Larry Doby And The Breaking the American League Color Barrier

Podcast Transcript

If you ask anyone to name the athlete who broke the color line in baseball, they will immediately answer Jackie Robinson.

If you ask who broke the color line in the American League, there may be a long pause.

The answer is Larry Doby, who became a seven-time All-Star, a two-time home run champion, and was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame..

Yet, Doby’s accomplishments and his journey remained overlooked despite his historical impact.

Learn more about the courageous journey of Larry Doby on this episode of Everything Everywhere daily.

The breaking of the color line in baseball was a monumental moment in the history of both American Civil Rights and baseball.

When Jackie Robinson exited the dugout to take his position at first base at Ebbets Field on opening day, April 15, 1947, he did so under the cloud of the legacy of Jim Crow.

At this point, President Truman had not yet integrated the military, and the Brown v. Board of Education decision was still seven long years away. The legacy of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which established the principle of “Separate but Equal,” was still the law of the land.

Even Martin Luther King Jr was still a junior at Morehouse College.

Jackie Robinson prepared extensively for his debut. Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey devised a “grand experiment” to integrate Major League Baseball and prepared Jackie Robinson for the challenge.

He knew two years before his debut what the plan was, and he had a full year in the minor leagues before he joined the Dodgers roster.

Unlike Robinson, Doby’s journey to the majors followed a different path. Cleveland Indians executive Bill Veeck believed the Negro Leagues were a vast reservoir of baseball talent, filled with players who could help a major league team win a pennant.

Veeck’s 1947 Cleveland Indians were a very good baseball team; he thought they could be better if they acquired a Negro League player.

Veeck outlined his attitude on the transition in an interview on the day of Doby’s signing: The entrance of Negroes into the Majors is not only inevitable, it is here.

Unlike Rickey, who spent years planning Robinson’s transition, Veeck acted decisively, almost impulsively, in bringing Doby to the Indians. On a morning Doby expected to play a doubleheader for the Newark Eagles, a phone call changed everything: the Cleveland Indians had purchased his contract.

Doby wanted to play one more game with the Eagles, so he played the first game of the doubleheader. It is fitting that Doby’s last at bat in the Negro Leagues was a home run. After the game, Doby boarded a train in Newark and set off for Chicago to meet his new team.

Doby’s transition was daunting. He was thrust into the spotlight of history, facing challenges with little comfort or guidance. Branch Rickey provided Jackie Robinson with training and organizational support, while Veeck’s approach with Doby was a sink-or-swim approach.

For Doby, there would be no transition to the minor leagues to get his feet wet, no preparation from the organization, his teammates, or the public. Doby was signed on July 4, 1947, and made his debut the very next day against the Chicago White Sox.

When it came to choosing players for this challenge, Doby and Robinson were easy choices. As great as Robinson was, it was Doby who possessed all five of the tools that Major League scouts looked for. Both were impressive athletes who could run, hit for average, play defense, and throw well, but Robinson lacked the power that Doby had.

Doby was a remarkable athlete; he accomplished in four different sports in high school. While he excelled at track, basketball, and football, Doby was most comfortable on the diamond.

Doby was also younger than Robinson, at 23 vs 28, and Veeck was searching for a younger player to add to his nucleus. Doby’s age was an advantage when it came to picking a player that had not built an extensive reputation in the Negro Leagues; it would be hard for the media to pick Doby apart.

Both Doby and Robinson served in the US Military during WWII. While Robinson spent his military service protesting unequal treatment, even facing discipline for refusing to move to the back of a bus, Doby kept a much lower profile.

Robinson had developed a reputation as a man with strong convictions and unyielding principles. Doby was more reserved; he had a reputation as being more stoic.

His rookie campaign tested these qualities to their absolute limit. Veeck never prepared the team for Doby’s arrival; his teammates simply looked on in shock. In fact, the Indians manager, Lou Bordeau, was completely blindsided by the signing. When Bordeau first heard the reports of the signing, he thought it was a joke.

Reports of the first moments in the Indian’s locker room suggest that many on the team refused to look at Doby, and others refused to shake his hand.

The poor treatment carried over to the field. After his first several days on the field, Doby recalled the difficulty he had in warming up; when he said, “I felt all alone. When we went out on the field to warm up, to play catch, you know the way we always did, no one asked me to play. I just stood there for minutes. It seemed like a long time,”

Thankfully, Doby found someone who would play catch with him. Cleveland outfielder and former American League MVP, Joe Gordon, saw the uncomfortable position that Doby was in and welcomed him after no one else would, when he said: Hey, kid, come on. Throw with me.’

Even with Gordon’s gesture, Doby spent many hours on the Cleveland bench in solitude. On the road, Doby faced more social isolation as Jim Crow laws forced him into separate hotels and restaurants.

The weight Doby carried was not lost on his teammates, nor was the grace with which he handled it. Pitcher Mel Harder noted: “It may have bothered Doby, but he never complained to the players; when he joined, naturally, it was a tough time.”

Both Doby and Robinson faced daunting obstacles, including racial slurs and threats, in their inaugural season. Their rookie seasons became a major point of contrast for historians.

During his rookie campaign, Robinson flourished; he won the inaugural rookie of the year award while leading the league in steals and hitting a robust .297.

Perhaps it is not fair to compare the two as they were in different situations, but baseball is a stats-driven sport.

Doby’s season lasted just 29 games, a full 11 weeks shorter than Robinson’s. Doby faced relentless hostility, getting thrown at by pitchers and harassed by players with no teammates to back him up.

The challenges caught up with Doby on the field as he hit only .156 in his first partial season in the Major Leagues. Power had always been Doby’s calling card, and the stress of all that he faced clearly caught up with him as he failed to hit a single home run in the 29 games he played that season.

Doby characterized his first season and its challenges in his autobiography: I knew it was going to be tough, but I didn’t know it was going to be that tough. There was nobody there to help me, nobody to talk to. I was all alone.

Doby’s sophomore season was a completely different story. He adjusted to pitching at the Major League level after a full spring training with the Indians, hitting .301 with 14 home runs for an Indians team that won the World Series.

The emotional peak of his sophomore season came when Doby delivered a game-winning home run in Game 4 of the World Series. Doby’s blast in the 3rd inning gave Indian’s pitcher Steve Gromek all the run support he needed en route to a 2-1 Cleveland win. Doby hit the first home run in a World Series game by a Black player in Major League history, marking a milestone in baseball history.

A game-winning home run is a highlight for any player, but for Doby, it was a single post-game photograph that immortalized the moment. After the game, a celebration erupted in the locker room. A photographer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer captured an iconic photo of Steve Gromek hugging Larry Doby.

Joy radiated from both men, their smiles and embrace capturing a moment forged in victory. Because it was the World Series, newspapers from coast to coast carried the iconic image.

For many Americans, this was the first time they had seen a White man and a Black man happy and celebrating together. The picture was a clear departure from the norms of the period.

For many, the picture was proof that integration succeeded beyond expectations. This moment defined Doby’s journey and his place in baseball history.

In an interview with the New York Times in 1997, Doby reflected on the power of the picture and said: That was a picture that probably did more for the human relationship than anything. It was a picture of two guys who were happy—one was white, and one was Black—and it didn’t make any difference.

This picture carries even more weight than the 1947 shot of Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese, as it captured a moment at the apex of success.

After the Indian’s championship season in 1948, Lary Doby largely settled in and enjoyed a string of All-Star seasons. Doby routinely hit 25-30 home runs while driving in 100 RBI, while hitting close to .300.

The 1948 season was also special for Doby because he got to share it with a Black teammate. Fulfilling Veeck’s mission to find the best players in the Negro Leagues, the Indians signed 42-year-old pitching legend Satchel Paige.

Doby finally had someone to share his experiences with, someone who could relate to what he was going through, and someone who could serve as a mentor.

The end of Larry Doby’s playing career did not stop him from continuing to break barriers. Doby became the second Black manager in Major League Baseball when he followed Frank Robinson’s lead to take the position as the skipper of the Chicago White Sox in 1978.

He ended his career as the communications director and outreach coordinator for the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, where he focused on developing programs for inner-city youth across New York’s 5 Boroughs.

Larry Doby passed away in 2003 at the age of 79 from cancer. In his later years, he became good friends with another Hall of Famer who happened to be his neighbor, Yogi Berra.

Larry Doby was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998, and in 2023, he received the Congressional Gold Medal for his contributions to MLB and Civil Rights.

Lately, there has been a campaign to honor his legacy by having all MLB players wear his number 14 on July 5th, as they do Jackie Robinson’s #42 on April 15th.

When honoring Larry Doby, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred put his career into perspective, saying, “Larry Doby will forever be remembered as a pioneer who demonstrated great character and courage throughout his life. His legacy as a trailblazing player and manager endures to this day, and he will always remain one of the great heroes that our national pastime and nation have ever known.