I Never Had It Made (8 page)

On the plane to Detroit, I had a lot to think about, most of it wonderful. One incident that occurred at the clubhouse during the beautiful madness after the game stood out. Clay Hopper was making last-minute preparations to return to his Missis- sippi plantation. The Montreal manager came up to me and held his hand out.

“You're a great ballplayer and a fine gentleman,” he said. “It's been wonderful having you on the team.”

IV

The Major Leagues

J
ackie Robinson, Jr., was born in November, 1946. If there is anything to the theory that the influences affecting expectant parents have important impact on the developing child, our baby son was predestined to lead a very complicated and complex life.

Rachel had had problems during her pregnancy that I was not aware of. She accepted them with uncomplaining courage because of her conviction that, since I had a job to do in baseball that was demanding and difficult, I should be as free as possible to deal with it without the further complications of family worries. She was determined, therefore, that, while she shared my problems with me, she would keep me from knowing about her own fears and anxieties. She did a good job of keeping her problems to herself. It wasn't until after Jackie was born that I learned that Rae had occasionally experienced fevers seemingly unconnected with the normal process of pregnancy. Her temperature would rise to 103 and 104 degrees and she would take sulfa drugs and aspirin to bring her fever down. She had insisted on traveling with me during the first season with Montreal because she knew I needed her. Often I would come home tired, discouraged, wondering if I could go on enduring the verbal abuse and even the physical provocations and continue to “turn the other cheek.” Rachel knew exactly how I felt, and she would have the right words, the perfect way of comforting me. Rachel's understanding love was a powerful antidote for the poison of being taunted by fans, sneered at by fellow-players, and constantly mistreated because of my blackness.

In the eighth month of her pregnancy, I insisted that Rachel go home to Los Angeles to have the baby. Two weeks after she returned to her mother's home, I was able to get back to Los Angeles and be there the night she went into labor. When the time came, I got her to the hospital fast and our boy was born with unusual speed. We'll never forget that day—November 18, 1946.

The big question, as spring training for the 1947 season became imminent, was whether Branch Rickey would move me out of the minor league and up to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Because of my successful first season with Montreal, it was a question being asked in sportswriting and baseball circles. Even those who were dead set against a black man coming into the majors knew there was a strong possibility that Mr. Rickey would take the big step.

Mr. Rickey had to move cautiously and with skill and strategy. Rae and I never doubted that Mr. Rickey would carry out his intention, but we lived in suspense wondering when. In the latter part of January I was ordered to report back to the Montreal Royals for spring training in Cuba. I would not be able to afford to take Rachel and the baby with me. I had to go it alone.

Although we could not understand Mr. Rickey's reasons for the delay in bringing me up to the Dodgers, we believed he was working things out the best way possible. We thought it was a hopeful sign that both the Dodgers and the Royals would be training in Havana. It could be reasonably expected that the racist atmosphere I had had to face in Florida and other parts of the United States would not exist in another country of non-whites. The Royals now had three more black players—Roy Campanella, a catcher; Don Newcombe and Roy Partlow, both pitchers. I learned, on arriving in Havana, that we black players would be housed in separate quarters at a hotel fifteen miles away from the practice field. The rest of the team was living at a military academy, and the Dodgers were headquartered at the beautiful Nacional Hotel. I expressed my resentment that the Cuban authorities would subject us to the same kind of segregation I had faced in Florida and was promptly informed that living arrangements had not been made by local authorities but by Mr. Rickey. I was told that he felt his plans for us were on the threshold of success and he didn't want a possible racial incident to jeopardize his program. I reluctantly accepted the explanation.

I was told I must learn to play first base. This disturbed me because I felt it might mean a delay in reaching the majors. However, it was felt that the Dodgers, in order to become contenders for the pennant, had to strengthen the first base position.

The fact that I had been assigned to first base aroused fear in the Dodger camp. They sensed that Mr. Rickey was planning to bring me up to the Dodgers. Some of the players got together and decided to sign a petition declaring they would not play with me on the team. Ironically, the leak about the planned revolt came from a Southerner, Kirby Higbe, of South Carolina. Higbe had a few too many beers one night, and he began feeling uncomfortable about the conspiracy. He revealed the plot to one of Mr. Rickey's aides and Mr. Rickey put down the rebellion with steamroller effectiveness. He said later, “I have always believed that a little show of force at the right time is necessary when there's a deliberate violation of law. . . . I believe that when a man is involved in an overt act of violence or in destruction of someone's rights, that it's no time to conduct an experiment in education or persuasion.”

He found out who the ringleaders were—Hugh Casey, a good relief pitcher from Georgia; Southerner Bobby Bragan, a respected catcher; Dixie Walker of Alabama; and Carl Furrillo. Walker had deliberately taken a trip so he wouldn't appear to be in on the scheme. The ringleaders were called in individually, and Mr. Rickey told each one that petitions would make no difference. He said he would carry out his plan, regardless of protest. Anyone who was not willing to have a black teammate could quit. The petition protest collapsed before it got started.

Mr. Rickey was very direct with me during those early 1947 spring training days. He told me I couldn't rest on the victories I'd had with Montreal. I should, in fact, forget them as much as possible. My league record meant nothing. The true test would be making the grade on the field against major league pitching.

“I want you to be a whirling demon against the Dodgers,” he said. “I want you to concentrate, to hit that ball, to get on base
by any means necessary.
I want you to run wild, to steal the pants off them, to be the most conspicuous player on the field—but conspicuous only because of the kind of baseball you're playing. Not only will you impress the Dodger players, but the stories that the newspapermen send back to the Brooklyn and New York newspapers will help create demand on the part of the fans that you be brought up to the majors.”

With this kind of marching order, I simply had to give my best. I batted .625 and stole seven bases during seven Royals-Dodgers games. Not even this made the Brooklyn players ask for me as Mr. Rickey had hoped. He had wanted, when promoting me, to appear to be giving in to tremendous pressure from my teammates-to-be.

When this strategy failed, Mr. Rickey, a resourceful man, arranged to have Manager Leo Durocher tell the sportswriters that his Brooklyn team could win the pennant with a good man on first base and that I was the best prospect. Leo would add he was going to try to convince Mr. Rickey to sign me. That plan failed, too, because on April 9 before it could be carried out, Baseball Commissioner Chandler suspended Durocher for a year “for conduct detrimental to baseball.” Durocher and the commissioner's office had been in conflict for some time. The commissioner's office had challenged Leo's “questionable associations” off the playing field. Durocher had hit back by noting that some very well-known gangsters had been seen near the Yankee dugout during a Dodger-Yankee game. He said no one had done anything about that. This sparked an exchange between the commission-er's office, Durocher, Mr. Rickey, and Yankee President Larry MacPhail. It had been common belief that the storm had blown over. Ironically, on the same April morning that Mr. Rickey hoped to make his move, Durocher was suspended.

Quickly, Mr. Rickey saw that signing the first black in the major leagues would virtually wipe the Durocher story, a negative one, off the front pages. His action would cause controversy, but he believed it would be like a shot in the arm to the club. On the morning of April 9, 1947, just before an exhibition game, reporters in the press box received a single sheet of paper with a one-line announcement. It read: “Brooklyn an-nounces the purchase of the contract of Jack Roosevelt Robin-son from Montreal. Signed, Branch Rickey.”

That morning turned into a press Donnybrook. The sportswriters snatched up telephones. The telegraph wires relayed the message to the sports world.

Less than a week after I became Number 42 on the Brooklyn club, I played my first game with the team. I did a miserable job. There was an overflow crowd at Ebbets Field. If they expected any miracles out of Robinson, they were sadly disappointed. I was in another slump. I grounded out to the third baseman, flied out to left field, bounced into a double play, was safe on an error, and, later, was removed as a defensive safeguard. The next four games reflected my deep slump. I went to plate twenty times without one base hit. Burt Shotton, a man I respected and liked, had replaced Durocher as manager. As my slump deepened, I appreciated Shotton's patience and understanding. I knew the pressure was on him to take me out of the lineup. People began recalling Bob Feller's analysis of me. I was “good field, no hit.” There were others who doubted that I could field and some who hoped I would flunk out and thus establish that blacks weren't ready for the majors. Shotton, however, continued to encourage me.

Early in the season, the Philadelphia Phillies came to Ebbets Field for a three-game series. I was still in my slump and events of the opening game certainly didn't help. Starting to the plate in the first inning, I could scarcely believe my ears. Almost as if it had been synchronized by some master conductor, hate poured forth from the Phillies dugout.

“Hey, nigger, why don't you go back to the cotton field where you belong?”

“They're waiting for you in the jungles, black boy!”

“Hey, snowflake, which one of those white boys' wives are you dating tonight?”

“We don't want you here, nigger.”

“Go back to the bushes!”

Those insults and taunts were only samples of the torrent of abuse which poured out from the Phillies dugout that April day.

I have to admit that this day, of all the unpleasant days in my life, brought me nearer to cracking up than I ever had been. Perhaps I should have become inured to this kind of garbage, but I was in New York City and unprepared to face the kind of barbarism from a northern team that I had come to associate with the Deep South. The abuse coming out of the Phillies dugout was being directed by the team's manager, Ben Chap-man, a Southerner. I felt tortured and I tried just to play ball and ignore the insults. But it was really getting to me. What did the Phillies want from me? What, indeed, did Mr. Rickey expect of me? I was, after all, a human being. What was I doing here turning the other cheek as though I weren't a man? In college days I had had a reputation as a black man who never tolerated affronts to his dignity. I had defied prejudice in the Army. How could I have thought that barriers would fall, that, indeed, my talent could triumph over bigotry?

For one wild and rage-crazed minute I thought, “To hell with Mr. Rickey's ‘noble experiment.' It's clear it won't succeed. I have made every effort to work hard, to get myself into shape. My best is not enough for them.” I thought what a glorious, cleansing thing it would be to let go. To hell with the image of the patient black freak I was supposed to create. I could throw down my bat, stride over to that Phillies dugout, grab one of those white sons of bitches and smash his teeth in with my despised black fist. Then I could walk away from it all. I'd never become a sports star. But my son could tell his son someday what his daddy could have been if he hadn't been too much of a man.

Then, I thought of Mr. Rickey—how his family and friends had begged him not to fight for me and my people. I thought of all his predictions, which had come true. Mr. Rickey had come to a crossroads and made a lonely decision. I was at a crossroads. I would make mine. I would stay.

The haters had almost won that round. They had succeeded in getting me so upset that I was an easy out. As the game progressed, the Phillies continued with the abuse.

After seven scoreless innings, we got the Phillies out in the eighth, and it was our turn at bat. I led off. The insults were still coming. I let the first pitch go by for a ball. I lined the next one into center field for a single. Gene Hermanski came up to hit and I took my lead.

The Phillies pitcher, a knuckle expert, let fly. I cut out for second. The throw was wide. It bounced past the shortstop. As I came into third, Hermanski singled me home. That was the game.

Apparently frustrated by our victory, the Phillies players kept the heat on me during the next two days. They even enlarged their name-calling to include the rest of the Brooklyn team.

“Hey, you carpetbaggers, how's your little reconstruction period getting along?”

That was a typical taunt. By the third day of our confrontation with these emissaries from the City of Brotherly Love, they had become so outrageous that Ed Stanky exploded. He started yelling at the Phillies.

“Listen, you yellow-bellied cowards,” he cried out, “why don't you yell at somebody who can answer back?” It was then that I began to feel better. I remembered Mr. Rickey's prediction. If I won the respect of the team and got them solidly behind me, there would be no question about the success of the experiment.

Stanky wasn't the only Brooklyn player who was angry with the Phillies team. Some of my other teammates told the press about the way Chapman and his players had behaved. Sports columnists around the country criticized Chapman. Dan Parker, sports editor of the New York
Daily Mirror,
reported: