Authors: Jimmy Breslin
Branch Rickey (9 page)
Rickey's hopes also went on the night train with Ives and Quinn to start two weeks of campaigning for passage of their bill in Albany. Opposition came from everywhere. John A. Davis, a Lincoln University professor, had written a handbook calling for gradual integration of Negroes into war industries. He wrote, “Successful companies start their programs with a neat, efficient, attractive, well-qualified colored girl in the employment office itself.” Robert Moses came out loudly against the bill. Why a state parks commissioner would be against a fair-employment bill can be explained quickly: he didn't like blacks.
Suddenly appearing in New York shortly thereafter was Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, who wanted to get the same Republican nomination for president that Dewey was after. Dewey now came out to pass the law for Rickey and Robinson. He spoke to the City-Wide Citizens' Committee on Harlem and told them, “I am standing here with you and you will not see me leaving.”
Rickey took advantage of his own proximity to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia at a ceremony to speak with him about the extreme importance of the bill in Albany. LaGuardia was enthusiastic. He went into his Municipal Building and came up with a young lawyer named Reuben Lazarus, who informed the state legislature that Moses had overreached in his criticism of the state senate bill. The bill was entitled “an act to amend the executive law, in relation to prevention and elimination of practices of discrimination in employment and otherwise against persons because of race, creed, color, or national origin.”
The president of the New York State Senate put the question of whether the body would agree to the final passage of said bill. It was decided in the affirmative, a majority of all the senators elected voting in favor thereof and three-fifths being present.
Among those in the great packed senate chamber in Albany was Assemblyman Fred Preller, Queens County Republican. Once, Preller explained to the
Long Island Press
the value of the monthly report he wrote and sent to constituents, single-spaced and printed on both sides of a long sheet of paper. “There are people in my district who are lonely and wait for the mailman,” he said. “They have nothing all day but our message. Anybody tells you to shorten it doesn't know Eastern Queens.” But he also understood economy of expression under fire. Asked how he was going to vote on the Ives-Quinn bill, he said, “I got a call from the governor's secretary.” That's all he said. Many had received that call. The vote in the assembly was 109-32 for the bill.
Long Island Press
the value of the monthly report he wrote and sent to constituents, single-spaced and printed on both sides of a long sheet of paper. “There are people in my district who are lonely and wait for the mailman,” he said. “They have nothing all day but our message. Anybody tells you to shorten it doesn't know Eastern Queens.” But he also understood economy of expression under fire. Asked how he was going to vote on the Ives-Quinn bill, he said, “I got a call from the governor's secretary.” That's all he said. Many had received that call. The vote in the assembly was 109-32 for the bill.
Rickey had his law.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The former Rachel Isum, with her new last name, Robinson, and her husband, Jackie, flew out of Burbank, California, on February 28, 1946, to join the Montreal team at Dodgers training camp at Daytona Beach, Florida. In his carefully reported biography
Jackie Robinson
, Arnold Rampersad notes, “they reached New Orleans around seven o'clock in the morning. Strolling through the airport, Rachel now saw Jim Crow signs for the first time in her life.” On the ladies' room door there was a notice: “Whites.”
Jackie Robinson
, Arnold Rampersad notes, “they reached New Orleans around seven o'clock in the morning. Strolling through the airport, Rachel now saw Jim Crow signs for the first time in her life.” On the ladies' room door there was a notice: “Whites.”
Of course she went right in, and if the white women in the place were surprised or shocked, that was their problem. The obstacles on the rest of the trip could not be brushed aside so easily. They were bumped from one flight to Florida because whites were given their seats. The next flight, an hour later, left without them. They took a hotel room and the new bride announced that it was not quite right. To her, the bed was a dirty park bench. They did catch a later plane to Pensacola, and when the plane landed they were told to get off because a storm was coming and they had to make the plane lighter. A group of whites, obviously with lighter bones, replaced them.
“Get in the back,” a white bus driver said a few hours later. They had given up on planes and were starting on the bus from Pensacola. Rachel and Jack were crammed into the back with country people caked in dirt and sweat. There were rows of empty seats awaiting decent whites in the front. Every mile was an enemy as the bus went for hour after hour to the Florida east coast. The empty seats in the front of the bus stared at them in mockery.
They arrived in Daytona Beach thirty-six hours after setting out.
Rickey was furious that they were so late, until realizing that for all his planning he had not thought about Jim Crow travel.
At the end of spring training, when the Montreal team was scheduled to play in Baltimore, Frank Shaughnessy, the president of the International League, called Rickey with a voice of pure panic. If Robinson dares play in Baltimore, the public will riot, he bleated.
“Trouble ahead, trouble ahead,” Rickey said.
Shaughnessy, who had known Rickey for more than thirty years, persisted.
“Trouble ahead, trouble ahead,” Rickey repeated. “If you look for it hard enough you'll find it.”
The crowd in Baltimore was so large before the game that Rickey was stuck in the street. After the game, the fans were in a crush around the Royals dressing room. They held out programs for Robinson to sign.
“Yes. There certainly is a riot,” Rickey told Shaughnessy on the phone. “It is an autograph riot.”
Robinson's first regular season game as the first black in organized baseball was to be played in Jersey City, just across the river from Manhattan. Compared to the medieval south, Jersey City was a highly civilized community. It is one of two American cities that describe their civic philosophies in two words. Chicago's is: “Where's Mine?” Jersey City's: “Not Guilty.”
The Jersey City Giants' season opener in April of 1946 was held at Roosevelt Stadium, capacity 24,500. Jackie Robinson started at second base. The day might have been mighty for America, but it was crucial for Jersey City mayor Frank Hague. He had become a national figure in 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt, running for president the first time, came to campaign along the Jersey shore. Hague took everybody from Jersey City but the pigeons and lined the shore road with 120,000 citizens. Roosevelt sat in a touring car with his campaign manager, James A. Farley.
They roared in the salt air for Roosevelt. Farley cocked his head to hear what a cluster of reporters was calling out. “They want to know what you think of this,” Farley said.
Roosevelt called to the reporters: “Frank Hague is my mayor.”
Hague then stood in City Hall, Jersey City, and announced, “I am the law.”
Hague lived in a penthouse at 2600 Hudson Boulevard. He also had a large suite in the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and another apartment on Park Avenue, where he was to die much later. He could reside in such places because his income from Jersey City, supplemented by his ownership of the city's numbers business, easily paid bills for the most splendid living. He did not countenance anything second class.
For Robinson's first game, Hague had 52,000 tickets printed for a ballpark that seated 24,500, their distribution being handled by ward committeemen who went from store to store, giving each owner 10 tickets, for which the owner paid on the spot. The committeemen then went to residential streets and sold homeowners 10 tickets each. All money was turned in to City Hall.
On opening day, ward leaders had all school buses packed. City workers put fresh paint on the first thirty-five rows of the grandstand, and another crew placed new sod over the entire field.
The mayor proclaimed that this was now an official holiday for all Jersey City, for schools, businesses, everyone who enjoys a baseball game. Hague said that no housewife should be in the kitchen cooking when she could be on a bus to the ball game.
As his high school was closed, Frank Borsky, fifteen, with a ticket from his father, who had a paint store on Fairmont Avenue, boarded a bus in the ninth ward for a trip to the game. He arrived to become part of a mob looking for a place to stand. The 24,500 seats had been gone for hours. The crowd was in the aisles and spilled onto the field.
The official attendance was 51,873.
At 2:30, the fans were thrilled by a marching band that came in from a right-field gate and played “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Everyone bellowed in song.
Next, a gate in centerfield opened to reveal what appeared to be the mayor being burned at the stake. The hot sunlight exploding on the diamond stickpin in his tie enveloped Hague in a champagne-colored flame. He was a magnificent sight. Blue-gray eyes sparkled under a spanking new hat atop his bald head. He had on a dark blue double-breasted suit that was just out of the hands of a fine tailor. The crowd stilled for the national anthem. Then Hague marched across the new sod to his box seat behind first base. He greeted Branch Rickey and then sat in glory.
The game began. Soon the announcer called over the loudspeaker, “At second base for the Montreal Royals, Jackie Robinson.”
The crowd shook the air. These good citizens of Jersey City were not so delirious at the sight of a black player, but all realized that Mayor Hague wanted them to appreciate Robinson, and if they did not, then one look around the premises showed police every few yards, all with official permission, even encouragement, to beat the brains out of anybody who dared to boo.
In his first time up, Robinson, who was dead nervous, grounded out. Embarrassed anger rose in him. In his second at bat, with two on, he hit a home run over the left-field fence. He then hit three singles. Two were bunts. Watching Robinson drop those bunts and tear to first base, Branch Rickey waved his hands and called out, “Andy High's Play!” It was High, the great scout, who had stressed Robinson's ability to bunt. He also stole second twice.
At day's end, Montreal won by many runs. The crowd crushed Robinson, seeking autographs; Rickey had a joyous ride back to Brooklyn; and Frank Hague walked up the steps of City Hall with the bearing of Caesar on a good day.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It is the summer of 1946 and Jackie Robinson is playing for the Montreal Royals minor league team. He hits .349 and steals forty bases. Certainly his talent will bring him to the National League next year. The state now has a new law behind him. And so the major league baseball owners decide he must be stopped.
The team owners met in Chicago and issued a report on Robinson, which read:
RACE QUESTION
The appeal of Baseball is not limited to any racial group. The Negro takes great interest in baseball and is, and always has been, among the most loyal supporters of Professional Baseball.
The American people are primarily concerned with the excellence of performance in sport rather than the color, race or creed of the performer. The history of American sport has been enriched by the performance of great Negro athletes who have attained the mythical All-American team in football; who have won world championships in boxing; and who have helped carry Americans to track-and-field victory in the Olympic games. Fifty-four professional Negro baseball players served with the Armed Forces in this warâone player was killed and several wounded in combat.
Baseball will jeopardize its leadership in professional sport if it fails to give full appreciation to the fact that the Negro player and the Negro fan are part and parcel of the game. Certain groups in this country, including political and social-minded drumbeaters, are conducting pressure campaigns in an attempt to force major league clubs to sign Negro players. Members of these groups are not primarily interested in Professional Baseball. They are not campaigning to find a better opportunity for thousands of Negro boys who want to play baseball. They are not even primarily interested in improving the lot of Negro players who are already employed. They know little about baseballâand nothing about the business end of its operation. They single out Professional Baseball for attack because it offers a good publicity medium.
The thousands of Negro boys of ability who aspire to careers in professional baseball should have a better opportunity. Every American boy, without regard to his race or his color or his creed, should have a fair chance in baseball. Jobs for half a dozen good Negro players now employed in the Negro leagues are relatively unimportant. Signing of a few Negro players for the major leagues would be a gestureâbut it would contribute little or nothing towards a solution of the real problem. Let's look at the facts:
A major league baseball player must have something besides great natural ability. He must possess the technique, the coordination, the competitive attitude, and the discipline, which is usually acquired only after years of training in the minor leagues. The minor league experience of players on the major league rosters, for instance, averages 7 years. The young Negro player never has a good chance in baseball. This is the reason there are not more players who meet major league standards in the big Negro leagues.
The paper quoted Sam Lacy, of the Baltimore
Afro-American
, as saying that Negroes were “simply not good enough to make major leagues at this time.” The owners were preposterous liars. They also have Lacy, who strained all his life trying to get a black into baseball, saying, “I am reluctant to say that we haven't a single man in the ranks of colored baseball who could step into the major leagues and disport himself after the fashion of a big leaguer.” Sam Lacy never said such a thing. The owners knew it. The report went on:
Afro-American
, as saying that Negroes were “simply not good enough to make major leagues at this time.” The owners were preposterous liars. They also have Lacy, who strained all his life trying to get a black into baseball, saying, “I am reluctant to say that we haven't a single man in the ranks of colored baseball who could step into the major leagues and disport himself after the fashion of a big leaguer.” Sam Lacy never said such a thing. The owners knew it. The report went on:
If the major leagues and big minors of Professional Baseball raid these leagues and take their best playersâthe Negro leagues will eventually fold upâthe investments of their club owners will be wiped outâand a lot of professional Negro players will lose their jobs. The Negroes who own and operate these clubs do not want to part with their outstanding playersâno one accuses them of racial discrimination.
The Negro leagues rent their parks in many cities from clubs in Organized Baseball. Many major and minor league clubs derive substantial revenue from these rentals. (The Yankee Organization, for instance, nets nearly $100,000 a year from rentals and concessions in connection with Negro league games in Yankee Stadium in New Yorkâand in Newark, Kansas City, and Norfolk.) Club owners in the major leagues are reluctant to give up revenues amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. They naturally want the Negro leagues to continue. They do not sign and cannot properly sign players under contracts to Negro clubs. This is not racial discrimination. It's simply respecting contracts.
There are many factors to this problem and many difficulties which will have to be solved before any satisfactory solution can be worked out. The individual action of any one Club may exert tremendous pressure upon the whole structure of Professional Baseball and could conceivably result in lessening the value of several major league franchises.
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