Rickey & Robinson

by Roger Kahn

  We proposed Satchel Paige for the then all-white baseball Hall of Fame. He made it—18 years later. We challenged the unwritten rule that barred blacks from being jockeys and relegated them to the lesser role of “exercise boys.” That changed during the 1980s.

  For the second issue, Robinson urged me to write an article under the title “What White Big Leaguers Really Think of Negro Players.” I must have interviewed 50 baseball people. Eddie Stanky, the shoeshine-boy needler, presented quite a different aspect. “My relationship with all the Negroes I’ve played with and managed has been 100 percent pleasant,” he said.

  “I would not call asking a big leaguer for a shoeshine notably pleasant.”

  “Don’t mind what I say during a game. I want to win and sometimes I get tough. But Robinson does, too, you know. It’s part of baseball.”

  Walter O’Malley was particularly interesting. I caught up with him during spring training and he suggested we walk about Dodger-town in Vero Beach. “There’s the dining room,” he said. “Our Negro players and our white players eat side by side. This is Florida, but here you couldn’t tell it is.

  “In our barracks here Negro boys and white boys sleep under the same roof. The other day we had some electricians in to fix the lights in our new stadium. They worked a long day. When they were through it was late and I asked them if they wanted to sleep over because Melbourne is a 45-mile drive. They asked me if they’d have to sleep under the same roof as Negro players and I told them, ‘Of course.’ They said they couldn’t. What did I say to that? It doesn’t matter. You couldn’t print it, anyway.”

  Although the staff at Our Sports dispatched hundreds of copies of press releases, nobody picked up that story. Nobody at all. It was as if Stanky and O’Malley had spoken in a vacuum. Jack’s column that month, “My Feud with Leo Durocher Is Over,” exploded with vitality and inside stuff. Nobody seemed to notice that story either, except for Durocher, who wrote a thank-you letter to Robinson.

  Now we come to the column about Branch Rickey. Here it is exactly as Robinson and I presented it in the June 1953 issue of Our Sports. The column was called “The Branch Rickey They Don’t Write About.” It ran under the line “By Jackie Robinson.”

  “Prejudice” is a word that usually sticks in my throat. But don’t be shocked when I admit to a prejudice of my own.

  I’m prejudiced in favor of Branch Rickey, the man who gave me a chance to destroy baseball’s color line. And that’s one prejudice built on more than emotion. It stands on dozens of hard, but pleasant facts.

  Emotion enters into it, of course. Admiration and gratitude and a lot of other feelings that are hard to express. Perhaps the best way to explain is to go back to October 1, 1952—the day the Dodgers opened the World Series against the Yankees.

  Come back to Ebbets Field with me and look at the 35,000 spectators who filled every seat in the ballpark and every inch of standing room. If you study the countless faces through my eyes, you’ll know just what I mean.

  To me there were only two people in Ebbets Field that day who really mattered—my wife, Rae, and Mr. Rickey. It was for Rae and Rickey that I wanted to win the series so badly. The Yankees won, but I’ve been a Dodger for seven years and I know how to take a loss philosophically.

  “Wait till next year.” Isn’t that what the philosophy book says? I have a hunch the Dodgers will write a new chapter this October. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

  Perhaps it seems strange for a Dodger infielder to want to win a World Series from the Yankees for the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. When you think about it, though, it isn’t strange at all.

  In the first place, Rickey’s ties to Brooklyn didn’t end when he went to Pittsburgh at the close of the 1950 season. Most of the Dodgers who played in last year’s series came into their own under Mr. Rickey. Fellows like Roy Campanella and Duke Snider entered the game through his help. Others, like Preacher Roe and Billy Cox, came to Brooklyn and reached their primes under him. Still others, like Pee Wee Reese, were boosted to greatness by an assist from Rickey. The 1952 Dodgers were pretty much his club—certainly more so than the 1952 Pirates. We were his boys and I know he was pulling for us. That’s one reason I didn’t want to let him down.

  In the second place, without Branch Rickey there probably would have been no Jackie Robinson in baseball, nor a Monte Irvin or a Larry Doby. At a time in life when most men settle down in rocking chairs, Rickey launched a crusade. He battled until the crusade was a universally recognized success. He succeeded because he had something called “guts”—and even eloquent Rickey couldn’t find a better word for it.

  Mr. Rickey, as you know, is a great man with words. Baseball writers who make a living by turning phrases can’t touch him. The first time I met Branch I knew he was a spellbinder. I knew he was sincere too.

  In Chicago, summer of 1945, someone said, “There’s a man outside the clubhouse who wants to see you.”

  I went over to see “the man.”

  “My name’s Clyde Sukeforth,” he said. “I’m with the Brooklyn Dodgers. How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty well, thanks. My arm’s a little sore from a fall on the base paths, but I’m okay.”

  “I’ve been watching you for a while. Would you mind going out to the infield and throwing a few from short to first?”

  “I don’t think I can. My arm is so sore I can’t play.”

  “Never mind then,” Sukeforth said.

  Then he asked me something I’ll never forget. “Can you come to New York with me to see Branch Rickey, the Dodger president?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Sure.”

  I was thinking much more than that one word. I was thinking that this might be a gag, a cruel gag. I didn’t dare think of becoming a Dodger. Hundreds of other things entered my mind, and I was still thinking when we got off the train in New York.

  The first time I saw Branch Rickey he was setting up a smokescreen with his cigar. Behind the smoke was a face revealing sincerity.

  “Do you think you are capable enough to play baseball in the major leagues?” Mr. Rickey began.

  “I don’t know. I’ve only played professional baseball for one year. I don’t know how the Negro Leagues stack up against the minors, let alone the majors.”

  Mr. Rickey did not wait to deliver his punch line. “I am willing to offer you a contract in organized baseball. Are you willing to sign it?”

  Now I was the one who did not hesitate.

  “Certainly,” I said.

  Then Mr. Rickey began to speak. He spoke of barriers to be broken and how to break them. He spoke of bigotry and hate and how to fight them. He spoke of great things to be done and how to do them.

  He spoke of himself and how his own family had advised him against signing a Negro because at his age the bitterness he’d have to face might make him sick, or even kill him.

  He spoke of my future in baseball and of the taunts and insults that would be hurled in my face and the dusters that would be hurled at my head.

  He spoke of others who would wait for me to slip so they could say that Branch Rickey had been wrong and that baseball was no place for Negroes.

  All this he hurled at me like thunder. And then he asked me if I still wanted to sign.

  “Certainly,” I said again.

  Looking back now, I think Branch Rickey had a vision of what was to be. What he said would happen did and the method—his method—to progress was the right way and the only way.

  “Above all,” he warned me, “do not fight. No matter how vile the abuse, ignore it. You are carrying the reputation of a race upon your shoulders. Bear it well and a day will come when every team in baseball will open its doors to Negroes. The alternative is not pleasant.”

  A few months after our first meeting, Rickey announced my signing to the press. In a few more months I was on the Montreal squad.

  It was in the International League that I first came to know Rickey’s ability to do the right th
ing at the right time. He called me just before we went to Syracuse for a series there.

  “Someone has informed me,” he said, “that you’re in for a considerable amount of abuse at Syracuse. They intend to bring you to a boil so you can hardly play. The way to beat them is to ignore them.”

  I was abused in Syracuse during the following days but I didn’t come to a boil. I had been forewarned so I ignored the remarks and played my game. There were other similar incidents that year. Each time Mr. Rickey called the turn.

  The next year—1947—when I was promoted to the Dodgers, Rickey did more than call the turns. I know now—I didn’t know then—that a lot of club-owners ganged up on him and tried to run me out of baseball. He received crackpot letters and a dozen different pressures were put on him. He didn’t yield an inch.

  And he did more than that. He spoke to Negro leaders, civic groups and churchmen in every National League city. We both knew that just as we were carrying a great responsibility, so were the Negro fans who came to see me play. Their actions would be watched just as mine were and the I-told-you-so guys were looking for slips. Disorder in the stands was as deadly as disorder on the field. Working hand-in-hand with leaders of our race, Mr. Rickey did all that any man could have done to let the fans know the importance of their role.

  “There will be race riots in half the ballparks,” the know-it-alls were saying. “You mix all those Negroes and whites in the stands when Robinson plays and there’s going to be a blow-up.”

  Negroes and whites have been watching me in the majors for seven years but Mr. Rickey laid so careful a groundwork that nothing has blown up on my account. Except, of course, a few ballgames, but that’s the way I earn my money.

  I’ve mentioned money and Mr. Rickey in the same paragraph and I guess that prompts a question.

  “Is Branch Rickey a tightwad?” I’ve been asked time and again. A writer on one New York paper invented a nickname—“El Cheapo”—for Mr. Rickey and almost every day the sports pages ran stories about his stinginess.

  That’s hard for me to understand. With the help of a newspaperman, I did a little research and I learned that the Ebbets Field press club was always well-stocked. Anytime any sportswriter wanted to he could enjoy some fine old Scotch whisky with the compliments of “El Cheapo.” And the liquor wasn’t there to keep Rickey’s throat moist when he was talking at press conferences either. Mr. Rickey does not drink.

  In my own financial dealings with Mr. Rickey, I learned he was as fair a man to work for as a ballplayer could ask. My first year with Brooklyn I was paid $5,000, the minimum. Almost all rookies get that. The next year Rickey nearly tripled my salary—jumped it to $14,000. I got periodic boosts after that and when Mr. Rickey left Brooklyn I was well up in the $30,000 class.

  President Walter O’Malley and the rest of the current Dodger management are a fine group of men—but they aren’t paying me a cent more than Mr. Rickey did in his last year at Brooklyn. I’m as good now as I was then and I’m older. As a rule, if a player doesn’t slump, he gets raises as he gets older.

  Maybe you think my prejudice for Mr. Rickey is influenced by the way he handles money. Pee Wee Reese isn’t prejudiced and he agrees with me.

  “They never accuse Larry MacPhail of being cheap,” Pee Wee once told me, “but until I played for Mr. Rickey I never got much of a break in my contract. Larry never made me rich; Mr. Rickey fixed it so I had real income tax worries for the first time.”

  Other players second Pee Wee’s opinion. Dodger salaries as a whole are no higher than they were when Mr. Rickey left. In the meantime we’ve won a pennant and the cost of living has gone up.

  Along with “tightwad,” “fraud” is another charge I’ve heard hurled at Rickey by people who don’t know any better. Was he a fraud when he stood alone in organized baseball and signed me?

  “He did it for attendance,” you hear people say.

  I’ve never met a club-owner who didn’t want larger attendance and every one had the same chance as Rickey to attract Negro fans. The thing is that Rickey did it—he took the step no one else had the courage to take.

  Certainly crowds increased with my arrival, but I believe what motivated Branch Rickey to sign me was his sincere belief in the brotherhood of man. Mr. Rickey is a student of the Bible—a serious student.

  “But he’s a pompous windbag,” others object. You can judge for yourself when you check a few more facts.

  I’ve always admired the way he handles the language but the one time we had to make sure that every word was the right word, Rickey was humble enough to seek assistance from others.

  That was in 1949 when I was asked to testify in Congress as a loyalty witness. They wanted me to voice my feelings—as an American Negro—about my country. Between us, Rickey and I must have spoken to fifty people as we tried to frame my beliefs in the best possible phrases. The words weren’t quite right until Rickey remembered Lester Granger, whom he’d met at a dinner of the Urban League. Mr. Granger is one of the finest men we have in our race and possibly one of the smartest men in the whole country.

  Among the three of us we worked out a speech that perfectly expressed my views. What impressed me so much was Rickey’s insistence on getting another Negro to help. He did not trust his own ability alone to aid in explaining the viewpoint of a Negro.

  Because of the speech, I came in for a lot of praise and delivering it was as important a step as any in my life outside of baseball.

  But with every forward step I made, Branch Rickey was at my side. Today I think baseball has reached the point where Negroes are accepted by every real fan and soon will be accepted by every team.

  Baseball has advanced—and with baseball the country—because of Mr. Rickey.

  Vicious men may insult him, foolish men may make fun of him and petty men may not understand him. But when the vicious, the foolish and the petty men are forgotten, Mr. Rickey will be remembered. And all decent men—whether Negro or white—will respect the memory and the blow Branch Rickey struck in the cause of human progress.

  This column did draw a response, but one that was less than positive. When Robinson told me that he was not earning more in 1953 than he had in 1950, I stopped taking notes. “That isn’t what you hear in the Dodger front office, Jack.”

  Robinson’s answer was curt. “Just write what I told you.”

  The June issue of Our Sports appeared when the Dodgers were playing at Pittsburgh. Two newspapermen called my room in the Hotel Schenley to ask about Robinson’s assertion that his salary had not increased. Now it was my answer that was curt. “I just typed what he told me.”

  At Forbes Field during pregame warm-ups, perhaps 20 reporters were gathered around Robinson. Among all of his observations on Rickey, the reporters focused only on Robinson’s assertion that his salary had not increased under Walter O’Malley. The lead questioners, Al Abrams of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Bill Roeder of the New York World-Telegram, pressed him again and again. How could he say his salary was frozen when the Dodgers announced salary increases for him in 1951, ’52 and ’53? Was he charging that Walter O’Malley and Buzzie Bavasi were liars? Listening in, I had a nervous moment. Several Dodgers, notably Roy Campanella, tended to issue controversial quotes and then, when the controversy flared, deny that they had said any such thing. Doublespeak still is common in baseball. I worried that Robinson would say that in preparing the column it was I, not he, who had messed up.

  Doublespeak was not Robinson’s way. As the rapid-fire questioning crackled around him, he said without flinching, “Sure they’ve announced raises for me and sure I’ve gotten them. But as my salary has gone up, so has the cost of living. So in a real sense my salary is not a penny higher than it was when Mr. Rickey left Brooklyn.” Abrams and Roeder then wrote sour pieces, saying Robinson was at the least guilty of misleading readers. I suppose in a limited way they were right, but Robinson, also in a limited way, was right as well.

  Aside from money, the pres
s ignored all the issues the Rickey column raised. No probing into Robinson’s trials during his epochal rookie season with Montreal. No reconsidering his testimony before the House of Representatives. No review of Rickey’s solidarity with Robinson. Jack and I were dedicated to the ideology of integration. The mainstream press was not. Their interest seemed to be money, only money.