Yesterday was “Jackie Robinson Day” in baseball, with every player wearing the civil rights and baseball icon’s retired uniform number 42. April 15, 1947 is the day Robinson, following the bold plan of Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey to desegregate baseball, officially broke the game’s color barrier in an event with national, cultural and societal significance. (I’ve written a lot about Jackie, a great man as well as a great baseball player.) Baseball is justly proud of its role in advancing civil rights (and justly ashamed of its long exclusion of black players before and after Robinson’s trailblazing), but commenter “Old Bill” reminded me this morning of the undeserved and unfair relative obscurity of Cleveland Indians great Larry Doby, the second black man to play Major League Baseball.

“It was 11 weeks between the time Jackie Robinson and I came into the majors. I can’t see how things were any different for me than they were for him,” Doby once said. Well, they weren’t. Doby’s courage and fortitude while battling bigotry and hostility to integrate what had been a white man’s game were no less than what Robinson displayed.

Lawrence Eugene Doby was born on December 13, 1923, in Camden, South Carolina. Larry’s father, David, was a stable hand, grooming the horses of many wealthy New Jersey families. When Larry was eight years old, his father died in a tragic accident. After that the boy was cared for by his aunt and uncle as well as his mother and moved from locale to locale, finally settling in Patterson, N.J. Even before graduating from high school, Doby was playing second base in the Negro Leagues under the assumed name of Larry Walker for the Newark Eagles. Despite is tender years, he was considered a rising star. He entered college, where he was a basketball stand-out, and was drafted and joined the Navy during W.W. II. Doby was honorably discharged from the military in January 1946, and inspired by the news that the Dodgers had signed a black player, Robinson of course, he changed his career plans from teaching to baseball. Doby sensed that the times they were a-changing. He rejoined the Negro League Eagles, believing that might be a path to the Major Leagues.

When his team went on to win the Negro Leagues World Series in 1946, Doby attracted the attention of maverick Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck, now best known as the man who sent a midget up to bat. Veeck, like Rickey, had long sought to integrate baseball, which for Veeck was the American League. He became convinced that Doby was the right player to do it. Veeck decided that he would purchase Doby’s contract and bring him up to join Cleveland right after the 1947 All-Star break. Doby’s white team mates on the Indians refused to look at or speak to him. Doby told an interviewer in 2002, “I knew it was segregated times, but I had never seen anything like that in athletics. I was embarrassed. It was tough.” 

He didn’t win a place in the Indians regular line-up until the next season, when the Indians won the AL pennant with him playing the outfield every day. That fall Doby became the first black player to hit a home run in the World Series, winning Game Four 2-1 and sending the Indians to a World Series victory the next day. A remarkable photo taken after Game Four showed Doby embracing white Cleveland pitcher Steve Gromek. (I was told that this photo is famous: I’ve followed baseball and baseball history most of my life, and I had never seen it. But there is a statue of Pee Wee Reese with his hand on Jackie Robinson’s shoulder! ) in what was supposedly a watershed for race relations.

1948 was the first of 10 consecutive years in which Doby hit at least 14 home runs and drove in at least 50 runs. He was selected to the All-Star team every year between 1949 and 1955 and finished in the top 10 in the American League MVP voting in 1950 and 1954.

More than a decade fter Doby’s career as a player was ended by injuries, he became the the second black manager in major league history (following Frank Robinson) when he took over the White Sox in 1978. Yup, second again! In 1997, the Indians retired Doby’s number 14 on the 50th anniversary of his American League debut, as he became the fifth Cleveland player to be so honored, joining Bob Feller, Earl Averill, Mel Harder, and Lou Boudreau. A banner appeared in Jacobs Field l on July 5, 1997showing Doby with Jackie Robinson; it read,“50 years: 1947-1997.” At Doby’s number retiring ceremony, Hank Aaron told him, “I want to thank you for all that you went through, because if it had not been for you, I wouldn’t have been able to have the career that I had.” 

In 1998, Larry Doby was at last elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Jackie Robinson was, unquestionably the trailblazer for blacks in baseball, and nothing I have written here should be seen as diminishing that distinction. He was also a civil rights activist for the rest of his life, properly using his fame, credibility and national prominence to continue the fight to overcome bias and discrimination in American society. Robinson was also beyond question a greater baseball talent than Larry Doby. Nonetheless, Larry Doby’s achievements and sacrifices as a distinguished #2 deserve more recognition than he has received, and more public honors than he will ever have.

Let’s try to remember Larry Doby.