Seventy-five years ago, a black-and-white photo of Cleveland teammates Larry Doby and Steve Gromek delivered a message of tolerance to baseball fans.
— endured racist taunts from fans and opposing players, discrimination in hotels and restaurants and even hostility from his teammates. For Doby, a World Series embrace with a White teammate was an antidote to that torrent of abuse.
The embrace “was special because it was the first time anyone showed feeling toward me as far as I’m concerned. I mean, toward an African American,”. “Until then they had been distant, cool, and got criticized for what he did back home. … I think it was the first picture taken of that type, the first picture of a black American and a white American embracing each other going out all over the country.
“So then the guy told me, ‘Jesus, you could have just shook his hand,’ ” Gromek continued. “But then this other friend of mine says, ‘If I was in Steve’s shoes, and Doby did what he did, I would have kissed him.’ ”. “They said things that were sort of shocking to him. What bothered him was that these were his friends. He kept thinking, ‘What kind of friend are you to say these things?’ He even got death threats. That’s what was really shocking.
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