Erasing the Lines: Baseball's Impact on Society's Struggle for Racial Equality

Baseball is America's national pastime. It has been part of the country's cultural fabric since the Civil War. At times, it is a very important part, especially in its unique ability to bring Americans together and relieve pain in times of tragedy, such as after the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York City. Baseball is also a reflection of society at large. It changes with the times, it changes behind the times, and sometimes, it changes before the times are ready. Nowhere is this more evident than in the turbulent racial climate that followed the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century. Long before America was ready to allow black men to serve in uniform alongside white men, baseball was ready to let black men pull on a uniform of a different sort.

The first professional baseball organization was the National Association of Base Ball Players, the precursor to the modern National League. In 1868, the NABBP officially barred non-white players from being included on professional teams (Ribowsky 13). From time to time, this rule was broken. At points in 1871 and 1884, black players were allowed to play on Major League teams. As time wore on, however, various white players refused to play on teams that included black players on their rosters. Understanding that these great players – which included eventual Hall of Fame inductees like Ty Cobb, John McGraw, and Cap Anson – were the draw to the ballparks for the fans, the Major League moved to completely segregate professional baseball. The segregation was total by the end of 1898, and it stayed in place when the new American League joined the Major League in 1901.

Nearly at the same time, the Supreme Court moved to uphold the "separate but equal" doctrine as constitutional. Following the abolition of slavery and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed indentured servitude, the federal government was able to provide some protection for newly freed slaves. However, after the Compromise of 1877, which ended Reconstruction, federal troops were pulled out of the South and the freed slaves lost their protection. Southern states began to pass "Jim Crow laws" in an effort to maintain some kind of superiority over the black citizens.

The first legal signal that life following Reconstruction would be different arrived in 1875, when Congress passed the first of many Civil Rights Acts. The 1875 Act guaranteed that any American, regardless of race, would be afforded the same sort of treatment as anyone else when it came to such things as bathrooms, hotels, public transportation, and dining accommodations. In 1883, however, the Supreme Court ruled in Civil Rights Cases that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to government, not private individuals. Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

It was not long before the judicial branch would strike again. In 1896's Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court heard the case of Homer Plessy, a man who had been asked to move from a "whites only" railroad car to a "colored" railroad car, even though he was only one-eighth African-American. The Court ruled that Plessy's rights were not violated. In the decision, Justice Henry Billings Brown said that the separation of blacks from whites was not an implication that blacks were inferior, but rather a matter of social policy. Brown writes:

We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.

The lone dissenter was Justice John Marshall Harlan, who compared the decision to Dred Scott v. Sanford, in which slave Dred Scott was ruled to be no more than property, not his own person. Harlan's dissent reads in part:

But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.

The executive branch was on Justice Brown's side. In The Complete History of the Negro Leagues, Mark Ribowsky quotes President Abraham Lincoln as saying, "I am not in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. […] I as much as any man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race" (10).

As such, blacks did not receive the same treatment as whites. They were not accommodated with the same quality that whites were afforded. They had dirty separate bathrooms, lower-paying jobs, and poorer housing conditions. Black baseball players suffered the same ordeal, but like every other free black American, they learned to deal with it. In fact, the baseball players probably had the best success.

Prior to the 1920s, many people attempted to form professional organizations for black baseball players. All would fail, providing Andrew "Rube" Foster with his opportunity. Foster had been a pitcher with earlier organized black baseball teams, and was widely regarded as the best black pitcher of the 1900s, able to win with power as well as deception (James and Neyer 209). Foster owned, managed, and played for a black baseball team called the Chicago American Giants. After helping to form and finance a team called the Detroit Stars, perhaps in an effort to create a balance of teams before setting out with his eventual goal, he and the owners of six other clubs in the Midwest formed a professional circuit of black professional teams in 1920. It was called the Negro National League and it was the first significant professional league of black players (Burns).

Although Major League teams frequently played exhibition games against Negro League players – not only from the first Negro National League, but also the second Negro National League, which lasted until 1948, and the Negro American League, for which records exist only to 1950 while lasting until 1955 – it was not the position of the Office of the Commissioner to allow owners to sign black baseball players to Major League teams. Kenesaw Mountain Landis was the first commissioner of baseball, appointed in 1920 in an effort to clean up the mess that resulted from the 1919 World Series, when the Chicago White Sox were paid to lose to the Cincinnati Reds. Landis had previously been a federal judge, and perhaps the federal court's ruling on the "separate but equal" doctrine is what led Landis to argue that black players simply could not be signed to white baseball teams (Ribowsky 98). He put on an air of concern for Negro League owners by holding the position that those owners would need to be compensated for the loss of their investments (the players), but it is more likely that he simply didn't want to lose the investments of Major League owners: white players who refused to play with blacks.

Baseball has long been a traditional and conservative organization, typically further behind the rest of society in many ways. Free agency, or the ability of a player to choose the teams for which he may play once his initial contract expires, did not become a reality until the 1970s. Any American was normally able to choose his own employer after a term of years, but this has only been the case in baseball for the last thirty or so years. The one thing baseball ever did well ahead of society, and for the good of society, was to kick the door between blacks and whites wide open.

In 1945, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, a tough, talented Negro League infielder, to a contract that would eventually allow him to play in the Major Leagues. Landis passed away in 1944, and Rickey now had the support of Commissioner Albert "Happy" Chandler, who had only been elected the same month that Robinson was signed. Robinson was sent to the International League Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' highest-level minor league team, for the 1946 season.

Rickey was not quite done yet, however. Under the pretense of forming an all-black Dodger team that would play at Ebbets Field while the white Dodgers were on the road, Rickey met with pitcher Don Newcombe, only nineteen years old at the time, and catcher Roy Campanella. He signed them, too, to minor league contracts, and sent them to the Class B New England League team, the Nashua Dodgers.

According to Newcombe, who was interviewed by ESPN's Stuart Scott on April 15, 2007, Robinson, Campanella, and Newcombe met at Campanella's apartment before the 1946 season. Robinson informed the two younger players that they would have to be tough if they wanted to make it. They could not respond to taunts from players or fans. They simply had to work hard and succeed, because if they did not, their role in history would be meaningless. Newcombe believed very strongly that he would not have been able to do what Jackie did, partly because he was so young, and partly because Jackie had the intellectual makeup to deal with the widespread racism at the time.

Jackie Robinson made his Major League debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947 at Ebbets Field. While Robinson was rather warmly accepted at home (Ribowsky 3), he did not receive the same treatment on the road. While in Ohio to play the Cincinnati Reds – the second-to-last National League team to integrate, doing so three years before the Philadelphia Phillies – the fans heckled Robinson and booed him heartily. Robinson's double-play partner, shortstop Harold "Pee Wee" Reese, went to Robinson's side and put his arm around him in a gesture of support. The crowd quieted down after that. Don Newcombe told ESPN that Reese later said he didn't plan on doing it. He simply felt that he had to be there for his teammate. Perhaps the only fact that makes this move more poignant is that Reese was from the heavily segregated state of Kentucky.

Reese was one of the few Major League players who openly supported the black players, either during the period of integration or shortly after it, when there was still more than enough racism to go around. Legendary Red Sox left fielder Ted Williams was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. Though an unabashed conservative on matters of economics and military affairs, the surly Williams was a strong social liberal. When he spoke at the 1966 Hall of Fame induction ceremony, he encouraged the Hall of Fame to include Negro League stars among its ranks. As quoted in Leigh Montville's biography, Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero, Williams said:

Inside the building are plaques to baseball men of all generations. I'm proud to join them. Baseball gives every American boy a chance to excel. Not just to be as good as someone else, but to be better than someone else. This is the nature of man and the nature of the game. And I've been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, and I hope that some day the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol of the great Negro League players who are not here only because they weren't given a chance.

Baseball, meanwhile, was still ahead of the time. Later in the 1946 season, the Boston Braves integrated their New England League teams, and Branch Rickey struck again, this time integrating the Class C minor league team in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada. In an even more unusual display of tolerance, the Carolina League, which covered part of the southern United States, integrated in 1951 when the Danville Leafs acquired Percy Miller, Jr.

Non-Dodger teams followed suit, but it would be twelve years before the Major Leagues were fully integrated. Larry Doby made his debut with the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, only a couple of months after Jackie Robinson broke in with the Dodgers. Doby was the first black man to play in the American League. Less than two weeks later, the St. Louis Browns – today's Baltimore Orioles – put Hank Thompson on the field. This was at a time when there were only eight teams in each league, and adding three black players to three rosters in a matter of months was quite radical at the time.

It would be two more years before any other team joined in the movement, but that team was the New York Giants, who had two black players – Thompson and Monte Irvin – on its roster on July 8, 1949. The Boston Braves followed in 1950 with Sam Jethroe. Oddly, Jethroe was a Branch Rickey signing who was traded to the Braves, rather than a minor league player from the Braves' integrated New England League teams. Although not every team added a Hall of Fame player – among the initial black players from each franchise, only Robinson, Doby, and Cubs player Ernie Banks are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame – they still added a player, and by 1958, every team had integrated…except for one.

Thomas Yawkey owned the Boston Red Sox for forty-four years. Yawkey was a good owner who looked out for his players and the fans, and was respected by most of his players, including Ted Williams. However, Yawkey was a well-known racist, and refused to acquire any black players. Truth be told, no one of color worked in Fenway Park – not even to scrub toilets (Bryant 25) In fact, Yawkey had a chance to acquire Jackie Robinson. Robinson auditioned for Yawkey, but was never seriously considered due to Yawkey's attitude toward colored players. Robinson, of course, had the last laugh, and so did history. The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers were the only team to win a World Series before the franchise relocated to Los Angeles in 1959. The Red Sox had not seen a championship since 1918, and would not see one until 2004. Robinson may not have been the solution, but he certainly would not have been the problem.

Perhaps it was public outrage that drove Yawkey to allow Pumpsie Green to join the Boston Red Sox in 1959; perhaps it was the fact that these black players were good enough to bring in extra fans and extra money. After all, Yawkey was an incredibly rich man who loved his money more than he loved his politics. Either way, Yawkey grudgingly integrated the team, and the fact that his was the last team to integrate remains a blemish on the otherwise proud history of the franchise.

It was outside Wrigley Field, Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds, Sportsman's Park, Braves Field, and the other ballparks that equality was not happening. It meant nothing if a man was like Jackie Robinson in the sense that he was obviously better than someone else. He was black, and so he was inferior.

Such was the existence of a black baseball player. Pumpsie Green would find that out the hard way. When Green joined the Red Sox in 1959, the team held spring training in the upscale community of Scottsdale, Arizona. In spite of Green's association with the Red Sox, he would be turned away from every hotel in the fully-segregated town. He would have to stay on the outskirts, away from his teammates. Former Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood related his similar experience. "The black cab took me five miles out of town and deposited me at Mrs. Felder's boardinghouse. When I saw who was there – Frank Robinson and four or five other black ball players – my knees began to knock. Rules had been enforced….Officially and for the duration, I was a nigger" (Bryant 10).

Society was still well behind baseball, of course, as shown in the treatment of the players outside the ballparks. Individuals began poking holes in the segregated fabric of the United States not too long after Robinson tore up Brooklyn's basepaths, however.

In 1950, the Supreme Court heard Sweatt v. Painter, the case of a black man named Herman Marion Sweatt, who was denied admission to the University of Texas law school based solely on the color of his skin. The case only reached the Supreme Court because the Texas court held up proceedings for six months, allowing the state time to set up a separate black law school. Sweatt's challenge to the university's policy of segregation proved successful, and perhaps the procrastination of the state of Texas was positive in the long run, as the Court was able to rule that the separate school offered inferior resources and was in no way both separate and equal. Chief Justice Fred Vinson wrote the decision, outlining the differences between the blacks-only school and the whites-only school. Vinson stated that the former simply would not stack up to the latter, hardly making the choice (or lack thereof) a fair one.

In terms of number of the faculty, variety of courses and opportunity for specialization, size of the student body, scope of the library, availability of law review and similar activities, the University of Texas Law School is superior. What is more important, the University of Texas Law School possesses to a far greater degree those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school. Such qualities, to name but a few, include reputation of the faculty, experience of the administration, position and influence of the alumni, standing in the community, traditions and prestige. It is difficult to believe that one who had a free choice between these law schools would consider the question close.

Sweatt v. Painter was the precursor to perhaps the most famous of the Court's rulings on racial quality. That lasting, belated ruling arrived in 1954. That year, the Court ruled on the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education. Effectively, the Court unanimously overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and added to Sweatt v. Painter, ruling that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the decision for the court, in part as follows:

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. […] We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Five years after Major League Baseball was fully integrated, and three years after the two leagues first expanded to ten teams each – the four new teams integrated from the beginning – the final huge push in court was made for racial equality. On July 2, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. This is the act that fully outlawed discrimination based on religion, sex, country of origin, and – yes – color.

Jackie Robinson himself made an effort to see to it that intolerance itself would end. After he left baseball, he had a number of jobs of all sorts, even becoming a vice president for the Chock Full O' Nuts corporation. More importantly, he was a member of the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People until 1967, when he resigned. Robinson campaigned for the equality of black Americans until the day he died. His final public appearance was at the 1972 World Series, when he expressed his wish to see a black man become a Major League manager. Three years later, Robinson's wish came true when Frank Robinson, the power-hitting outfielder, became a player/manager for the Cleveland Indians. Unfortunately, just ten days after he spoke at the World Series, he died from the heart problems and the diabetes that had plagued him for many years. He was just 53 years old.

Robinson, of course, holds a special place in the hearts of Dodgers fans. The first uniform numbers that the team retired were Sandy Koufax's 32, Roy Campanella's 39, and Jackie Robinson's 42. However, he is important to everyone, regardless of race or color or gender or religion, who has faced adversity. Fifty years after Robinson broke in with the Dodgers, Commissioner Allan H. "Bud" Selig ordered the league-wide retirement of Robinson's 42, meaning no player could wear it again, and the number would hang alongside the teams' individual retired numbers in each ballpark. Active players still wearing the number were allowed to keep it, and today, New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera is the last remaining player to sport a 42 on his jersey, as a tribute to Robinson

Today, Robinson might be pleased to see how far America has come, but disappointed to see how far it has to go. It is true that American has come a long way from legally recognizing one type of person as inferior to another, but individual intolerance still exists. The percentage of African-Americans in Major League Baseball is down to eight of every one hundred players today, and while it means that Latin-American, Asian, and other foreign-born players are much more common, it is not entirely an encouraging statistic. Black youths still have it harder in schools, and they still find themselves in poorer living conditions than most whites.

Still, the opportunities for young black men in baseball are not lacking, and they must be willing to work to get there. Great players of color fill the Hall of Fame: Bob Gibson, Ferguson Jenkins, Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks, Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Ozzie Smith, and more. Willie Randolph and Ron Washington are two of baseball's black managers, sitting behind the steering wheels of the New York Mets and the Texas Rangers. Of course, foreign-born players are no longer a novelty, what with Johan Santana, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Hideki Matsui, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro Suzuki, Andruw Jones, and many others filling team rosters.

"A life is not important except for the impact it has on other lives," Jackie Robinson once said. If this is true, his life might have been the most important for what it did for baseball and for the entirety of American society.

Works Cited

"4th Inning: A National Heirloom." Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns. PBS, 1994. Prod. Ken Burns. Narr. John Chancellor.

Brown v. Board of Education. 347 U.S. 483. U.S. Supreme Court 1954.

Bryant, Howard. Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston. New York: Routledge, 2002.

James, Bill, and Rob Neyer. The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers: An Historical Compendium of Pitching, Pitchers, and Pitches. New York: Fireside, 2004.

Montville, Leigh. Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero. New York: Broadway, 2004.

Newcombe, Don. Interview. Interview with Stuart Scott. ESPN Sunday Night Baseball Apr. 15, 2007.

Plessy v. Ferguson. 163 U.S. 537. U.S. Supreme Court 1896.

Ribowsky, Mark. A Complete History of the Negro Leagues, 1884 to 1955. New York: Birch Lane Press, 1995.

Sweatt v. Painter. 339 U.S. 629. U.S. Supreme Court 1950.