Larry Doby
In every Major League ballpark the number 42 is displayed prominently, the only player’s number to have been permanently retired by Major League Baseball. Forty-two was the number worn by Jackie Robinson, famous for his skills as a player but more notably as the first African American to play Major League baseball. In fact there were several black athletes who played at baseball’s highest level before segregation took hold in the late nineteenth century. Moses Fleetwood Walker is an example. Nor was Jackie Robinson the first to be recruited to play in the majors when the color line was finally broken for good in the 1940s. That honor belongs to Larry Doby.
In 1942 the owner of the Cleveland Indians, Bill Veeck, having been scouting the Negro Leagues for appropriate talent, proposed integrating the major leagues. The Commissioner of Baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, turned him down. Veeck had been keeping an eye on Negro League star Larry Doby with an intent to bring him directly to the Major Leagues but by then World War II intervened, and Doby was serving in the United States Navy. Veeck met with him while Doby was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Training Center during the war. Doby later saw service in the Pacific and was discharged in 1946.
Following Doby’s release from the Navy he returned to his interrupted baseball career, playing first with the San Juan Senators before rejoining the Newark Eagles, the Negro League team for which he had played before his naval service. In 1947, Veeck purchased his contract with the Eagles and sent one of his assistants to escort Doby to Chicago, where the Indians were playing a series with the Chicago White Sox. Jackie Robinson had already entered the National League, and the negative reaction of many fans and players was well known.
Doby was not allowed to stay in the same hotel as his teammates, a situation he would face many times in his career. Veeck hired security guards to escort him to and from the ballpark. When he was introduced to his new teammates, many refused to shake his hand, some even turned their backs. He had difficulty finding someone with whom to play catch to warm up. Later and throughout a large part of his career he was refused service in restaurants and in spring training had to stay at a private home as a boarder, denied entry into the Indians’ hotel.
Robinson endured the same things, but Robinson was first and as such, drew the attention of the media, especially the sportswriters, who reported on his struggles and gained for him the support of many. Doby was second, soon one of many, and the same obstacles for which Jackie Robinson is honored for overcoming Doby overcame in near anonymity. Doby later managed in the Major Leagues (second again to the first black manager Frank Robinson) and was elected to the Hall of Fame. Larry Doby, who once endured an opponent spitting tobacco juice on him as he slid into second base told a reporter, “…I prefer to remember… the good guys. There’s no point talking about the others.”