Larry Doby

Lawrence Eugene "Larry" Doby (December 13, 1923 – June 18, 2003) was an American professional baseball player in the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball.

He was the first African-American to play in the American League, joining the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, just 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. As the second black player to play in the modern major leagues, he also became the second African-American to lead a Major League club when he became manager of the Chicago White Sox in 1978.

Doby was the first black player to hit a homerun in a World Series for Cleveland in 1948 and the first to play on a winning World Series team; the first Black player from the AL to participate in the MLB All-Star game in 1949; the first black to win a league homerun title, leading the AL with 32 homeruns in 1952.[1] In 1954, he also led the league with 126 runs batted in (RBI). That made him the first black to win the RBI title in the American League.[2]

A center fielder, Doby appeared in seven All-Star games and finished second in the 1954 American League MVP voting. He was selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998 by the Hall's Veterans Committee.

When Doby integrated the American League in the summer of 1947, he faced the same racial hurdles and had to play the pioneer's role just as Jackie Robinson, but did so with none of the same fanfare.

Early life

Larry Doby was born on December 13, 1924 in Camden, South Carolina to David and Etta Doby. David, a World War I veteran who worked in the horse industry as a groom, played baseball in his spare time and was known as a great hitter. David was away from home most of the time working in the North. Doby's father died when he was about eight years old.

His mother had also moved north to Paterson, New Jersey in search of work. His maternal grandmother raised him with strict discipline, regular church attendance, and reading and writing lessons before his formal education began. When she began having mental problems his mother returned to move Larry into the home of her sister-in-law.

He learned baseball from Richard DuBose, one of the best known figures in African-American baseball in South Carolina for more than half a century. DuBose had also coached Larry's father.

In 1938 Larry graduated from the 8th grade and his mother insisted that he move to Paterson to attend high school, where educational and economic opportunities were relatively greater for African-Americans. Living with a friend of his mother in Paterson he only saw his mother on her one day off a week from domestic service.

He attended Eastside High School where he lettered in just about every sport they offered.

While in high school began playing with the semi-professional and professional teams in both basketball and baseball. Doby joined the Newark Eagles in the Negro baseball leagues at the age of 17. At that time he played under the name Larry Walker to protect his amateur status.

His career in Newark was interrupted for two years for service in the Navy. He was stationed at Camp Smalls in the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois, named after a fellow South Carolinian, Robert Smalls, a hero of the Civil War. There his physical conditioning earned him an assignment as physical education instructor that included playing time with sports teams representing the camp.

Professional career

Discharged from the Navy in early 1946, Doby returned to professional baseball. He spent a winter season playing in Puerto Rico and then rejoined the Newark Eagles. There he played with some of the all-time greats: Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige (who would later be his roommate in Cleveland), Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe. He was not the top player in the league, but he was among the elite with a .348 batting average for the 1946 season. He helped lead his team to the Negro World Series title.

The first half of the 1947 season Doby was leading the league with a .458 average, but on July 3, 1947, after weeks of rumors, Doby was told that he had been purchased by Bill Veeck's Cleveland Indians.

Doby joined the Indians eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the National League. In his rookie season he received limited playing time and was 5-for-32 in 29 games. Only two weeks later the St. Louis Browns' signed Hank Thompson. On August 19th, Doby and Thompson became the first African-American players to line up against one another when their teams met for a doubleheader.

In his first full year in the majors Doby helped the Cleveland Indians to win only their second World Series and the first in 26 years. Against the Boston Braves in 1948, his home run off Johnny Sain decided a 2-1 victory in Game 4 as the Indians won in six games. It was the last time the Indians won the Series. He batted .301, hit 14 homeruns and drove in 66 runs that year.

He is one of only four players, along with Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, and Satchel Paige, to play in both a Negro World Series and a major league World Series.[3]

He also helped the Indians to win 111 games and the American League pennant in 1954.

At the end of the 1955 season, Doby was traded to the Chicago White Sox for Chico Carrasquel and Jim Busby. He returned to Cleveland in 1958 for a short period of time, finishing his majors' career in 1959 with the White Sox (again hired by Bill Veeck) after a brief stint with the Detroit Tigers.

Doby was a .283 career hitter with 253 home runs and 970 RBI in 1,533 games. He hit at least 20 homers in each season from 1949-56, leading the league in 1952 (32) and 1954 (32), and appearing between the top ten leaders in seven seasons (1949, 1951-56). He hit for the cycle (1952), and also led the league in runs in 1952 (104), RBI in 1954 (126), on base percentage in 1950 (.442), slugging average in 1952 (.541), and OPS in 1950 (.986).

In 1962, Doby became the third American to play professional baseball in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league, after Wally Kaname Yonamine and Don Newcombe. After retiring, he managed the White Sox in 1978. In a coincidental parallel, Doby was also the second black manager in the major leagues, after Frank Robinson had become the manager of Cleveland in 1975. Once again, it was Veeck who hired Doby.

He managed the White Sox for most of 1978; one of his catchers was his namesake, Cleveland native Larry Doby Johnson.[4]

In the late 1970s, Doby briefly moved away from professional baseball and served as the Director of Community Relations for the New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association.[5]

Doby threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the 1997 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, played at Jacobs Field. It was an appropriate choice, as the 1997 baseball season marked the fiftieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. It was also 50 years and 3 days since Doby became the first black player in the American League.

Back in 1997, when the 50th anniversary was being celebrated, a great editorial appeared in Sports Illustrated that pointed out that Larry Doby, who broke the color line in the American when he played for the Indians a short eleven weeks after Robinson did the same in the NL, suffered the same indignities with nowhere near the media attention and support.

Legacy

Larry Doby died on June 18, 2003, in Montclair, New Jersey, at age 79. When Doby died, President George W. Bush made the following statement:

"Larry Doby was a good and honorable man, and a tremendous athlete and manager. He had a profound influence on the game of baseball, and he will be missed. As the first African American player in the American League, he helped lead the Cleveland Indians to their last World Series title in 1948, became a nine-time All-Star and was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998. Laura joins me in sending our condolences to Larry's family during this difficult time."

Statement of President George W. Bush, June 20, 2003

Important documentaries, make sure to check out "Pride Against Prejudice: The Larry Doby Story," which debuts Thursday night at 9:30 on Showtime.

On August 10, 2007, the Indians paid tribute to Doby on Larry Doby Day by collectively using his number (14) on their uniforms.

Some recognition for Doby finally came with the creation of a National Black Sports Hall of Fame in 1973. He was one of 38 athletes chosen that year by the editors of Black Sports magazine. In 1997, New Jersey Representative William Pascrell suggested naming the main post office in Paterson after Doby. That same year, Princeton and Fairfield Universities bestowed honorary doctorates on Doby. When Montclair State University, a baseball throw from Doby's home, decided the new baseball stadium would be christened Yogi Berra Stadium, New York Times reporter Araton submitted that the name, Berra-Doby Field, would better represent the community. In 1997, Doby was honored at an Indians game, and on July 8, at the All-Star game in Cleveland, almost 50 years to the day of his start in the majors.[6]

Elected to the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. Shoeless Joe Jackson, Larry Doby, Mookie Wilson and Jim Rice.

Doby's birth state finally recognized his achievements in 1997. The South Carolina General Assembly passed a congratulatory resolution in recognition of Larry Doby's many pioneering achievements, baseball records, and contributions[7]

There is a Larry Doby Rookie of the Year Award presented each year by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Colorado Rockies pitcher Jason Jennings won it for the 2002 season.[8]

The city recognized him in 1998 by renovating a dilapidated field in Eastside Park, shown above, along the Passsaic River, and dedicated it to Doby. A statue of him was added in 2002.

Not to be outdone, in November 2002, Camden honored him with four signs along highway U.S. 521 about 300 yards south of I-20. The first sign declares, "Birthplace of Baseball Hall of Famer Larry Doby."[9]

Back in 1997, he opened the sixth Larry Doby All-Star Playground, this one in Cleveland's King-Kennedy neighborhood, part of a community rebirth campaign. This was an important event. Bud Selig, the acting commissioner of Major League Baseball, American League President Gene Budig, and Cleveland Mayor White were all there. Cleveland's All-Star catcher, Sandy Alomar, took the first pitch from Doby to get the ceremonies going.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bloomfield, Gary L. 2003. Duty, honor, victory: America's athletes in World War II. Guilford, Conn: Lyons Press. ISBN 1592280676
• Freedman, Lew. 2007. African American pioneers of baseball: a biographical encyclopedia. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313338519
• Jacobson, Steve. 2007. Carrying Jackie's torch: the players who integrated baseball— and America. Chicago, Ill: Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 9781556526398
• Moore, Joseph Thomas. 1988. Pride against prejudice: the biography of Larry Doby. Contributions in Afro-American and African studies, no. 113. New York: Greenwood Press. ISBN 031325995X
• Vincent, Fay. 2006. The only game in town: baseball stars of the 1930s and 1940s talk about the game they loved. The baseball oral history project, v. 1. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0743273176

See also

• Baseball color line
• Negro League baseball
• Negro League baseball players
• First black MLB players by team and date
• Top 500 home run hitters of all time
• Hitting for the cycle
• List of Major League Baseball RBI champions
• List of Major League Baseball home run champions
• List of Major League Baseball runs scored champions
• Major League Baseball hitters with three home runs in one game
• Chicago White Sox all-time roster

External links

• Baseball-Reference.com - Major league career statistics
• Template:Bbhof
• South Carolina African-American history Calendar
• Negroe Leagues Baseball eMuseum
• Spencer, Lyle. 2007.
• Larry Doby: He Crossed Color Barrier, Only, He Was the Second
  • • • • • • Larry Doby Usca.edu.
• Doby's numbers, attitude speak volumes Mlb.com.
• Baseball: SO FAREWELL LARRY DOBY
• Indians honor AL's first black player Doby, don No. 14 jerseys Sportsline.com.
• South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame
• Doby was AL's first African-American player Espn.go.com.
• Larry Doby at Find A Grave
• Larry Doby Snopes.com.
• Larry Doby Answers.com.

Accomplishments
Preceded by: Gus Zernial American League Home Run Champion 1952 Succeeded by: Al Rosen Preceded by: Al Rosen American League Home Run Champion 1954 Succeeded by: Mickey Mantle Preceded by: Al Rosen American League RBI Champion 1954 Succeeded by: Ray Boone & Jackie Jensen Preceded by: Bob Lemon Chicago White Sox Manager 1978 Succeeded by: Don Kessinger

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