Opening Day

by Jonathan Eig

  The Dodgers still hadn’t played a game outside New York City. A week before the team left on its first road trip, Rickey answered a call from Herb Pennock, the former Yankee pitcher now running the Philadelphia Phillies. Pennock, referred to by the scribblers as the Squire of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, was fifty-three years old, tall, silver-haired, and dignified, though not exactly enlightened. The Dodgers’ traveling secretary, Harold Parrott, walked into the room during the conversation, and Rickey motioned for him to pick up another extension. “. . . just can’t bring the Nigger here with the rest of your team,” Parrott heard Pennock say. “We’re just not ready for that sort of thing yet. We won’t be able to take the field against your Brooklyn team if that boy Robinson is in uniform.”

  It’s not clear who wasn’t ready. Did Pennock mean the fans, the players, manager Ben Chapman, or all of the above? Rickey didn’t care. “Very well, Herbert,” the Dodger president said. “And if we must claim the game nine to nothing, we will do just that, I assure you.” Nine to nothing was the official score of a forfeited game.

  Commissioner Chandler had already been on the phone to Chapman and others in the Phillies organization warning them that he did not want to see a repetition of the brutish behavior displayed in Brooklyn. Chapman promised to obey and issued a statement in defense of Robinson’s right to play ball. “Jackie has been accepted in baseball, and we of the Philadelphia organization have no objection to his playing, and we wish him all the luck we can,” he said. “Baseball is a national game, and there are no nationalities, creeds nor races involved. Jackie Robinson is an American.”

  All that proved, however, was that Chapman wasn’t stupid enough to defy the commissioner’s order. Across baseball, there were still plenty of players hoping to see Robinson driven out of baseball. Some of them were racists. Some of them feared losing their jobs to black athletes. Among owners, some were angry because they feared they’d been fleeced again by Branch Rickey, who had already signed some of the best black talent in the country. Despite Chandler’s warnings, Chapman’s praise, and Rickey’s confidence, there remained a strong feeling among the writers covering the Dodgers that Robinson remained in a precarious spot, especially as long as he wasn’t hitting.

  Stanley Woodward’s story on the Cardinals had all the baseball world talking, and in some clubhouses news of the quashed uprising seemed to rally southern players who remained uncomfortable with integration. Some books and articles written years after the event have suggested that Dixie Walker engaged in a letter-writing campaign to stir dissension throughout the National League and promote a league-wide strike. The letters were never mentioned in press reports from the 1947 season, however, and Robinson never referred to them in any of his subsequent books or speeches. Nor has a copy of any such document ever surfaced. Nevertheless, decades later, several players around the league would insist they heard talk or saw evidence of a plot.

  Freddy Schmidt, a pitcher with the Phillies, insisted he saw a letter being passed around the clubhouse. Fifty-nine years after the fact, though, he refused to name its author, not wanting to smudge anyone’s reputation. Schmidt grew up playing with black kids in his hometown of Hartford, Connecticut, and had seen Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige play in Negro-league games. He knew the “colored boys,” as he called them, could play, and believed they ought to have every chance to compete. “They were Americans,” he said. “It was a shame they were held back.” But when the letter came around, he decided not to speak up in Robinson’s defense. He was thirty-one, just traded from the Cardinals, and clinging to his roster spot by a shoelace. He regretted his inaction for the rest of his life.

  Hank Wyse, a pitcher for the Cubs, told the writer David Falkner that a letter from someone on another club—again, no name—prompted his teammates to meet before their first game at Ebbets Field. “We voted not to play,” Wyse said. “I’m not sure, but I think the vote was unanimous.” Other Cubs insisted they heard nothing of a letter, meeting, or vote. When the Cubs and Dodgers played, there were no signs of trouble.

  • • •

  The baseball season was only a month old, but it was already shaping up to be a messy one. In the National League, Robinson created the most confusion, but there were plenty of other strange occurrences. The Cardinals kept losing, dropping thirteen of their first eighteen, leaving them deep in last place. The order of the universe was similarly disturbed in the American League. The Red Sox, led by “Boo” Ferris on the mound and Ted Williams on the field, were favorites yet again, with the Yankees posing their only real challenge. But Williams, a left-handed pull hitter, was having trouble adjusting to the defensive shifts applied by opposing teams. “Well, that’s the end of Williams—he can’t hit to left field,” proclaimed the former big-league slugger Al Simmons. That wasn’t Boston’s only problem. The team lacked depth on the bench and in the bullpen. They were not strong on defense, and in particular suffered the absence of a strong shortstop. Most of all, though, they lacked leadership. Bobby Doerr was too mild-mannered. Johnny Pesky was tough, but not tough enough to change the character of the team. Williams set the tone in the clubhouse, and Williams worried only about Williams.

  The Yankees were entirely different. They had a strong bench. They played solid defense, especially at shortstop, where the nifty Phil Rizzuto roamed. They had a promising young catcher named Yogi Berra, who looked awkward, especially on defense, but hit the ball a mile and entertained the older players with his silliness. And, of paramount importance, they had Joe DiMaggio. DiMaggio hit about as well as Williams, but he also did two big things Williams didn’t: He played brilliant defense, and he inspired his teammates to play up to his high standards. Like the Red Sox and the Cards, the Yanks started sluggishly. Rizzuto wasn’t hitting much, and the slugger Charlie Keller was hitting even less. Berra showed flashes of brilliance but had yet to prove that he could be trusted to handle the team’s pitchers. DiMaggio, recovering from a heel injury that had threatened to end his career, came back sooner than expected and seemed slower by several steps than he had in his prime. The Yankees had a lot of young talent, especially on the pitching staff, but it was not yet clear if the talent would mature quickly enough. Detroit and Cleveland looked strong in the early going, but it remained to be seen if they were legitimate contenders.

  In each league, there was a sense that the pennant was up for grabs. With so much apparent parity, the first team that got hot and built a strong lead would have a chance to grab the title. It was an exciting time. Every game counted. The fans loved it.

  • • •

  In Philadelphia, the Dodgers stepped off the train and onto a bus for the short drive to the Benjamin Franklin Hotel, where they would enjoy a few hours of rest before getting back on the bus to go to Shibe Park. Though the team had been staying in the same hotel for years, though their block of rooms had been reserved for weeks, and though it was certainly known that the team now included a black player, this time they were turned away before they could unload their bags. “And don’t bring your team back here while you have any Nigras with you!” they were told, according to Parrott, the traveling secretary. Thirty years later, when writing his memoirs, Parrott recalled that he sent the players to the ballpark while he began looking for another hotel. But memory has a way of emboldening men, and Parrott was no exception. The truth is that he let the rest of the team check into the Ben Franklin and helped Robinson find a room at an all-black hotel called the Attucks.

  Somehow, in the middle of this mess of a morning, another story surfaced: New York City police were investigating death threats received by Robinson. Commissioner Arthur Wallander had assigned a secret squad of investigators to find the authors, according to the Daily News, which didn’t reveal the precise language of the so-called “get-out-of-baseball-or-else” letters.

  Rickey confirmed the reports. “At least two letters of a nature that I felt called for investigation were received by Robinson,” he said. “These letters proved to be p
ractically anonymous. Investigation showed the names signed to them were of persons not living at the addresses given. I think the whole matter can be called ended now.” Robinson said that a police investigator had come to his house that morning, before the team had left for Philadelphia. He said he told the officer that he had turned over all the threatening letters to the Dodgers. Beyond that, he had little to tell the reporters preparing their stories that afternoon. A few days later, in his column for the Pittsburgh Courier, written with the help of Wendell Smith, Robinson downplayed the threats, saying, “The police wanted to know about some threatening letters I have received. I admit that I’ve received some, but by the way they were written I would say they were from scatter-brained people who just want something to yelp about.” Neither Robinson nor Smith ever described their journalistic collaboration, so there’s no telling whether the words came entirely from one man or the other, although most athletes who hired ghostwriters at the time had little to do with the finished product.

  The police believed the letters serious enough to warrant investigation. But the interesting question is why they surfaced at just that moment. Reporters had been hearing rumors of threatening letters since Opening Day. They’d noticed on several occasions that Robinson had left Ebbets Field with police escorts, which he said had been provided to ease the crush of autograph seekers. Yet they’d never mentioned it in their columns. What happened on May 9 to change that?

  Rickey had noted the powerful response to Ben Chapman’s racist outburst. Fans, editorial writers, and even the crusty Eddie Stanky had rallied to Robinson’s defense. Letters of support poured in from around the country. And the response to the Cardinals’ reported planned protest had been even more powerful. No one tried to argue that the Cards were within their rights. With that in mind, Rickey decided to publicize the threatening letters. If he could show the world that Robinson was suffering, he believed, support for his great cause would grow. He was setting up Robinson as a Christlike figure, a humble man capable of turning his cheek no matter how fierce the assault, a man willing to suffer and perhaps even die for the cause. There’s no evidence to suggest that he conferred with Robinson in making his decision. If he did, Rachel knew nothing about it. The success of the plan depended on Robinson’s ability to shoulder the growing burden. Rickey accepted on faith that the ballplayer would cope.

  “Mr. Rickey thought it would get Jackie and the Dodgers some sympathy,” Buzzie Bavasi, one of Rickey’s top executives that season, recalled in a recent interview. Rickey gave the story first to the Daily News. Then he started calling more reporters. The letters, never traced and neither seen nor quoted by the media, made news all over the country. Robinson’s celebrity grew. He was portrayed as a victim of cowardly racists, and, more important, as a proud man who refused to back down. He did not hide in the dugout. He took the field and played ball.

  By now, even players with no special hostility toward Robinson were getting nervous about whether they would be perceived as racist if they tangled with him. “Some of the fellows may be riding Jackie,” one unnamed player told The Sporting News, “but an even greater number are going out of their way to avoid him. They just don’t want to be involved in a close play where Jackie might be accidentally spiked or knocked around. . . . I don’t want to be the first fellow to be involved in a collision with him—no matter how accidental or unavoidable. Jackie wouldn’t squawk, but I think some of his fans would, and they’d probably boo me all around the circuit.”

  Chapman knew what it was like to get on the bad side of Robinson’s fans. Now he had promised to be on his best behavior, but as Freddy Schmidt recalled, the manager had not changed his mind about Robinson. As the Dodgers and Phillies prepared to play a night game, Chapman told his players he was worried about a race riot at the ballpark. It was a Friday night, and the stands were filling up fast, with a lot more black faces than usual in the mix. He warned the men not to walk out of the park by themselves after the game but to make sure they had an escort. An hour before the game, Chapman sent word to the Dodger clubhouse that he wanted to pose for a picture with Robinson, and not in the depths of the locker room but on the dugout steps, where everyone could see. Perhaps it was conciliation, perhaps it was stagecraft. Schmidt said he thought Chapman did it to keep the crowd from exploding. In any case, Robinson agreed to take part in the stunt. Chapman grabbed a bat by the handle and Robinson held its barrel as the men posed.

  While the photographers snapped away, Schmidt said he heard his manager murmur loud enough for Robinson and just a few others to hear: “Jackie, you know, you’re a good ballplayer, but you’re still a nigger to me.”

  Yet Robinson said that week in his Courier column that he didn’t mind the handshake. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it more than Chapman did. “I was glad to cooperate,” he wrote. “Chapman impressed me as a nice fellow and I don’t really think he meant the things he was shouting at me the first time we played Philadelphia.” If Chapman did in fact call Robinson a nigger during their photo opportunity, Robinson must have decided to let it pass, or perhaps it secretly pleased him to have gotten so deeply under an opponent’s skin. As is so often the case where Robinson’s rookie year is concerned, fact and legend intertwine. Were watermelon pieces thrown at Robinson in Philadelphia? Was a black cat set loose on the field? These legends have been reported as fact, and some claim to have witnessed such things, but there is no reporting to back up the reports, at least not in 1947.

  One thing is certain: They played ball that day, though the Dodgers might have wished they hadn’t. Robinson managed two hits, scored two runs, and started a nifty double play on a popped bunt, but the Dodgers lost their third straight and fell into third place, a game behind the Braves and Cubs. The Phillies did not completely abandon their attacks on Robinson, but the assault was milder than it had been in Brooklyn.

  After the game, Rickey made one more move to solidify support for Robinson: He sold Howie Schultz, the backup first baseman, to Herb Pennock of the Phillies for fifty thousand dollars. (Schultz became the regular first baseman in Philadelphia and established himself over the course of the season as among the worst in the league, hitting .223, with only six home runs and thirty-five runs batted in.) So at the same time that Rickey was subjecting Robinson to one of his most difficult trials, letting the whole world know of the racist squall his player faced, he was also giving him a sturdy tree to cling to until the storm passed. As of May 9, Robinson was the only first baseman on the Dodger roster, and on May 10 Rickey announced that he was no longer pursuing a trade for Johnny Mize.

  In the New York Post, Leonard Cohen said he was glad to see Robinson getting the chance to establish himself. “But if the Dodgers should start losing and Robbie still looks ineffective at the plate, no one would accuse the Dodger management of unfair treatment if Robbie were benched. That’s been the plea of all fair-minded sports fans: Let the chap rise or fall on his merits as a ballplayer.”

  The Dodgers dropped two out of the next three in Philadelphia. Robinson got three hits, all singles, in eleven times at bat. He had hits now in eight straight games, but he was hardly tearing the cover off the ball. His average was a so-so .257. He had but one home run, two doubles, and no triples. Despite his terrific speed and daring style, he had stolen only one base. Yet public opinion was beginning to turn his way, so much so that the Dodger business office began handling the enormous task of responding to his fan mail. As Rickey suspected, men and women around the country were reading about the attacks on Robinson and sympathizing. Their letters arrived at Ebbets Field by the hundreds.

  From a machinist in New Jersey:

  I know what you are going thru [sic] because I went through the same thing in a much smaller way. I was the 1st Negro machinist in a big shop during the war (about 400 men). They did all the little dirty underhanded things to me that they must be doing to you. I came out alright after a while because I developed a thick skin. . . . I couldn’t fight back because my side never
would have been considered in a show down. My work had to be better than the other guy’s but I had to see that there wasn’t to [sic] much attention drawn to any of my better work I did because I knew I’d never make any friends if they envied me or thought I was a show off. I’m writing this for two reasons. One, is to let you know that there are plenty of people, black and white rooting for you that aren’t the type that will hurt you by yelling their heads off every time you catch a simple pop fly. The other reason is I know how much guts it takes to go out on that field and play the kind of ball you’re playing under such pressure. There are plenty of people who would have been in a fright long before now. If your batting average never gets any higher than .100 and if you make an error every inning, if I can raise my boy to be half the man that you are, I’ll be a happy father.

  From Richmond, Virginia:

  I happen to be a white Southerner. But I just wanted you to know that not all us southerners are S.O.B.’s. Here’s one that is rooting for you to make good. . . . Judging from what I’ve read in the papers you have had a particularly hard road to travel. . . . I know that very few of us whites can understand the terrific pressure put on you—but I know, at least, that you are doing every bit as good a job for your race as a Booker T. Washington, a George Washington Carver, or a Marian Anderson. I should also say that you’re doing a darned fine job for all Americans. Stick to it, kid, don’t worry. You’ve got a lot more friends in this country of ours than enemies. The main thing to remember is that it’s the unthinking few who generally make the biggest noise. Unfortunately, too many of us are apt to say nothing when a man’s doing a swell job. I hope you get a lot more letters like this. You’re carrying a terrific load on your shoulders. And I, for one, think you’re man enough to shoulder it! Keep plugging, Jackie!

  From a bellboy in Kansas: