Leagues as one of the largest and most successful African American business in the United States until 1947. In addition to the teams, African American cafes, taverns, and rooming houses also benefited. However, teams of the Negro League had a different orientation from the sixteen existing Major League teams. Since the Negro Leagues did not supply umpires as the Major League Baseball did, the home team had to supply individuals. Frequently, umpires rode team buses to other cities (Brashler, 1994). In his book former Negro League umpire Bob Marley (2007) provides a description of his career and exploits in the Negro League.

Like Major League teams, the Negro League had extended spring training from February through April. Negro League teams would play in the South against each other, local African American teams, or college teams. Beginning in April, teams would start heading north playing pickup games. Traveling through the South,