Rickey and Robinson

by Harvey Frommer

  Robinson had endured the hostility of that other country that was the American South. He had endured it and prevailed. As the Royals moved north, trouble ahead came daily. In Deland, Florida, a scheduled game between Montreal and Indianapolis was held up for almost an hour. It was claimed that electricians were at work repairing lights, even though the scheduled game was a day game. In Jacksonville, a city official padlocked the ballpark, canceling a game between the Jersey City Giants and the Montreal Royals. He claimed that public property could not be used for mixed racial competition. In Richmond and Savannah, too, games were canceled.

  “I didn’t realize it was going to be this bad,” said Rickey. “Next year we11 have to train out of the country.” Despite all the hardships, Robinson’s play delighted the Mahatma. He admired the attitude, the aggressiveness, and the talent of this proud black man. To avoid confrontations over segregation, Rickey arranged lodging in private homes for Robinson and John Wright, also on the Montreal roster.

  Jersey City was not Richmond or Savannah. The seating capacity for Roosevelt Stadium was twenty-five thousand, but on this dramatic day it was standing room only. Mayor Frank Hague, who was scheduled to throw out the first ball, declared the day a half-holiday. Many New Yorkers made their own holiday, taking the day off and traveling through the Hudson Tubes to witness Robinson’s debut. Two bands, a tumbling acrobat, and hundreds of reporters and photographers added to the already electric atmosphere.

  When Robinson made his first appearance on the field, the integrated crowd stood up and cheered. He played second base and batted second in the Royal lineup as Montreal blitzed Jersey City, 14-1. Robinson rapped out four hits in five trips to the plate, with three singles and a 335-foot homer. He scored four runs, and batted in four runs. He stole two bases. His dancing, taunting leads flustered Jersey City pitchers into committing two balks. When the game ended, it took the delighted rookie more than five minutes to reach the comparative safety of the dressing room. Squealing, adoring fans mobbed his path. Even Montreal manager Clay Hopper was delighted. Hopper, who hailed from Mississippi, had protested the assignment of Robinson to Montreal, and had once asked in all seriousness, “Mister Rickey, tell me—do you really think a nigra’s a human being?”

  In the Montreal clubhouse, a reporter asked Robinson to evaluate his situation. “Mr. Rickey has tried to foresee all the difficulties I would encounter.” The voice was low but direct. “I have tried to follow his advice. I can thank Mr. Rickey that I am playing in the International League. I will give it all I have.”

  With Robinson on the scene, almost a million fans came out to see the Montreal Royals in 1946, setting a new minorleague record. Some Baltimore players objected to Jackie’s presence and made it clear that they would not play against Montreal. International League president Frank Shaughnessy sent them a telegram: “If you don’t take the field . . . you will be suspended from baseball for the rest of your life.” They took the field.

  No minor-league ballplayer has ever attracted the kind of national attention that was focused on Jackie Robinson. Wendell Smith, sports editor of the Pittsburgh Courier, traveled along with Jackie. “Wendell’s reports and stories,” notes Mal Goode, “added one hundred thousand a week to the paper’s circulation.” Special charter trains came from Chicago to see Robinson perform with his Montreal teammates at Buffalo. Mter virtually every game, swarms of kids and their parents begged for autographs.

  “We had rented a home in the French Canadian sector,” recalls Rachel Robinson. “We were stared at on the street. We had very little privacy. Those kids were always trailing after us; they became an adoring retinue.” John Wright, the black pitcher who was placed on the Montreal roster by Rickey, lasted only until May, when he was demoted to Three Rivers, Quebec, in Class C ball. Pitcher Roy Partlow replaced Wright on the Montreal roster in May, but he didn’t last either and was also sent down to play at Three Rivers.

  “John Wright,” Robinson observed, “had all the talent in the world as far as physical abilities were concerned. But John couldn’t stand the pressure of going up into this new league and being one of the first. The things that went on up there were too much for him, and John was not able to perform up to his capabilities.

  “In a number of cities,” Robinson later said of that first season with Montreal, “we had very little pressure. But there was always that little bit coming out. It wasn’t so much based on race. But because John was the first pitcher, every time he stepped out there he seemed to lose that fineness, and he tried a little bit too hard. He tried to do more than he was actually able to do, and it caused him to be less of a pitcher than he really was. If he had come in two or three years later when the pressure was off, John could have made it in the major leagues.” At the end of the 1946 season, Wright was released by the Dodger organization and went back to play with the Homestead Grays.

  Robinson at one point nearly gave in to the pressures that ruined the chances of Partlow and Wright. Montreal won the International League pennant, but near the end of the season Robinson’s reserve wore out. “My nerves were pretty ragged,” he recalled. “I couldn’t sleep, and often I couldn’t eat. I guess I hadn’t realized I wanted to make good so badly. I sort of went to pieces.” At Rachel’s urging, he went to see a doctor, who was concerned that Robinson might have a nervous breakdown. The doctor advised a brief rest. The rest was for one day. Robinson was concerned that if he won the batting title, people would claim he stayed out to protect his average.

  He came back to lead Montreal against Louisville in the Little World Series. The Royals dropped two of the first three games to Louisville in Louisville. The Montreal fans were upset by the harsh treatment Robinson had received in Louisville, a border city, and Montreal sportswriters reported the abuse and racial epithets heaped on Robinson by Louisville players and fans. “Hey, nigger, go on back to Montreal where you belong,” one fan had screamed. “Get out of here, nigger,” another shouted, “and take your coon fans along.”

  The Royals swept three games in Montreal to win the Little World Series. The Royals’ fans defended their beloved Jackie Robinson by booing and taunting every Louisville player. After the final out that clinched the Royal triumph, Montreal fans surged onto the playing field and mobbed Robinson. They lifted him onto their shoulders and paraded him around. When he finally was able to get to his feet, he made a frantic dash to the safety of the clubhouse. “It was probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on its mind,” one reporter observed.

  With the season over, Robinson could take pride in his accomplishments as a Montreal Royal. His ·349 batting average led the league, as did his .985 fielding average and his 113 runs scored. He added forty stolen bases. Montreal manager Clay Hopper, who had balked at having a black man on the Royals, told him, “You’re a great ballplayer and a fine gentleman. You’re the greatest competitor I ever saw. It’s been wonderful having you on the team.”

  Back in New York, the pressure was intensifying for Rickey to bring Robinson up to the Dodgers. On the night of February 5, 1947, Rickey spoke to three dozen black leaders. The meeting was arranged by the executive secretary of the Carleton Branch of the YMCA, Herbert T. Miller. The only whites present were Rickey, his assistant Arthur Mann, Dr. Dan Dodson, and Judge Edward Lazansky, a close friend.

  Rickey opened his after-dinner remarks with greetings, and then launched into the fifth step of his well-orchestrated plan: a speech aimed at insuring the complete understanding and backing by the black community of his program to break baseball’s color line. “Someone close to me,” he said, “remarked that I did not have the courage to tell you what I want to tell you; that I didn’t have the guts to give this speech and ·that you people wouldn’t be able to take it. I believe all of us here have the courage. I have a ballplayer named Jackie Robinson. He’s on the Montreal team. He may stay there . . . he may be brought to Brooklyn. But if Jackie Robinson does come up to the Dodgers, the
biggest threat to his success, the one enemy most likely to ruin that success, is the Negro people themselves.” Rickey was aware of an uncomfortable stirring in the audience, but he pressed on with conviction.

  “There is a weight of responsibility that rests upon the shoulders of you, the leading citizens of the community,” he intoned. “For on the day Robinson enters the big leagues, if he does, we don’t wany any Negro to add to the burden of Jackie Robinson. We don’t want any Negroes to form gala welcoming committees, to form parades to the ballpark every night. We don’t want Negroes to strut, to wear badges.”

  Rickey warned the audience of black leaders about white jealousy and sensitivity. ‘We don’t want premature Jackie Robinson Days or Nights. We don’t want Negroes in the stands gambling, drunk, fighting, being arrested. We don’t want Jackie wined and dined until he is fat and futile. . . . We don’t want what can be another great milestone in the progress of American race relations turned into a national comedy and an ugly tragedy.” He paused and drew in his breath. “Let me tell you this!” The words came out fast and thunderously, in evangelistic tones. “If any individual, group, or segment of Negro society uses the advancement of Jackie Robinson in baseball as a triumph of race over race,” he pounded the top of the table in front of him, “I will regret the day I eve:r signed him to a contract, and I will personally see that baseball is never so abused and misrepresented again I”

  Rickey concluded his remarks, and he was applauded for several minutes by the black leaders. A lengthy discussion followed. The slogan “Don’t Spoil Jackie’s Chances” was adopted. “There was a real concern,” Dodson notes, “that blacks would come to games drinking, being rowdy, making it unpleasant for whites to attend. The slogan would serve as a call for self-policing action. Cards bearing the slogan were placed in bars, restaurants, barbershops, and churches. Group meetings were held where Rickey’s themes were disseminated.” It was resolved that this program would be sustained throughout Robinson’s first year in the major leagues. The sixty-six-year-old Rickey had achieved another important step in the plan that he had originally laid out at the New York Athletic Club in 1943—he had gained the support and cooperation of the black community.

  While everyone agreed with Rickey’s aims, not all members of the black community appreciated the tone of Rickey’s remarks. “Rickey’s speech was tremendously patronizing,” recalls Joe Bostic. “He had the absolute effrontery to tell adults how to behave. I was not invited to that meeting, but I found out afterward what happened.” Rickey apparently did not forget Bostic’s bursting in on him at Bear Mountain, demanding tryouts, and so the journalist was excluded from the meeting. “I told those people that they should have shown their displeasure and indignation by walking out. ‘You have been supporting major-league baseball for fifty years,’ I told them. ‘You don’t need to be told how to act.’”

  Bostic’s objections notwithstanding, the self-policing activity moved ahead in the community. As spring training for the 1947 season loomed ahead, there were two problems that needed to be solved. One was where to train. The trouble in Florida had convinced Rickey that he should not expose Robinson to the rigid southern segregationist laws for a second straight year.

  The other problem was what position Robinson should play. “The Dodgers had just about the best second baseman in the league in Eddie Stanky,” notes Dodson, “and putting Robinson there, although it was agreed that this was his best position, would have led to the issue of a power struggle, the black man taking the white man’s job. Robinson told Mr. Rickey that he thought he could do very well playing first base.”

  The Dodgers and Royals went to Havana, Cuba, for spring training. Three other blacks were assigned to the Montreal roster: Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Roy Partlow. ‘’The idea behind this,” explains Dodson, “was to let the Dodger team have the experience of playing with, against, and among dark-skinned people, with people of different languages and colors around them. The idea was to bring both teams to Brooklyn playing exhibition games along the way and to introduce Robinson gradually.”

  “Down here in Havana,” Rickey told Hopper, “you must stall and be vague. Tell the newspapermen that you’re curious to see if Robinson can play first base, and that this is an experiment of no special significance. But when you bring Montreal to Panama, use him exclusively at first base. There won’t be any writers there.” Hopper was unhappy. He realized that Robinson was slotted for the Dodgers, and he wanted playing time for his own first-base prospects for the Royals. Robinson was also unhappy. Rickey had ordered that the blacks on the Montreal squad be quartered in segregated housing to avoid any possibility of racial problems. Robinson flared up. To him, it was like being in the American South all over again.

  Rickey told Hopper and Robinson that there was too much involved to allow irritations of the moment to influence the great plan for the future. “This is the most important thing I ever did in my life and you ever did in your life,” he told them. Hopper decided to be patient. Robinson, admitting that Rickey had been right in everything he had done to that point, relented and went along with the segregated housing.

  But there were other problems as well. Pee Wee Reese asked to be traded. “My grandfather would turn over in his grave if he knew I was playing on a team with a colored boy,” Reese said.

  “Mr. Rickey did not want to lose Reese,” recalls Mal Goode, “since Reese was the man he was building his ball club around. ‘Pee Wee,’ Mr. Rickey said, ‘you’re intelligent. I can talk to you. I’d like you to try it for a couple of weeks. If you still feel this way, then I’ll trade you, because if Jackie makes this team, he’s going to play.’

  “Six days later Pee Wee came to see Mr. Rickey. ‘You can still trade me if you want to,’ said Pee Wee, ‘but not for the same reason. Robinson is not only a great ballplayer but a gentleman in every sense of the word.’ “

  There were others on the team who did not want to see Jackie Robinson become a Brooklyn Dodger. Hugh Casey, Dixie Walker, Bobby Bragan, and Carl Furillo circulated a petition insisting that they could not and would not play on the same team with him. Duke Snider was amazed that anyone could engage in such overtly bigoted behavior. “That prejudice was not part of our life in southern California. When they passed that petition around, I told them, “There’s no way I can sign it. Jack’s an idol of mine.’ Nobody signed it except the guys who were passing it around.”

  The Dodger manager since 1939, Leo Durocher had ties with Rickey that went back to the days of the Gashouse Gang in St. Louis. “Mr. Rickey is just like a father to me,” observed the forty-one-year-old Durocher. “Durocher is my pet reclamation project,” observed Rickey. Their relationship was based on mutual respect for each other’s talent and their desire to build better baseball teams. All of this contributed to Durocher’s outrage when he heard about the petition. He called a midnight meeting of the entire Dodger team and unloaded his fury.

  “I don’t give a shit about the way you feel,” he screamed. “It doesn’t mean a thing to me whether the guy is blue or orange or black or if he is striped up like a fucking zebra. I manage this team. I say he plays. I say he can make us all rich. I say that if you can’t use the dough I’ll see to it that you get the hell out of here.”

  Rickey’s reaction was calmer but just as forceful. The man who Jackie Robinson said “was like a piece of mobile armor who would throw himself and his advice in the way of anything likely to hurt me” called the mutineers into his office one by one. He was adamant that the Robinson experiment would continue. He informed each player that he was free, if he desired, to quit baseball.

  “Bobby Bragan’s argument was, ‘I live in Fort Worth, Texas, and my friends there would never forgive me,’ “ notes Monte Irvin. “He was that blinded.”

  Rickey pointed out that Bragan was the third-string catcher on the Dodgers. “You’re expendable,” he said. Rickey sent Bragan down to the minors. “After a year or two,” states Irvin, “Bragan realized how
wrong his attitude was. Later he went out of his way to help black ballplayers.”

  When Robinson signed with Montreal, Dixie Walker had shrugged off the news. “As long as he’s not with the Dodgers, I’m not worried,” he said. When the petition failed to gain momentum, the man Dodger fans called “The People’s Cherce” hand-delivered a letter to Rickey in Havana.

  “Recently the thought has occurred to me that a change of ball clubs would benefit both the Brooklyn baseball club and myself. Therefore I would like to be traded as soon as a deal can be arranged. My association with you’, the people of Brooklyn, the press and radio has been very pleasant and one I can truthfully say I am sorry has to end. For reasons I don’t care to go into, I feel my decision is the best for all concerned.”

  Business interests in Atlanta were among the reasons Walker didn’t care to go into. Robinson, aware of Walker’s objections, made a point of staying away from him as much as possible. “If he hit a home run,” Robinson later recalled, “and I was on base, I never waited at the plate to shake his hand. I thought it would embarrass Dixie. He later changed his mind about me. He came to me in mid-June with advice about hitting behind the runner, something I didn’t know much about.”

  Montreal and Brooklyn played seven exhibition games that spring. “Be a whirling demon against the Dodgers,” Rickey told Robinson. “Go wild. Get on base. Make them know you are there.” Robinson followed Rickey’s advice. He batted .625 and stole seven bases in those showcase games. Robinson’s dramatics were part of Rickey’s overall plan. He reasoned that once the Dodger players saw the superb playing skills of the rookie, they would clamor for him to be placed on the Brooklyn roster. They did not. Only Montreal manager Clay Hopper spoke out. He noted that all five candidates for the Dodgers’ first-base opening had not done well. “Why don’t you take Robby to Brooklyn now?” he asked Rickey. “He’s ready. He can’t prove any more on my team. Besides, I got to break in my regular first baseman pretty quick.”