Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography

by Long, Michael G.

  and played sports.10

  Rickey was a catcher on the baseball team and a fullback on the

  football team. Charles “Tommy” Thomas also played baseball and

  football. Rickey had no contact with blacks in Scioto County and yet immediately befriended Thomas. Thomas said he faced little outward

  prejudice from classmates and teammates—in part, he added, because

  of Rickey. “From the first day I entered Ohio Wesleyan, Branch Rickey took special interest in my welfare,” Thomas said.11

  After his sophomore year, Rickey played semiprofessional baseball

  during the summer. When school officials learned this, they asked

  Rickey if it was true. Rickey admitted it was. This made him ineli-

  gible to play intercollegiate athletics. The Ohio Wesleyan president, impressed by Rickey’s honesty, hired him to be the school’s baseball coach.12 Rickey had no better player than Thomas, who played catcher, first base, and outfield. Thomas, who was the only black player on the team, was apparently treated well by his teammates and students. But he often faced hostility from opposing teams and their fans.

  When Ohio Wesleyan played the University of Kentucky at

  Lexington during the spring of 1903, some of the Kentucky players

  and fans began chanting, “Get that nigger off the field!” Rickey, who was then twenty-one, reportedly ran across the field to the Kentucky dugout and shouted at the opposing coach, “We won’t play without

  him!” When it appeared that there might not be a game, some of the

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  spectators began cheering, “We want Thomas! We want Thomas!” The

  game was then played without incident.13

  During a road trip to the University of Notre Dame that spring,

  something happened that left a burning impression in Rickey’s con-

  sciousness. All the Ohio Wesleyan players got in line to register at a hotel’s front desk. When it was Thomas’s turn, the clerk pulled the reg-istration book away. “We do not register Negroes here,” he snapped.

  Rickey told the clerk that the team was the guest of the University of Notre Dame and that Thomas was the best player on the team. The

  clerk did not budge.

  Rickey asked to see the hotel manager. While he waited, he sent his

  equipment manager to find another housing option for Thomas. “I

  later realized that in many cases a Negro could stay in a white hotel if he were a servant traveling with a white man,” Rickey said, “and that so long as this relationship of master and servant was obvious, then it was perfectly all right with whites who otherwise would object to a Negro’s staying in the hotel.”14

  Rickey asked the hotel manager if Thomas could sleep on a cot in

  his room. The manager agreed. Once in the room, Rickey saw Thomas

  rubbing his skin, tearfully saying, “Black skin. Black skin. If only I could make them white.”15

  Lowenfish said that while Rickey knew little of racial discrimination himself, he “instinctively empathized with Thomas’s pain of rejection.”

  Rickey tried to console Thomas by telling him that there would be a

  time when there would be racial equality. He gave Thomas a pep talk.

  “Come on, Tommy, snap out of it! We’ll lick this one day,” he said.

  “But we can’t if you feel sorry for yourself.”16

  When Rickey signed Robinson in 1945, he told the Associated Press

  he had given a lot of thought to racial discrimination since his days coaching baseball at Ohio Wesleyan.17 Rickey said the incident made a powerful impression on him. But he rarely, if ever, mentioned Thomas to reporters in the four decades since witnessing the ballplayer trying to rub off his black skin.

  Rickey recounted the Thomas story often in the days, months,

  and years after he signed Robinson. Writer Mark Harris, who later

  wrote the baseball novels The Southpaw and Bang the Drum Slowly, included the Thomas anecdote in a story he wrote about Rickey and

  Robinson in September 1947.18 Arthur Mann, a former sportswriter

  who later worked for Rickey, quoted the baseball executive, who,

  remembering the 1903 incident, said, “I never felt so helpless in my

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  55

  life.”19 In his biography of Rickey, David Lipman added the follow-

  ing detail after Rickey saw Thomas crying. “What if they won’t let me play?” a tearful Thomas said. “They’ll either let you play or we all go home,” Rickey replied.20

  In 1968, A. S. “Doc” Young wrote in Ebony magazine that Rickey said he was profoundly moved by the racism he saw directed against

  Thomas. “From Charlie Thomas,” Young said, “Rickey learned about

  the terrible degradation of racial prejudice, and that one’s race, or color of skin, had nothing whatsoever to do with one’s ability.”21 In his biography of Jackie Robinson, Arnold Rampersad said the Thomas account

  was comparable to a story from the life of Abraham Lincoln. “The story begged comparison to another, lodged in American lore,” Rampersad

  said, “about Abe Lincoln going down the Mississippi and seeing slav-

  ery, and vowing to see it end one day. Indeed, a portrait of Lincoln hung in Rickey’s office.”22

  Jules Tygiel, author of Baseball’s Great Experiment, which exam-ines the integration of baseball, doubted the role the Thomas incident supposedly had in Rickey’s decision to sign Robinson. “The Charlie

  Thomas story, though based in fact, is vintage Rickey,” Tygiel wrote.

  “The allegory is almost biblical and the sermonlike quality of the tale invites skepticism. Many people place little stock in the episode as the primary rationale for his actions. Even if one accepts the Charlie Thomas story at face value, it does not fully explain why the Dodger president chose to challenge the color barrier four decades later.”23

  Did Rickey embellish the Thomas story to provide a spiritual context to explain why he signed Robinson when he had previously remained

  silent about the color line? Lowenfish said that Rickey’s interest in integrating the national pastime was sincere. While Rickey may have

  exaggerated the details for dramatic effect, “there is no doubt that the incident occurred,” Lowenfish said, and Charlie Thomas confirmed

  the story.24

  Rickey graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 1904, but he remained

  in touch with Thomas for the rest of his life. The friendship between a prominent white man who spent much of his adult life in St. Louis and Brooklyn, and a black man who spent much of his adult life working as a dentist in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was rare, if not remarkable, given the racial climate of the first half of the century. While living in New Mexico, Thomas traveled to St. Louis and saw Rickey on occasion. He

  remembered visiting Rickey and hoping to see a Cardinals game, but

  the two were unable to sit together in the segregated stadium. “I called

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  Rickey and he invited me down to his office at Sportsman’s Park. We

  talked about old times, but we didn’t go to the ball game together that afternoon. You see, Negroes weren’t permitted in the lower grandstand at the time. Rick said, ‘Tommy, some day, we’ll have that changed.’ ”25

  When Rickey signed Robinson, the breaking of baseball’s color bar-

  rier was a personal, spiritual, and business decision. Rickey’s friendship with Thomas might have shaped the baseball executive’s belief that

  blacks should have the same opportunities as whites. And, as with just about everything in Rickey’s life, he felt that God’s hand also was present. Several months after signing Robinson, Rickey told Life magazine writer Tim Cohane, “I cannot face my God much longer knowing that

  His black creatures are held separate and dist
inct from His white creatures in the game that has given me all I can call my own.”26

  As for the business side, Rickey was a Christian, but he also

  was a competitor and a capitalist. He wanted to win the National

  League pennant, and he thought Robinson could help him do so.

  If the Dodgers succeeded on the field, this meant an increase in

  attendance at Ebbets Field, and as team president, Rickey stood to

  profit. Cohane wrote that if Brooklyn won the pennant, it would

  satisfy the spiritual man in Rickey almost as much as the clicking

  turnstiles would satisfy the businessman in him.27 Rickey’s faith and life were so intertwined that it is impossible to see where one ended and the other began. Rickey believed that God guided the details of

  his life, not only the signing of Robinson, but also having the parents he had, attending Ohio Wesleyan, and even the hymn-singing in his

  Methodist church. One of his favorite hymns included a message of

  radical inclusion:

  There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,

  Like the wideness of the sea;

  There’s a kindness in His justice,

  Which is more than liberty.28

  Upon graduation from Ohio Wesleyan in 1904, Rickey played pro-

  fessional baseball in Dallas, where he played well enough to be signed by a major-league team, the Cincinnati Reds. After one game he gave

  his chest protector to another catcher and said that he would not be playing the next day—a Sunday. The team’s manager, Joe Kelley, over-heard the exchange and told Rickey that if he did not play the next

  day, he would be dropped from the team. Unmoved, Rickey drove a

  hundred miles to Lucasville to attend church with his family.

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  57

  When Rickey returned to Cincinnati the next day, he went to the

  office of the team’s owner to argue the case of why he should not

  be released. Owner Garry Herrmann told Rickey to return to the

  team. Kelley, however, refused to play him and Herrmann did not

  intervene. The Reds, wanting a catcher who could play every game,

  released Rickey.29

  Rickey’s refusal to play baseball on Sunday made him a curiosity.

  A reporter asked him what he thought about mixing baseball and reli-

  gion. “Why shouldn’t they mix well? I try to be both a consistent ballplayer and a consistent Christian. If I fail, it isn’t the fault of the game or the religion, is it?”30

  In the fall of 1904, Rickey found a job at Allegheny College in

  Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he taught English and history courses, coached the football and baseball teams, and lectured regularly at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA).31 Throughout his life,

  Rickey was called on to give speeches and to contribute to fund-raising campaigns at local and national YMCA events.32 “Years of working

  with young men has taught me the fundamental need of the YMCA,

  Boy Scouts, and other young agencies,” Rickey once wrote in a tele-

  gram on behalf of the YMCA.33

  In early 1905, Rickey signed a contract with Chicago White Sox

  owner Charles Comiskey, who, according to Rickey, agreed that he

  did not have to play on Sundays. If Comiskey did agree, he changed

  his mind; he traded Rickey to another major-league team, the St.

  Louis Browns.34

  When Rickey went to spring training with the Browns in 1906, he

  was engaged to Jane Moulton, whom he had met in Lucasville. On

  June 1, the couple was married during an off day.

  The St. Louis Browns, like the Cincinnati Reds before them,

  wanted a catcher who could play every day. They traded Rickey to

  the New York Highlanders, who later changed their name to the Yan-

  kees. Rickey began the 1907 season with a sore throwing arm. The

  Washington Senators took full advantage of the injured catcher and

  set a major-league record by stealing twelve bases in a game. It became clear to the Highlanders, and probably to Rickey, that he lacked the ability—even with a healthy throwing arm—to be a catcher in the

  major leagues.

  When the 1907 season ended, so did Rickey’s major-league playing

  career. He returned to Ohio Wesleyan, where he coached football, basketball, and baseball, served as athletic director, took night law classes at

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  nearby Ohio State University, and taught Sunday Bible school classes.

  When spring came, he became involved in Republican Party politics,

  supporting William Howard Taft, a fellow Ohioan, for president. He

  also campaigned on behalf of the Anti-Saloon League, which wanted

  local governments to be able to restrict or prohibit the selling or drinking of alcohol.

  The seemingly indefatigable Rickey, however, began to feel the strain of trying to be everywhere and do everything. He was diagnosed with

  tuberculosis, an often-fatal disease known as consumption because of how the disease consumed the lungs and then spread throughout the

  body. When the 1909 school year ended, Rickey went to a sanatorium

  in the Adirondack Mountains to rest and recover. Jane accompanied

  him. He learned that the illness had not spread beyond his lungs. But to recover, he needed to have total rest for several weeks and sleep outside to breathe in as much fresh air as possible.

  By late summer he received news that he had been accepted into the

  University of Michigan’s law school. Rickey became aware that there

  was a price to be paid for working too hard, and once law school began, he slowed down the pace of his life, though hardly enough for anyone to tell the difference. While taking twenty hours a semester, he also coached the baseball team. Rickey understood he could not continue

  working so hard without risking a relapse of tuberculosis. During the following summer, Branch and Jane went west to relax in the fresh air of the Rocky Mountains. He received his law degree in June 1911, and the Rickeys spent the summer in the Rockies, as they would again in

  1912.

  While in Idaho, Rickey was contacted by the St. Louis Browns, who

  asked him to serve as the team’s business manager. The Rickeys moved to St. Louis and joined Grace Methodist Church. Rickey contributed

  so much time and money that a fellowship hall was eventually named

  for him. “You have played such a big part in the life of this church through the years,” the Rev. Wesley Hager told Rickey. “You are so

  greatly beloved by this congregation, and you have made such a large contribution to a Christian Society through your leadership in the

  world of organized baseball.”35

  Rickey stayed in St. Louis for the next three decades. He started in the Browns’ front office and then became the team’s manager—except

  on Sundays, when he was replaced by Jimmy Austin. Rickey earned

  more distinction for his refusal to work on Sundays than for the team’s success on the field.

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  59

  The Sporting News published the following ditty poking fun at him: Branch Rickey is a funny cuss,

  Though cussin he forbids;

  His rules have started quite a fuss

  Among his Brownie kids.

  When Sunday comes, he leaves his team

  Completely in the lurch,

  And Jimmy Austin rules supreme

  While Branch bikes off to church.36

  In 1919 Rickey moved across town to the St. Louis Cardinals,

  where, as general manager, he established the franchise as the best in the National League. He did so by creating baseball’s farm system, or minor leagues,
by signing scores of promising ballplayers and putting them on teams in the St. Louis organization, thus keeping them from

  signing with another team. Rickey made a percentage of profits from

  selling players to other organizations.37

  Rickey was criticized for the low salaries he paid players and for

  running a farm system—or “chain gang,” as it was derisively called—

  that kept players under his control. His critics, including baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, criticized Rickey for preaching

  the virtues of Christianity but acting like a tightfisted tyrant. Landis described Rickey as a “hypocritical Protestant bastard wrapped in those minister’s robes.”38

  But others, like Jackie Robinson, found only sincerity and inspira-

  tion in Rickey’s proclamations of faith. “Others have insinuated that he is not sincere because he speaks so frequently and so fabulously about the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men,” Robinson said

  years later. “That is the way of human beings who are too small to

  speak, live and think big. They laugh and sneer at others who are not ashamed of having faith.”39

  To Robinson, Rickey’s faith was like his mother Mallie’s. Robin-

  son said that their examples strengthened his own sense of faith. “As I said before, I am not one of the big people in terms of faith,” he said.

  “But I would have to be pretty stupid, very unintelligent and, certainly, ungrateful not to have some of the faith of my mother and Mr. Rickey rub off on me.”40

  In early February 1938, Rickey was invited to be one of several

  hundred delegates at a Methodist conference that coincided with the

  200th anniversary of John Wesley’s “strange warming of the heart”

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  experience on Aldersgate Street in London. Rickey played a significant role in the conference by contributing to the writing of a document

  that called on America’s youth to prepare to fight the spread of German totalitarianism in Europe. “To do this,” the document said, “we

  must develop spiritual techniques for tapping sources of power.” This, he said, included Bible readings, fellowship groups, and the regular practice of spirituality.41 The thousand or so attendees included Karl Downs, the young minister of Scott Methodist Church in Pasadena.