Larry Doby, the 7-time All-Star and 2-time American League home run
leader, became the first African American to play in the A.L. when he
made his debut on July 5, 1947. Doby's first appearance occurred less
than three months after Jackie Robinson had become the first African
American major leaguer in the 20th Century when he debuted with the
National League's Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, breaking the ban
on black players dating back to 1889. Doby's first season lasted but 29
games, but when he returned to the Big Leagues in 1948, it was for good
and for real: batting 301 with 14 home runs and 66 runs batted in, the
rookie's 83 runs scored helped the Cleveland Indians win the American
League pennant and the 1948 World Series against the Boston Braves
after they beat the Boston Red Sox in a one-game playoff at the end of
the regular season.
Doby played in an era when the Yankees won the American League pennant
every year, and the World Series almost as often, giving rise to the
1954 book by Douglas Wallop "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant",
which required none other than a Washington Senators fan selling his
soul to the devil. (The book was the basis of the smash-hit musical
"Damn Yankees (1958)", which was
not then an epithet used solely by Southerners but by all baseball fans
who weren't American League affiliated New Yorkers.) Between 1947 and
1964, only teams that Doby played on (Cleveland Indians, 1948 & '54)
and the Chicago White Sox (1959) beat the hated Yankees for the A.L.
pennant. (Unfortunately, Doby -- then at the end of his career -- did
not appear with the ChiSox in the '59 World Series, a loss to the Los
Angeles Dodgers, having been released in June).
In 1954, the year Doby's Indians once again won the American League
pennant, Doby hit .272 and tied his career best with 32 dingers while
driving in 126 and scoring 94 runs, leading the A.L. in home runs and
R.B.I. Inevitably, it seems, Doby lost the M.V.P. award to the Yankees'
Yogi Berra, who had already won the award in
1951 and who would win it again the following year.
During his Major League career, Larry Doby batted in 100 runs five
times. He also played in the Negro Leagues before being signed by the
Indians, and was twice an All-Star for the Newark Eagles, which must be
considered a team between Triple-A minor league ball and the major
leagues, just as the Pacific Coast League was before expansion.
In 1943, Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck,
the son of a former Chicago Cubs executive, had made an attempt to buy
the floundering Philadelphia Phillies. It was Veeck's idea to stock the
team with Negro League All-Stars such as 'Leroy
'Satchel' Paige' and disputed baseball home run
king 'Josh Gibson' ("The Black Babe Ruth", who might have hit as many
as 84 dingers in a season, but Negro League records are spotty) in
order to take the place of departed white major leaguers, doing time in
the military service. However, that plan was vetoed by Baseball
Commissioner Kenesaw M. Landis and by owners who made more money from the income
derived from renting their stadia to Negro League teams, who frequently
outdrew the white Major League clubs. When Veeck finally got his hands
on a team, he did integrate it, first with Doby and then by realizing
his dream of bringing up Satchel Paige to the Indians in 1948, the
oldest rookie ever to play in the Bigs.
Most of the credit for integrating Major League Baseball has accrued to
Jackie Robinson, as he was the first in 1947, played a full season, won
Rookie of the Year honors and a Most Valuable Player award two years
later on a team that while he was on it, nearly rivaled the Yankees in
terms of its dominance of its league. However, Larry Doby's
accomplishment in integrating the American League was not forgotten,
and he justly was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 1998.
