Larry Doby

Lawrence Eugene Doby walked down the Cleveland Indians' handshake line on July 5, 1947, stuck out his hand, and very few hands came back. Most of the ones that did were cold. Four teammates refused entirely. Two turned their backs. Only Joe Gordon stepped forward, asked Doby to play catch, and became his friend. Doby was the first black player in the American League, 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in Brooklyn, and he spent the next 13 seasons proving that the abuse he took was as real as Robinson's even if the recognition never matched. Doby hit 253 home runs, led the league in home runs twice, made seven consecutive All-Star teams, helped the Cleveland Indians win the 1948 World Series, hit the first home run by a black player in Series history, and became the second black manager in the major leagues in 1978. "Jackie got all the publicity for putting up with it," Doby said. "But it was the same thing I had to deal with. He was first, but the crap I took was just as bad. Nobody said, 'We're gonna be nice to the second Black.'" The Veterans Committee elected Doby to the Hall of Fame in 1998.

Camden

Doby was born on December 13, 1923, in Camden, South Carolina. His father David, a stable hand who played semipro ball, drowned in a boating accident when Larry was eight, and the boy spent several years living with relatives before reuniting with his mother in Paterson, New Jersey. At Paterson Eastside High School, one of roughly 25 black students, he earned 11 varsity letters in four sports. When the football team was invited to play in Florida and promoters refused to let Doby, the only black player, participate, the entire team voted to forfeit the trip.

Doby signed with the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League at 17 for $300, playing under the alias "Larry Walker" to protect his amateur eligibility. He served in the Navy from 1943 through early 1946, stationed at a segregated camp near Chicago, then on bases in San Francisco, Ogden, San Diego, and the Pacific atoll of Ulithi, where he heard on Armed Forces Radio that Robinson signed with Montreal. Doby returned to the Eagles in 1946 and helped them defeat Satchel Paige's Kansas City Monarchs in seven games for the Negro World Series championship, batting over .300. In 1947, when Bill Veeck came calling, Doby was hitting .415 with 14 home runs for Newark.

July 5

Veeck paid Effa Manley $15,000 for Doby's contract and brought him straight to the majors with no minor league preparation. Unlike Branch Rickey's careful integration of Robinson (minor league season first, handpicked city, elaborate support system), Veeck threw Doby into the deep end. Doby played second base and shortstop for the Eagles but was blocked at both positions in Cleveland by Lou Boudreau and Joe Gordon, forcing a conversion to center field he learned on the job. He hit .156 in 29 games that first season.

In 1948, with outfield instruction from Tris Speaker and Hank Greenberg, Doby batted .301 with 14 home runs and helped the Indians win 97 games and the pennant. In Game 4 of the World Series against the Boston Braves, Doby hit a solo home run off Johnny Sain in the third inning, the first home run by a black player in Series history. After the game, Doby and winning pitcher Steve Gromek embraced in a photograph that ran on the Cleveland Plain Dealer's front page and became one of baseball's defining integration images. "The picture was more rewarding and happy for me than actually hitting the home run," Doby said. "It finally showed a moment of a man showing his feelings for me."

Doby led the American League in home runs in 1952 (32) and 1954 (32), drove in 126 runs in 1954 to lead the league, finished second in MVP voting behind Yogi Berra, and hit a pinch-hit homer in the 1954 All-Star Game, the first by a black player in the Midsummer Classic. He endured segregated hotels throughout his career, received death threats, and was spat on by an opposing shortstop while sliding into second. "I had to take it," Doby said, "but I fought back by hitting the ball as far as I could. That was my answer."

Montclair

Doby played for the White Sox, returned briefly to Cleveland, and finished his career with Detroit and a season in Japan with the Chunichi Dragons. Bill Veeck hired him as a coach, and on June 30, 1978, Veeck named Doby manager of the White Sox, making him the second black manager in major league history after Frank Robinson. He went 37-50 and was not retained. "I can't truly say what kind of manager I was or could've been because I didn't have enough time," Doby said.

Al Rosen, Doby's teammate in Cleveland, argued that Doby's circumstances were harder than Robinson's. "Jackie was a college educated man who had been an officer in the service and who played at the Triple-A level. Larry Doby came up as a second baseman who didn't have time to get his full college education, and was forced to play a different position in his first major league season. I think, because of those circumstances, he had a more difficult time than Jackie Robinson." The New York Times agreed. "In glorifying those who are first, the second is often forgotten. Larry Doby integrated all those American League ball parks where Jackie Robinson never appeared. And he did it with class and clout."

At the 1997 ceremony retiring Doby's number 14 in Cleveland, Hank Aaron told him, "I want to thank you for all that you went through, because if it had not been for you, I wouldn't have been able to have the career that I had." Doby's wife Helyn died in 2001 after 55 years of marriage. Doby died of cancer on June 18, 2003, in Montclair, New Jersey, at 79. "I was never bitter," he said, "because I believed in the man upstairs. I continue to do my best. I let someone else be bitter."