Larry Doby, who debuted as the first Black player in American League history 75 years ago Tuesday, could have wound up in D.C. if Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith hadn’t whiffed on an opportunity to land him.
In October 1945, Doby was serving with Senators star Mickey Vernon in the Navy on a small island near Guam when they heard on the radio that the Brooklyn Dodgers had signed Jackie Robinson to a minor league contract.. “… Mickey said to me, ‘There’s your opportunity,’ and he wrote a letter to Clark Griffith recommending me. They weren’t ready to integrate, though.”
Vernon returned to the Senators in 1946 after a two-year military hiatus and didn’t miss a beat, leading the American League with a .353 batting average and 51 doubles. Doby rejoined the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League, where he put up similar numbers, hitting .365 with a league-high 10 triples in 59 games.
Doby, then 23, played in his first game July 5, 1947 — becoming the second Black player in modern baseball history, less than three months after Robinson broke the sport’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.“I will not sign a Negro for the Washington club merely to satisfy subversive persons,” he said in a 1952 Sporting News retrospective piece at 82. “I would welcome a Negro on the Senators if he rated the distinction, if he belonged among major league players.
, Doby praised Veeck as a man who “didn’t see color. To me, he was in every sense colorblind. And I always knew he was there for me. He always seemed to know when things were bad, if things were getting to me. He’d call up and say: ‘Let’s go out. Let’s get something to eat.’ ”onto the field at Chicago’s Comiskey Park for his first game, posed for photos with the rookie and patted him on the back with these words of advice: “Just remember you’re only another baseball player.
“I’m really nervous,” Doby told sportswriters. “Last night on the train was the first time in four nights I got any sleep.”He received a loud ovation from the Chicago fans when he came out on the field before the game and again when he came up as a pinch hitter in the seventh inning. Doby struck out with runners on first and third and one out but got another ovation as he returned to the dugout.
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