Robinson and Rickey

[DOUGHBOYS]

It's impossible to talk about Jackie Robinson without talking of race.
Impossible.
And, it is politically correct not to talk about race.
So I will.
There are some words in this story that may be offensive.
Just remember, it was the way of the day.

Branch Rickey had the idea of bringing black players to baseball long before 1947.
Rickey was a baseball man first, everything else second.
He climbed to the Major Leagues in 1905. He wasn't a very good player. Others respected his knowledge of the game, more than his playing of the game. He didn't bat well. He didn't field well. He didn't play well. While catching, opposing runners stole 13 bases off of him. A record for over a century.
He 'retired'. Went back to school, majored in business and coached baseball and basketball.
While coaching basketball in 1910 at Ohio Wesleyan, a black player on his team was refused a hotel room. Rickey negotiated a cot in his own room. When returning to his room, Rickey witnessed the man crying and clutching at his skin as if in an effort to rip it off.

Rickey went back to Major League Baseball, six years after he 'retired' as a player and became a Manager and front office man.
He initiated the 'minor league system'. Judge Kenesaw Landis perceived the minor league system that the Cardinals had as a threat to baseball and twice dropped 70 players off Cardinal minor league rosters.
In the end, other clubs saw the Rickey vision and the minor league system was embraced by baseball.

Rickey had had permission from his Board of Directors to sign a black player three years prior to meeting Robinson. In that time, Rickey did his due diligence in the planning of the first black player.
He had scouts scan negro leagues for a great player, but also a player who was intelligent and had integrity. Somebody who could, for lack of a better phrase, 'speak white man'.
Most blacks then, were terribly under educated. Most leaving school early or not attending school at all.

Scouts were not 100% completely sold on Robinson. Some scouts liked other players for the role, but it was Robinson who would meet with Rickey.
The first meeting between Rickey and Robinson was part of a Rickey ruse.
Rickey sent a scout to tell Robinson of a new negro league and asked for Robinson to meet his boss in his office in New York to talk about starring in the new league .
There was no new negro league. Rickey did not want other clubs to know what he was up to.
He met with Robinson and warned him of the restraint that he would have to show, both in Montreal where he would be playing for the Dodgers top farm club, and for the Dodgers when he got the call.
It was at this meeting when Robinson responded to Rickey's request by saying, "So, Mr. Rickey, you are looking for a negro that is afraid to fight back?"
Rickey thundered back at Robinson, "That's not what I want at all, Robinson! I'm looking for a negro with the guts enough not to fight back!

Robinson was signed and sent to Montreal. He spent a year there, where he was received coldly, but won over fans with his skills. He remembered that Rickey had told him that if he played like a winner, it would be forgotten what skin color he had.
He won Most Valuable Player of the International League and led Montreal to a first place finish. They were set up to play Louisville for the Triple A- World Series. Louisville announced to it's fans that there would be a limit or quota on the amount of black fans that could enter their park.
Montreal won the series and Robinson was even lifted on Montreal fans shoulders after the clincher.
It was time.

When spring training arrived, Rickey called Robinson into his office.
He told him that for other players, spring training was a time to shed winter weight.
A time to warm up the engines.
A time to fine tune.
Rickey told Robinson that he could afford none of these things. He had to play like it was the World Series.
Steal bases.
Stretch base hits.
Score from first on a single.
This would provide two things-
One, to prove Robinson belonged
Two, to take any decision out of Rickey's hands that Robinson should be a Big League player.

Robinson hit .625 He stole bases, stretched hits, and was cursed by every opposing team and by some on his own team.
A petition not to play with Robinson was started by some Dodger players and quickly quashed by meetings with Rickey by the petitioning Dodgers. He told these players that, "Robinson is staying....Are you?"
April 9 of '47, Rickey was told that Manager Leo Durocher would be suspended for 'questionable associations with gangsters and gamblers'.
Rickey could only minimize this news by having a larger news story. During an exhibition game that day, a news release was given to the press.
'Brooklyn announces the purchase of the contract of Jack Roosevelt Robinson from Montreal- signed, Branch Rickey.'

Those 16 words caused pandemonium across the United States. There were few whites that actively saw this as a good thing.
Hardly any, publicly.
The Ku Klux Klan immediately started threats and in different locales stepped up their terror of black people. Some Dodger fans vowed never to attend games. Fans across the United States were convinced that the negroes had their negro leagues and did not belong in the Big Leagues.
Branch Rickey was the butt of a lot of white jokes.

The Dodgers left spring training split. Some did not want to be on the same team as Robinson and were miffed. But something happens to a group of men on a team who must stay together. Like in the military, they know they have to put personal feelings aside for the good of the objective. The team as a whole, had to be first, if winning was to be had. And winning was the number one thing on players minds, no matter how they felt about Robinson.
That lesson came quickly.
Near the end of their first month together, Dodger players came to the understanding that Robinson could not/would not respond to taunts, names, or threats. In a series vs. Philadelphia, the Phillies Manager, Ben Chapman, from the south, encouraged and joined his players in dishing out every racial slur and threat that came to mind. The torrent was relentless, and it was during this series that Robinson would say later that he came closest to 'losing it'.
After two days of the continuous onslaught, Eddie Stanky, the Dodgers second baseman called time and walked close to the Phils dugout, yelling, "Listen you yellow bellied cowards! Why don't you yell something at me or somebody that can answer back!"
Chapman and the Phils were reprimended by the Commisioners office, but Rickey only smiled. He knew that Ben Chapman, in his own way, made Dodger teammates accept Robinson as one of their own and drew the Dodgers closer.
Even having one of the petitioners come into his office and apologize in his own way saying, "Robinson is a nigger, but dammit, he's OUR nigger!"

Two other incidences, both involving Pee Wee Reese would also come to play.
In one game, Pee Wee, who was from southern Kentucky was taking heat from an opposing dugout for playing with a nigger.
The taunts went on for five innings. In the sixth inning, with men on first and third, Pee Wee called time and walked over to Robinson's position at second to talk strategy of what to do with base runners. When he did this, he put his arm around Robinson's shoulders to talk with him.
Everybody in the ball park knew what message Reese was sending and the taunting slowed.

There was also an incident where Robinson was threatened to be shot if he played in a game. This threat was taken seriously and many asked Robinson not to take the field. Robinson felt if he buckled from these threats, that more threats would follow and he'd never play.
While warming up on a tense side of the Dodger field, Pee Wee Reese found himself standing next to Robinson.
"Oh Crap", Reese said loud enough for most Dodger teammates to hear, "I better move! Who's to say this guy isn't nervous and takes a potshot at you and misses and hit's me!?"
The threat was almost forgotten by the time the Dodgers took the field.

Robinson had a wonderful year and won Rookie of the Year.
In 1948, after many banquets and speaking engagements, Robinson came to spring training 25 pounds over weight.
He was chastized by the press and whitest of white fans. They thought that the nigger had gotten to uppity and would live on his one year of heroics. It was a tough year for Robinson, until the weight came off, he wasn't at his best. But after shedding the weight, Robinson closed to have a good year.

It was the next year that changed everything. Branch Rickey told Robinson in a meeting that the three year handcuffs were gone. Robinson could respond in kind to any physical or verbal attack within reason.
Robinson was free. And it showed in his play.
Robinson would finish the year with this line- .342/122/16/124/37
He would win the Most Valuable Player award and acclaim everywhere.
It was after this year, that Robinson and black players in general were truly accepted.

Robinson would never have another year like that again.
It was after this year that Branch Rickey would lose his grip on the Dodgers to Walter O'Malley. Robinson never felt that O'Malley had his back.
After O'Malley forced Rickey out as owner of the Dodgers, Robinson never matched that year.
He felt that O'Malley thought of him as uppity and a 'Rickey Man', not a Dodger.
Robinson starred with the Dodgers for the next few years and retired after the 1956 season.

Robinson did not have Hall of Fame numbers per se.
But, he was a no-brainer and was elected to the Hall in his first year of eligibility.
Branch Rickey?
After being forced out by the Dodgers, he helped the Pittsburgh Pirates lay the groundwork for a great team in the late 50's, ending with a World Championship in 1960.
With large health issues, Rickey retired and became a public speaker.
The Hall of Fame did not see fit to include him until two years after his death in 1965.