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podcast transcript
If you ask who in baseball is the player who broke the color line, they will immediately answer Jackie Robinson.
If you ask who broke the color line in the American League, there may be a long silence.
The correct answer is Larry Doby, a seven-time All-Star, two-time home run champion, and inductee into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.
However, Dobby’s achievements and his journey have remained overlooked despite his historical impact.
Learn more about Larry Doby’s brave journey in this episode of Everything Everywhere every day.
The fall of baseball’s color line was a monumental moment in American civil rights and baseball history.
When Jackie Robinson left the dugout to take his first base position at Ebbets Field on Opening Day, April 15, 1947, he did so under the legacy of Jim Crow.
At this point, President Truman had not yet integrated the military, and the Brown v. Board of Education decision was still seven years away. The legacy of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which established the principle of “separate but equal,” was still the law of the land.
Even Martin Luther King Jr was still a junior at Morehouse College.
Jackie Robinson prepared hard for his debut. Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Ricky devised the “great experiment” to integrate Major League Baseball and prepared Jackie Robinson for the challenge.
He knew what the plan was two years before his debut, and spent a year in the minor leagues before joining the Dodgers.
Unlike Robinson, Dovey’s journey to the majors followed a different path. Cleveland Indians executive Bill Veeck believed that the Negro Leagues were a huge reservoir of baseball talent, filled with players who could help a major league team win a championship.
Veeck’s 1947 Cleveland Indians were a very good baseball team. He thought he could get better by bringing in Negro League players.
Veeck explained his attitude toward the transition in an interview on the day of Doby’s signing: The advancement of blacks to the major leagues is not only inevitable, it is here.
Unlike Rickey, who spent years planning Robinson’s transition, Veeck acted decisively, almost impulsively, in bringing Doby to the Indians. One morning Doby was looking forward to playing the Newark Eagles in a doubleheader, but a phone call changed everything. The Cleveland Indians purchased his contract.
Dovey wanted to play one more game with the Eagles, so he played the first game of a doubleheader. It’s fitting that Doby’s last at-bat in the Negro Leagues was a home run. After the game, Dovey took a train from Newark and departed for Chicago to meet his new team.
Doby’s transition was a difficult one. He entered the spotlight of history as he faced hardships with little comfort or guidance. While Branch Rickey provided training and organizational support to Jackie Robinson, Veeck’s approach to Doby was a sink or swim approach.
There would be no transition to the minor leagues for Doby, no preparation from the organization, his teammates, or the public. Dovey signed on July 4, 1947, and made his debut the next day against the Chicago White Sox.
When it came to choosing players for this challenge, Doby and Robinson were easy choices. As great as Robinson was, it was Dovey who possessed all five tools major league scouts were looking for. Both were excellent players with excellent running, hitting average, defense, and throwing ability, but Robinson lacked the power of Dobby.
Doby was an outstanding athlete. He accomplished in four different sports in high school. Although he excelled in track, basketball, and soccer, Doby was most comfortable on the diamond.
Doby was also younger than Robinson, 23 to 28, and Veeck was looking for a younger player to add to his core. Doby’s age was an advantage when selecting players who had not developed extensive reputations in the Negro Leagues. It would be difficult for the media to single Doby out.
Dobie and Robinson both served in the U.S. Army during World War II. While Robinson spent his time in the military protesting unequal treatment, even being disciplined for refusing to move to the back of a bus, Dobby kept a much lower profile.
Robinson developed a reputation as a man of strong convictions and firm principles. Doby was more reserved. He was known as a more ascetic person.
His rookie campaign tested these qualities to their absolute limits. Veeck did not prepare the team for Doby’s arrival. His teammates could only watch in shock. In fact, Indians manager Lou Bordeaux was completely blindsided by the deal. When Bordeaux first heard about the deal, he thought it was a joke.
Reports of his first moments in the Indians’ locker room indicate that many people on the team refused to look at Doby and others refused to shake his hand.
The poor treatment continued to the field. After his first few days in the field, Doby recalled having trouble warming up. When he said, “I felt alone. When we warmed up and went out on the field to play catch, like we always did, no one asked me to play. I just stood there for a few minutes. It seemed like a long time.”
Fortunately, Dobby found someone to play catch with him. Cleveland outfielder and former American League MVP Joe Gordon saw the uncomfortable position Doby was in and welcomed him where no one else would welcome him, saying: Hey kid, come on. Throw with me.’
Despite Gordon’s gesture, Dovey spent a lot of time alone on the Cleveland bench. On the move, Doby faced further social isolation as Jim Crow laws required him to live in separate hotels and restaurants.
The weight Doby bore was not lightened by his teammates, nor was the grace with which he handled it. Pitcher Mel Harder commented: “Dobby may have been distressed, but he never complained to the players and it was definitely a difficult time when he joined.”
Both Doby and Robinson faced difficult obstacles in their inaugural seasons, including racial slurs and threats. Their rookie seasons have become a major point of contrast for historians.
During his rookie campaign, Robinson thrived. He won his first Rookie of the Year Award after leading the team in stolen bases and hitting a strong .297.
It may not be fair to compare the two players because their situations are different, but baseball is a statistics-driven sport.
Doby’s season lasted only 29 games, 11 weeks shorter than Robinson’s. Dobby faced constant hostility, being thrown at him by pitchers and bullied by players without teammates to back him up.
These challenges caught up with him on the field, as Dovey hit just .156 in his first partial season in the major leagues. Power has always been Doby’s calling card, and all the stress he faced certainly caught up with him as he failed to hit a single home run in the 29 games he played that season.
Doby described his first season and its challenges in his autobiography: I knew it would be hard, but I didn’t know it would be this hard. There was no one to help me, no one to talk to. I was alone.
Doby’s sophomore season was a completely different story. After a full spring training with the Indians, he adjusted to pitching at the major league level, batting .301 with 14 home runs on an Indians team that won the World Series.
The emotional high point of his sophomore season came when Doby hit the game-winning home run in Game 4 of the World Series. Doby’s blast in the third inning gave Indians pitcher Steve Gromek all the scoring support he needed for Cleveland’s 2-1 win. Doby achieved a milestone in baseball history by hitting the first home run in a World Series game by a black player in major league history.
A game-winning home run is a highlight for any player, but for Doby, it was one postgame photo that would immortalize the moment. After the game, a celebration was held in the locker room. A Cleveland Plain Dealer photographer captured the iconic photo of Steve Gromek hugging Larry Doby.
Joy radiated from both of them, and their smiles and hugs captured the moment of victory. Because it was the World Series, newspapers across the country printed the iconic image.
For many Americans, it was the first time they had seen white and black people happy and celebrating together. The painting clearly deviated from the norms of the time.
For many, this picture was proof that integration had succeeded beyond expectations. This moment defined Doby’s journey and his place in baseball history.
In a 1997 interview with the New York Times, Doby reflected on the power of photography, saying: It was probably a painting that did more for human relationships than anything else. It was a photo of two happy men. One was white and one was black. It didn’t make much difference.
This photo carries much more weight than the 1947 photo of Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese, which captured them at the height of their success.
After the 1948 Indians Championship season, Lary Doby largely settled down and enjoyed a series of All-Star seasons. Doby routinely hit 25-30 home runs while driving in 100 runs and had a batting average close to .300.
The 1948 season was also special for Doby. Because I got to share the season with my Black teammates. To fulfill Veeck’s mission of finding the best player in the Negro Leagues, the Indians signed 42-year-old pitching legend Satchel Paige.
Dobby finally had someone to share his experiences with, someone who could empathize with what he was going through, and someone who could serve as a mentor.
Even though Larry Doby’s playing career is over, that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to break barriers. Dovey became the second black manager in Major League Baseball when he succeeded Frank Robinson as captain of the Chicago White Sox in 1978.
He ended his career as Director of Communications and Outreach Coordinator for the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, where he focused on developing programs for inner-city youth in New York’s five boroughs.
Larry Dovey passed away from cancer in 2003 at the age of 79. In his later years, he became good friends with another Hall of Famer, Yogi Berra, who happened to be his neighbor.
Larry Dovey was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998, and in 2023 he received the Congressional Gold Medal for his contributions to MLB and civil rights.
Recently, a campaign was launched to honor his legacy by requiring all MLB players to wear number 14 on July 5, similar to Jackie Robinson’s number 42 on April 15.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred paid tribute to Larry Doby, saying the following about his career: “Larry Dovey forever He is remembered as a pioneer who showed great character. Courage for a lifetime. His legacy as a pioneering player and manager continues to this day, and he will always remain one of the great heroes of our people’s entertainment and for the nation to know.
