Authors: Aaron Rosenberg
42
T
hree men sat in the office on Montague Street. The blinds were closed, and what little light leaked in caught the dust motes in the air, making them sparkle like flecks of gold. A fish tank bubbled against one wall, the goldfish within darting merrily this way and that. On the wall behind the desk hung two framed photos, one of Abraham Lincoln and the other of Brooklyn Dodgers coach Leo Durocher. A massive chalkboard occupied a third wall, its dark surface covered with names. None of the men so much as glanced at it. Branch Rickey, the man behind the desk and the Dodgers' general manager, was not pleased.
“Gentlemen,” Rickey announced, “I have a plan.” He looked surprisingly nervous but determined, his shaggy eyebrows low over his round spectacles. “As of now, only the board of directors and my family know.”
The two men in front of him exchanged a look. Clyde Sukeforth was a talent scout and a member of the Dodgers' coaching staff. Harold Parrott had been a sportswriter before becoming the Dodgers' traveling secretary a few years earlier. As the organization's general manager, Rickey was their boss, and both of them respected him a great deal.
“A plan's always good, Mr. Rickey,” Sukeforth offered. “And you always got one.” That was true. Rickey had proven himself as the manager of the Cardinals, leading them to a World Series title before replacing Larry McPhail as the head of the Dodgers in 1943. That was two years ago, and he had done well by the team so far.
But Rickey sighed and shook his head. “My wife says I'm too old,” he confessed. “That my health isn't up to it. My son says that everyone in baseball will be against me. But I'm going to do it.”
“Do what, Mr. Rickey?” Sukeforth asked.
Rickey smiled. “I'm going to bring a Negro ballplayer to the Brooklyn Dodgers.”
His two employees looked startled, and Parrott finally opened his mouth. “With all due respect, sir,” he said, “have you lost your mind? Imagine the abuse you'll take from the newspapers alone. Never mind how it'll play on Flatbush. Please, Mr. Rickey.”
Sukeforth was shaking his head as well, and it was toward him that Rickey directed his reply. “There's no law against it, Clyde.”
“There's a code,” Sukeforth shot back. “Break a law and get away with it, some people think you're smart. Break an unwritten law, though, you'll be an outcast.”
But Rickey was clearly determined. “So be it,” he declared, holding his head high. “New York is full of Negro baseball fans; every dollar is green. I don't know who he is, or where he is, but he's coming.”
Parrott looked mutely at Sukeforth, but the scout only shrugged. It was obvious they weren't going to change the boss's mind.
Meanwhile, in Birmingham, Alabama, a spirited baseball game was taking place. It was April 8. The Birmingham Barons and the Kansas City Monarchs had been at each other's throats all night. Right now, however, it was one particular Monarch who was getting under the Barons' skin.
“Where'd you learn to move like that, runner?” the Barons' catcher shouted at the player currently on first, who was restlessly hopping from foot to foot. “At dime-a-dance night? Stay quiet!”
The runner just laughed â and the moment the first pitch left the mound, he took off. John Scott, the Monarch currently at bat, swung and missed, and the catcher shot up, firing the ball to second, but too late. The runner slid into second base safely. He hopped up to his feet with one foot solidly on the bag and dusted himself off.
“Is that the best you got?” he taunted the catcher. “Huh? I'm going to steal nine, ten bases today! You better start counting!”
The catcher frowned and rose from his crouch. He was a big man, big enough to tower over Scott. “Where's your shortstop from?” he asked the batter, his Alabama accent dragging at the words.
“California,” Scott answered, eyeing him warily.
“He's got a mouth on him.” The catcher dropped back into position and signaled the pitcher. Scott breathed a sigh of relief and raised his bat â but the second the ball flew, so did the runner. Again. And again the catcher tried to catch him out, but his throw reached third base after the man had.
“Safe!” the umpire declared.
“You got a rag arm, catcher!” the runner shouted, laughing.
“Yeah?” the catcher replied. “Steal home! You'll find out what kind of arm I got!”
The runner grinned. “Okay, I'm coming!”
Scott chuckled, and the catcher glared at him. “California, huh? Well, California here he goes, if he comes down here.”
Play resumed, and the pitcher hurled a fastball over the plate. Again the runner took off, this time heading home like a bullet. Scott swung and missed, and just as the catcher got his glove on the ball, the runner slid in. The catcher slammed both hands, glove, ball, and all, right into the runner's face!
Wham!
The runner lay there for a second, stunned. Finally, he rose to his feet, shaking his head. The first thing he did was look at the umpire.
“What was I?” he asked, his voice as wobbly as his legs.
The umpire responded by passing one hand over the other. Safe! The runner had scored!
Triumphant, Jack Roosevelt Robinson glared at the catcher smugly. But as he turned to head for the dugout, the catcher shoved him in the back. Jackie turned and shoved back. Then the two of them were on the ground, pushing and punching, the umpire's whistle going unnoticed in the heat of battle.
It was just another night in the Negro Leagues, and just another game for Jackie. A few hits, a few stolen bases, a few fights â all par for the course.
It was mid-August, and Rickey and Sukeforth sat in Rickey's office. Stacks of files covered the desk, each one with a black ballplayer's picture clipped to the front.
“What about this one?” Sukeforth asked. He held up a file. “Josh Gibson. Oh, boy, can he hit.” But Rickey shook his head. “All right. Roy Campanella?”
“A heck of a player,” Rickey agreed, “but too sweet â they'll eat him alive.”
Sukeforth nodded. Whoever they picked would surely need a thick skin to put up with all the abuse he was likely to get. He selected another folder. “Satchel Paige, then.” Paige played for the Monarchs and was already a legend. There was nobody better.
But again Rickey shook his head. “Too old,” he said. “We need a man with a future, not a past.” Which was true enough. Paige was already thirty-nine, and in baseball a lot of players had retired by that age.
The door opened, and Parrott entered, carrying an armful of files himself. He set them on the desk, but they began to slide off immediately, spilling to the floor. Parrott tried to stop them, but it was hopeless. His expression said he thought that was true of this whole enterprise.
But Rickey was undeterred. One of the fallen files caught his eye and he scooped it up. “Here,” he said. “Jack Roosevelt Robinson.” He flipped through the file. “A four-sport college man, out of UCLA. That means he's played with white boys.” He kept reading, liking what he saw. “Twenty-six years old, now with the Kansas City Monarchs. Batting over three fifty even as we speak. Three fifty! Says here he's a Methodist. Says he was a commissioned army officer!”
This time it was Sukeforth who shook his head. “He was court-martialed,” he told Rickey. “A troublemaker. He argues with umpires. Has a quick temper.”
“Oh.” Rickey sighed and tossed the file back onto the desk. A quick temper was exactly what they didn't need.
“How about Larry Doby?” Sukeforth offered. “Newark Eagles. Heck of a player.”
“Too young. Inexperienced.” Rickey glanced toward the window, the dejection clear in his voice, and Parrott and Sukeforth both held their breaths. Could this be the end of this crazy idea? But then their boss straightened. “Hold on,” he demanded. “What exactly was Robinson court-martialed for?”
“Something about refusing to sit in the back of a bus,” Sukeforth answered. He picked up the file and checked it. “Yeah, it was in Fort Hood, Texas. The driver asked him to move back. The MPs had to take him off.”
Rickey nodded, his fire back. “There you are. He resents segregation. If he were white, we'd call it spirit!” Sukeforth shrugged. He didn't look convinced. Neither did Parrott. But their boss was. “Robinson's a Methodist,” Rickey declared. “I'm a Methodist. God's a Methodist. We can't go wrong. Find him. Bring him here.” Without another word, he stood and stepped away from the desk, taking Jackie Robinson's file and leaving all the others behind. Sukeforth and Parrot could see that Rickey's mind was made up.
A few days later, a beat-up old bus with a banner that read “KC M
ONARCHS”
pulled into a service station on the road from Birmingham to Chicago. An attendant sauntered out of the station to greet the driver as he stepped off the bus, but barely spared a glance for the black ballplayers as they followed, stretching after the long ride.
“Fill her up?” the attendant asked the driver. The driver nodded, and the attendant started unscrewing the caps on the bus's two fifty-gallon tanks.
Jackie had just stepped down, legs aching like the rest â but something else was aching worse. Glancing around, he spotted the bathroom off to the side of the station and headed toward it.
“Hey!” the attendant shouted when he noticed. “Where you going, boy?”
Jackie stopped and glanced back. “I'm going to the toilet.”
The attendant shook his head. “C'mon, boy. You know you can't go in there.” He gestured at the door, and the sign on it that read “White Men Only.”
Jackie frowned fiercely. Then he turned and stomped back toward the attendant. “Take that hose out of the tank,” he demanded, his voice a low growl.
“Huh?” The attendant just stared at him, unsure how to respond.
“Robinson â” the driver started, but Jackie cut him off.
“Take it out,” he insisted. “We'll get our ninety-nine gallons of gas someplace else.”
The attendant blinked. Then he glanced past Jackie, out toward the highway. It was deserted and had been all day. Finally, he sighed. “Okay, use it. But don't stay in there too long.”