Jackie and Campy (17 page)

“Why don’t you just go in and shower?” he said sarcastically. “You don’t act like you want to win this one. See that bullpen out there? There are three guys who hope you leave. They want this easy win.”

Newcombe was dumbfounded. He expected a pep talk. That’s how Campy motivated him. But here was Jackie, dressing him down when he could use some encouragement. He didn’t expect that, especially from another
black
teammate.

“Go on inside,” continued Robinson. “Go shower, or reach back and throw the damn ball!” Infuriated by the suggestion that he was a quitter, Newcombe was burning up inside, but he didn’t say a word. He just stood there on the mound and took it. After Robinson returned to his position, he relocated the strike zone and pitched himself out of trouble. The negative motivation had worked, but at what cost?

“Jackie always knew that getting inside Newk’s head and rattling his cage a bit made him pitch better,” explained Erskine. “But Campy was just the opposite. He would soothe Don in his own way. Cool and easy, Campy soothed Newk every time and emotionally stroked his confidence, like a balm on a wound.”
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Campanella certainly wasn’t going to goad Newcombe, or any pitcher for that matter. It wasn’t his nature. He believed in the power of positive motivation. If he could help his pitchers relax, he knew he’d get peak per
formance from them, particularly Newcombe, who had a huge ego. Campy constantly stroked that ego, helping him to realize the tremendous potential he possessed. If Newcombe got himself into trouble during a game, Roy would settle him down with such encouraging phrases as “It’s just you and me, roomie!,” “You’ve got all it takes!,” and “You’re going to win this one!” If, on the other hand, Newcombe ignored the catcher’s signals and needed to be disciplined, Campy registered the point in a humorous way: “Newk, you better do somethin’ because when I signal for the express you throws me the local!”
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It was as forceful as Roy was going to be with the young hurler. He couldn’t afford to alienate Newcombe; it could destroy their friendship as well as hurt the team. Although Erskine insists that Newcombe benefited from both approaches, Newcombe felt differently.
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“I’d call Campy a stabilizer,” he said years later. “Roy stabilized fractious attitudes on the team, especially between Jackie and me.”
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With Campanella’s encouragement, Newcombe went on to pitch the Dodgers to a National League title that season. In the heat of the pennant race, he hurled thirty-two straight scoreless innings. At the end of the regular season, Newcombe had compiled an impressive 17-8 record with a league-leading five shutouts and a 3.17 earned run average. Duly impressed, the Baseball Writers Association of America voted him National League Rookie of the Year.
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Slated to start the opening game of the 1949 World Series against New York at Yankee Stadium, Newcombe pitched shutout baseball through eight innings, allowing just three hits. But Yankee hurler Allie Reynolds was better, striking out nine and limiting the Brooklyn offense to just two hits to clinch a 1–0 victory. The lone run came in the bottom of the ninth, when Newcombe surrendered a game-ending homer to Tommy Henrich.
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Robinson, who extended his combative ways into the postseason, criticized plate umpire Cal Hubbard throughout the game for “calling so many bad strikes.” He even went so far as to accuse the American League umpire of “calling a pitch-out a strike.” After the game Commissioner Chandler ordered Jackie to stop “popping off” and to “behave himself,” and, in a rare show of remorse, Robinson wired an apology to Hubbard.
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But he got revenge in Game Two when he scored the lone run against Yankee pitcher Vic Raschi on a two-out single by Gil Hodges to win the game. Raschi later admitted that it wasn’t Hodges who beat him, but Robinson,
who was dancing off third base, bluffing for a steal of home. “I’d never seen anything like him before,” said Raschi. “A human being who could go from a standing start to full speed in just one step. He did something to me that almost never happens—he broke my concentration and I paid more attention to him than to Hodges.”
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It proved to be Brooklyn’s only victory in the Fall Classic, though, as the Yankees won the next three games to clinch the championship, four games to one.

Despite the loss, Robinson considered the season a success for the Dodgers. “There was a tremendous improvement in the closeness of our club,” he said, oblivious to the anxiety his antagonistic behavior created for some teammates. “Racial tensions had almost completely dissipated and the club had been strengthened by the addition of talented players like Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe.”
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The 1949 campaign had also been a personal success for Jackie. He established himself as a strong defensive second baseman who could hit for both power and average. Playing in all 156 regular season games, Robinson compiled a .342 batting average, the best in the National League. He also led the league in stolen bases while collecting 203 hits, 16 home runs, 12 triples, and 28 doubles.
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When the Baseball Writers voted Robinson the National League’s Most Valuable Player over Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals by a thirty-eight-point margin, it appeared that the press was also willing to look the other way when it came to Jackie’s combative behavior.
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Rickey, an unconditional ally, also rewarded his star second baseman with a $35,000 contract for the upcoming season. Robinson added considerably more to his income by endorsing products, making public appearances, and signing a contract for a bio-pic,
The Jackie Robinson Story
, in which he costarred with Ruby Dee, who played the role of his wife, Rachel.
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In his eagerness to earn more money, however, Jackie alienated himself from Campanella. Campy and Newcombe, along with Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians, made arrangements to join the Jackie Robinson All-Stars in a month-long postseason barnstorming tour through the South. All the players reportedly agreed to split the profits into four equal shares. But after the first few games, Campanella and Newcombe discovered that Robinson had made a separate deal with his promoter, Lester Dworman. According to the deal, Jackie would receive $5,000 up front, plus one-third of any profits over $70,000. The arrangement could
potentially earn him three to four times as much as the $5,000 share Campy was promised and the $4,500 budgeted for Newcombe. Apparently Doby too cut a better deal for himself. He was guaranteed $5,000, an additional $25 for each of the first twenty games, plus 5 percent of the gross profits after expenses. But that didn’t alleviate his anger when he discovered how much more Jackie stood to earn.
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According to Campanella’s biographer, Neil Lanctot, the three players considered leaving the tour but confronted Robinson instead. Jackie might have been embarrassed, but he was unapologetic and threatened to call off the tour. “I don’t like what you’re inferring here,” he snapped. “I made my deal, you made your deal, and I can’t be responsible because you are going to get five thousand dollars.”
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Dworman, the promoter, admitted that the tour “made a fortune” and that Campanella saw that the first night “when the audience was jammed.” When Campy insisted on “a better deal,” Robinson and Dworman, with Campy’s signed agreement in hand, told him, “Go screw yourself, or get the hell outta here.”
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Newcombe left the tour early to join a better-paying barnstorming trip on the West Coast. Doby gave Robinson the cold shoulder but remained with the tour. So did Campanella, though he was devastated by the betrayal of his close friend. Still, Roy played hard and extended himself to fans in his affable way. He even offered some effusive praise to an eighteen-year-old Willie Mays, who stole the show when the Robinson All-Stars played the Negro League’s Black Barons at Birmingham’s Rickwood Field on October 15. “The kid was playing centerfield,” Campy recalled many years later. “We had Doby, a real speed demon, on third base. Somebody hit a fly ball to deep center and the kid made an over-the-shoulder bread basket catch. Then he wheeled and threw Doby out at the plate. I couldn’t believe it.” Campanella was so impressed with the play that he phoned Branch Rickey after the game and asked him to send a scout to watch Mays play.
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After three weeks Robinson, unapproachable and lethargic in his play, ended the tour with four games remaining on the schedule. More than 148,500 spectators had turned out for the tour, almost 50,000 more than expected. The tour did extremely well, earning Robinson $15,000.
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Campanella returned home $5,000 richer but resentful of Jackie, who he felt had exploited him. Money had always been important to Campy. Although he realized that he did not command the popularity of Robinson, he still
wanted to be treated fairly in terms of financial compensation. Shortly after the tour ended, Rickey learned about the falling out between his two star players and met with Campanella to discuss his contract for the upcoming season. The Dodgers’ president handed a blank sheet of paper to his All-Star catcher, asking him to “write in the figure.” Embarrassed, Campanella pushed the paper aside and requested to be “paid what I’m worth.” But Rickey insisted. Taking pen in hand, Roy wrote $12,500, giving himself a $3,000 raise from the previous season. The amount was still $22,500 less than Robinson’s salary but satisfied the catcher. Rickey called the contract “the best bargain in baseball.”
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The year 1949 was indeed pivotal for Jackie Robinson. He had been freed from the restrictions of Branch Rickey’s ban against striking back at racial discrimination on and off the playing field. He was able to express his anger and frustration against the bigotry of white society, though it was not always clear that his perception was accurate. Voted by the Baseball Writers the National League’s Most Valuable Player, Robinson had proved that he belonged in the Majors, that his rookie season wasn’t an aberration. It also reinforced his desire to prove his manhood, the same way that W. E. B. Du Bois equated professional success with full citizenship. Just as important, Jackie believed that the Dodgers as a team had overcome the racial tensions that had tarnished his first two seasons with the club. Maybe so, but all those things came at a price.

Robinson’s uncontrollable desire to flex his newfound freedom created tension among his teammates and, at times, even jeopardized their lives. The obligation he felt as an African American celebrity to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee helped to destroy the career of another black man who had commanded an even greater international status. And the desire to capitalize financially on his celebrity status alienated him from the closest friend he had in baseball. Robinson refused to accept any responsibility for these injustices, though they were clearly the consequences of his actions. Instead, near the end of his life, he chose to emphasize the “lesson” he learned “about racial hatred in America” during the 1949 season, specifically that “a black man, even after he has proven himself on and off the playing field, will still be denied his rights.”
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Robinson was so focused on his own circumstances that he couldn’t see the implications of his actions on those who were fighting for the very
same rights. Any challenge, real or perceived, was interpreted as a “humiliation” that he suffered in order “to provide a better future for my own children and for young black people everywhere.” When asked why he had been so combative, Robinson admitted that he was “grateful for all the breaks and opportunities I’ve had,” but that he believed he “wouldn’t have it made until the humblest black kid in the most remote backwoods of America has it made.” It was a virtuous—and undoubtedly genuine—position. But it was also colored by Robinson’s fierce desire to “stand up like a man” and strike back in order to avenge the resentment he felt for being considered an “uppity nigger.”
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Even if it came at the expense of others.

Like all heroes, Jackie Robinson was disappointingly human.

7.

Collision Course

Between 1950 and 1954 Jackie Robinson established himself as a leader in the black struggle for civil rights. But he also generated negative press and created tension among some teammates with his outspokenness and constant retribution against racial abuse, both real and perceived. The close relationship he had forged with Roy Campanella became a casualty of his controversial behavior. During those five years the friendship slowly deteriorated into a bitter rivalry based on the diametrically opposed approaches of each man toward integration. While they suppressed their mutual resentment for the good of the team—and especially for their black teammates—there were other factors that heightened tensions between the two.

Both Robinson and Campanella sought to be the acknowledged leader of a team that had repeatedly clinched the National League pennant only to fall short of defeating the regal New York Yankees in the World Series. “Wait ’til next year” became a painful reminder of that almost perennial failure. As the team aged, the possibility of clinching a world championship became more remote. In addition Robinson distanced himself from the Dodgers’ front office after 1950, when Branch Rickey decided to sell his share of the franchise to co-owner Walter O’Malley and join the Pittsburgh Pirates. O’Malley disapproved of Robinson’s outspokenness on civil rights and made clear his preference for Campanella and his passive acceptance of the company line.

As these developments unfolded in Brooklyn, the civil rights movement was being transformed by a new generation of activists who fought to end legal (de jure) and customary (de facto) racial discrimination. Initially working through the courts, this younger, more impatient generation
would eventually employ mass nonviolent confrontational tactics such as demonstrations, freedom rides, sit-ins, and boycotts. Many of the activists were inspired by Jackie Robinson’s example, which insisted on immediate gains in the struggle for civil rights.

During the 1950s African Americans in northern cities grew increasingly active in opposing racial discrimination in housing, jobs, and education. Led by their ministers, educators, and other professionals, the activists had a greater awareness of the obstacles to their advancement than did blacks in the rural South. They also had greater freedom to associate with each other and to work through independent institutions to advance their cause. Realizing the effectiveness of collective action, they began with isolated, small-scale protests that gradually led to more militant movements.
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Without such activism, the
NAACP
’s strategy to work through Congress and the courts in achieving civil rights legislation would have enjoyed limited success. Even after the Supreme Court’s landmark
Brown v. Board of Education
decision in 1954 mandating the desegregation of public schools, black activism was necessary to compel the federal government to implement the decision and extend its principles to all areas of public life rather than simply in schools.
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The civil rights movement also benefited from the new medium of television. Television provided constant reminders of the second-class citizenship blacks were forced to endure in a prosperous society dominated by whites. The images did not go unnoticed by white northern liberals. Black voters commanded a substantial influence within the Democratic Party, which mobilized to support the movement once it began. Civil rights became an issue that northern politicians could not ignore at home, while the cold war made racial injustice an embarrassment abroad. At a time when the United States was appealing to Africa for support and presenting itself as a model to other countries, racial discrimination contradicted its claim to be the leader of the free world.
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower was keenly aware of these developments. Though reluctant to act aggressively, Eisenhower worked behind the scenes to advance the cause of civil rights. He completed the desegregation of the military, begun by the Truman administration, by mandating the integration of the navy yards and veterans hospitals. Ike also appointed five pro–civil rights justices to the Supreme Court and forged a congres
sional coalition that passed the first civil rights legislation in eighty-two years, thereby paving the way for the
Brown
decision. While he personally believed that the “decision was wrong” and doubted that “the hearts of men could be changed with laws,” Eisenhower accepted his constitutional obligation to carry it out when, in 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, refused the admission of black students. Eisenhower placed the National Guard under federal command, and black students entered the high school under military protection. It was the first time since the end of Reconstruction that an American president deployed federal troops to protect the rights of African American citizens.
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Despite the momentousness of these events, there was never any discussion of them among the Brooklyn Dodgers. As outspoken as he was, Robinson never raised the subject of civil rights with teammates. Don Zimmer, promoted to the Dodgers as an infielder in 1954, “never once heard a conversation about civil rights” in the clubhouse or off the playing field. “It just didn’t go on with the players. We didn’t think in terms of skin color. That team was like family. On the field it was all business. Off the field there was a lot of togetherness, but we never talked about the black-white thing.”
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Don Newcombe had different memories: “We had to be very careful about the guys in our own dugout. Jackie, Roy and me had to find out which guys were on our side and which weren’t. We didn’t socialize with the white guys. We never went out to dinner with white teammates. We never had breakfast in the hotel with them.”
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If that was the case, there certainly wouldn’t have been any discussion of civil rights between the three black Dodgers and their teammates. But Newcombe is also prone to exaggeration because of the bitterness he still feels over his baseball career and the discrimination he experienced.
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Carl Erskine, who’d begun his career with the Dodgers in 1948 and pitched with the club through 1957, disputed Newcombe’s portrayal of a segregated team. In fact Robinson and Campanella considered Erskine one of their closest friends, white or black, on the team. But the white pitcher did agree that civil rights were never a topic of conversation throughout his tenure in Brooklyn. “Civil rights wasn’t even a blip on the screen because it didn’t exist when it came to playing baseball,” said Erskine. “When we were in uniform we had one goal: to help each other win the ball game on that particular day. Jackie and Campy knew that and respected it.”
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Nor were the Dodgers unique in their conscious effort to avoid any discussion of civil rights. “There was nothing unusual about that,” said Monte Irvin, who played for the New York Giants. “Willie Mays, Hank Thompson, and I never discussed civil rights in the Giants’ clubhouse either,” he said, referring to his teammates on baseball’s first all-black outfield. “Our white teammates loved us, but they weren’t concerned with civil rights. Most of the guys were young and single. None of us were making much money since the minimum salary was $5,000. You didn’t want to risk your career by bringing up a controversial subject like civil rights. And Willie, Hank, and I certainly weren’t going to raise the topic with them.”
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But that didn’t mean Irvin and other blacks who had made it to the Majors weren’t concerned about the issue. Irvin suggested that most of the black ballplayers who were promoted to the Majors viewed their responsibility as being role models for other African American athletes and adopted a passive approach to civil rights. “We tried to set an example by playing well, by minding our behavior and not getting into trouble so we could make it better for those blacks who came after us,” he said. “That was our way of making a contribution. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t enough.”
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Campanella’s approach to civil rights was similar to Irvin’s. While he resented being treated like a second-class citizen because of his race, he wasn’t going to jeopardize his baseball career by protesting. Predictably Campy adopted a diplomatic attitude: “I’ve had to struggle all my life. I’m a colored man. I know there are lots of things I can do and things I cannot do without stirring up some people. But a few years ago there were many more things that I could not do than is the case today. So, I’m willing to wait [for change]. Everything that has happened [in the civil rights movement] is because of waiting. I believe in not pushing things. And a man’s got to do things the way he sees them. No other way.”
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Content to let Congress and the courts determine civil rights issues, Campy focused on playing baseball to the very best of his abilities. His contribution to the movement would be as a “role model,” not as an “activist.” His example would be difficult to ignore as the decade unfolded.

Campanella was the consummate team player, a “gamer,” an athlete who put the needs of the team before his own needs by playing through pain. Despite repeated injuries, he persevered. During the heat of the pennant race in 1950, he dislocated his right thumb but still insisted on catching
every day. That off-season he almost lost his sight when the hot-water heater in his home blew up, blistering the cornea of each eye. His recovery lingered into the spring of 1951, when a foul ball split his thumb in an exhibition game. During the regular season, Campy suffered a severely bruised hip sliding into second base and later chipped an elbow during a collision at home plate. In a three-game playoff against the New York Giants to determine the National League pennant winner, Campanella reinjured his hip. In each case, he continued to strap on the catcher’s gear and take charge of the team defensively while singlehandedly carrying the Dodgers’ offense at various times during the season.
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He compiled a .325 batting average—the highest of his Major League career—and collected the first of three Most Valuable Player Awards. Impressed by his play, Ty Cobb, the Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame outfielder, predicted, “Campanella will be remembered longer than any catcher in baseball history.”
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Campy’s selflessness earned him the unconditional respect of the Dodgers pitching staff. “No one dared shake Campy off,” said Carl Erskine. “I rarely did. And the few times I did—I could count them on one hand over my entire career—I got burned. When I listened to Roy, I was successful. For all the pitchers, Roy was a pal, a confidant, a guiding light out there on the field.”
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Campanella also endeared himself to the position players with his infectious enthusiasm for the game. “Campy just brightened the clubhouse,” said Duke Snider. “If we had won the day before, he’d walk in and shout, ‘Same team that won yesterday is gonna win today!’ He was a lot of fun to be around and helped us relax with all those stories of his days in the Negro Leagues.”
15

Fans also loved Campanella. Both black and white youngsters flocked to him because of his easygoing nature and his color-blind attitude toward race relations. In February 1950, for example, he was invited to speak at a predominantly white Episcopal church in Rockville Center, Long Island, to raise funds for the construction of a black Baptist church. Speaking on the topic “Delinquency and Sportsmanship,” he voiced his belief that “children were not born with prejudice, but were infected with it by their elders.” “The only way to combat this cycle of bigotry,” he contended, “was to bring kids of different races together early on in social and recreational programs.”
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True to form, Campanella chose to emphasize the need for harmony between the races, suggesting that earlier generations of blacks and whites were equally responsible for the bigotry that prevailed among their children. Only by exposing youngsters of different races to each other would the cycle be broken. It was a message that was palatable—if not appealing—for both black and white fans, and it allowed Campanella to transcend the racial boundaries that divided them.

After he captured his second
MVP
Award in 1953, Roy’s popularity eclipsed Robinson’s. When comedian Happy Felton began to conduct a pregame television show during Dodgers home stands, he expected that young contest winners would most want to meet Jackie Robinson. “But Campy was way out in front,” recalled Felton. “He just has a special way with kids. He gets along with them without even trying.”
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Kids were able to sense Campanella’s affinity for them. He shared many of their interests and hobbies, including model trains and tropical fish.
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And he played baseball with the enthusiasm of a youngster. In fact Campy was credited
with one of the most popular baseball quotations of the modern era: “You have to have a lot of little boy in you to play baseball for a living.”
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Jim McGowan, one of the winners in Felton’s contest, recalled, “Even though Jackie was the hero of all the black kids in Brooklyn because he brought pride to our race, I wanted to meet Campy. Maybe that was because, like him, I had a white father and a black mother. But I knew a lot of black kids in my neighborhood who loved Campy because he was more approachable as well as a great ballplayer. Jackie was more distant, almost like a god.”
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On matters of race, Campanella was nonconfrontational. “One reason I’ve never had any trouble with white folks is because I’ve always tried to treat people like I wanted to be treated,” he explained years later. “I try to think before I say anything to anyone. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings because I don’t want them to hurt mine.”
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