The Black Bruins: The Remarkable Lives of UCLA's Jackie Robinson, Woody Strode, Tom Bradley, Kenny Washington, and Ray Bartlett

by James W. Johnson

  Robinson received a pay raise, to $12,500, for the 1948 season, an amount less than he earned during the offseason, when he went on a vaudeville and speaking tour in the South, where he would answer pre-set questions about his life.

  In spring training he received the welcome news that he was moving over to second base after the Dodgers traded Stanky to the Boston Braves. Robinson was delighted; he had never felt comfortable at first base. The Dodgers had to keep Gil Hodges and his bat in the lineup while making room for Roy Campanella behind the plate. Hodges moved from catcher to first base, a position he occupied for fifteen years with the Dodgers. (Hodges was a good fielder, and he would go on to average 32 home runs a season from 1949 to 1955. Many think he should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.) Reese and Robinson turned into a formidable double-play combination for several years.

  Despite showing up at spring training twenty-five pounds overweight in 1948, Robinson had a solid season. He led the National League in fielding percentage, batted .296, and had 85 RBIs, although the Dodgers finished in third place. He was hit by pitches 7 times, a league high. (Joe DiMaggio led the American League with 8.) Players were hit far less often than in today’s game. For example, Anthony Rizzo of the Chicago Cubs was hit 30 times in 2015.

  Joining Robinson on the Dodgers’ squad was a twenty-one-year-old rookie pitcher, Carl Erskine. They would play together for nine years, so Erskine got a good look at Robinson. Erskine recalled in 1997 that no one could help Robinson on the field, not Rickey, not Rachel, not his mother. “When the ball was hit, he had to field it,” Erskine said. “Jackie hit it; he threw it; he outran it; and he proved it. That’s why he was accepted so quickly in baseball. The social side took a lot longer. And I have a feeling it’s not there yet.”

  The year 1949 was a turning point for Robinson. He was going to be off his short leash. Rickey called him into his office and told him, “Jackie, you’re on your own now. You can be yourself now.” In referring to his action years later, Rickey explained it as follows:

  I could see how the tensions had built up in two years and that this young man had come through with courage far beyond what I asked, yet, I knew that burning inside him was the same pride and determination that burned inside those Negro slaves a century earlier. Robinson knew that he had been considered a martyred hero but the minute the muzzle was off he would be considered an uppity nigger. When a white player did it, he had spirit. When a black player did it, he was ungrateful, an upstart, a sore head.

  Such charges would hang over Robinson’s head until the day he retired.

  Now that Robinson was released from his two-year commitment to turn the other cheek, what better place to try it out than in Atlanta, Georgia, playing a Minor League team with the improbable name of the Crackers. Robinson made his first Atlanta appearance with the Dodgers April 8–10, 1949. Before the first game the Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon announced that ten thousand people had signed a petition to boycott Crackers’ games if any black players appeared on the field with whites. Not deterred, more than fifteen thousand fans, one-third of them black, overflowed the stands for the first game. Hundreds watched from a roped-off area in the outfield, while hundreds outside the park found vantage points. The fans cheered Robinson and Campanella throughout the game. Almost nine thousand turned out for the Saturday afternoon game, won by Atlanta 9–1. On Sunday more than twenty-five thousand fans attended, of whom almost fourteen thousand were black. The three games went on with no fights, riots, or disturbances of any kind.

  Pitcher Don Newcombe, the Dodgers’ third black player, arrived the season that Robinson was free to be himself. He remembered Robinson’s leadership years later: “He not only showed Negro players that we could fight for our rights without fear of reprisal; he showed white players he was going to do the same doggone things they did when they thought they were right, even if it meant getting put out of the game.”

  Five years later Robinson found himself sitting side by side on an airplane flight with an umpire who knew him from when he had played for Montreal. The umpire asked, “What’s made you change your attitude, Jackie? I liked you much better when you were less aggressive.” Robinson was quick to retort, “I’m not concerned with you liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. . . . Your dislike of my aggressiveness has no effect on me. I’m after something much more important than your favor or disfavor. You should at least admit that you respect me as a man who stands up for what he believes in. I am not an Uncle Tom. I am in this fight to stay.” Yankee great Mickey Mantle once observed the following:

  There’s an odd thing about Jackie Robinson. I myself was never very friendly with him, and I have found that a lot of people who knew him in and out of baseball really disliked him. He’s a hard man for some people to like because he isn’t soft and smooth-talking and syrupy. He is tough and independent and he says what he thinks, and he rubs people the wrong way. But I have never heard of anyone who knew Jackie Robinson, whether they liked him or disliked him, who didn’t respect and admire him. That might be more important than being liked.

  That was all Robinson could ask.

  It was more than coincidental that with Robinson feeling free to be himself, he also had his best year on the field as he set career highs in games played, hits, batting average, slugging, RBIs, and stolen bases as the Dodgers won the National League pennant. He won the batting title with a .342 mark and his Major league–Leading 37 steals were the highest total in the National League in nineteen years. He finished second in the league in RBIs (124), hits (203), and on-base percentage (.432), and he was third in slugging average (.528), runs scored (122), doubles (38), and triples (12). He was named the National League MVP. He was handsomely rewarded with a $35,000 contract for 1950, a far cry from the $5,000 he had received three years earlier.

  Robinson was happy to win the MVP award, of course, but being a good teammate and fighting for racial equality meant more to him. He was particularly upset with Campanella, who often stated, “I’m no crusader.”

  In 1950 Robinson turned movie star, joining the likes of Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, but he played himself “and quite well indeed” in The Jackie Robinson Story, which was called “one of the best and most convincing baseball biopics every filmed.” The movie’s main asset, a reviewer commented, was that Robinson played himself. “I’m sure he felt that even a ‘B’ film heightened the awareness of the general public to his struggle,” said his wife Rachel.

  In the middle of the season Robinson was one of several blacks called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee about his views on a statement by Paul Robeson, the noted black singer and civil rights activist. Robeson had said that American Negroes would not fight for America if war broke out with Russia, and he was accused of leaning toward communism. In an eloquent speech Robinson concluded that although he could not speak for fifteen million African Americans,

  I know that I’ve got too much invested for my wife and child and myself in the future of this country, and I and other Americans of many races and faiths have too much invested in our country’s welfare, for any of us to throw it away because of a siren song sung in bass. I am a religious man. Therefore I cherish America where I am free to worship as I please, a privilege which some countries do not give. And I suspect that nine hundred and ninety-nine out of almost any thousand colored Americans you meet will tell you the same thing. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to stop fighting race discrimination in this country until we’ve got it licked. It means that we’re going to fight it all the harder because our stake in the future is so big.

  Robinson was growing disenchanted with the Dodgers organization. He disliked new owner Walter O’Malley, who drove Branch Rickey out of the Brooklyn front office in 1950. Robinson took Rickey’s departure hard. O’Malley knew that Robinson felt deeply about Rickey, and “I became the target of his insecurity.” He said O’Malley’s attitude toward him turned “viciously antagonistic
.” O’Malley called Robinson a prima donna. “To put it bluntly, I was one of those ‘uppity niggers’ in O’Malley’s book.”

  Robinson wrote a letter to Rickey in November after his mentor left the Dodgers. “It has been the finest experience I have had being associated with you and I want to thank you very much for all you have meant not only to me and my family but to the entire country and particularly the members of our race,” he wrote. Despite Robinson’s despair, he went on to have one of his best seasons in 1951. It no doubt helped that he was free of restraints on the field.

  Dodger center fielder Duke Snider gave one example of what Robinson had brought to Brooklyn’s success. He remembered a game against the Chicago Cubs in the top of the ninth inning with the score 2–2. “Sad” Sam Jones, known for his blazing fastball, was on the mound for the Cubs. (In 1955 Jones became the first African American to pitch a no-hitter.) Snider was at bat when Robinson, who was in the on-deck circle, began yelling at Jones so loudly that one could hear it almost all over Wrigley Field. “Sam, you’re no good. Sam, I’m gonna beat you. You got no guts.” Snider flew out, and Robinson stepped into the batter’s box. He still was yelling at Jones “until you can tell that Jones is madder’n hell.” Snider continues:

  Jones is so mad he hits Robinson with a pitch and puts him on first base. Now Jones . . . is in real trouble, because Robbie is dancing off the bag and yelling and Sam keeps throwing over there, trying to keep him on the bag. It gets to Jones, and this time he tosses the ball at Robinson instead of the first baseman. [Robinson ducked and the ball sailed down to the Dodgers’ bullpen, and he scampered all the way to third base.] Sam is beside himself, and Jackie’s still yelling and laughing and dancing up the line on every pitch and screaming, ‘Sam, I’m gonna beat you. You got no guts.’ By now Sam is looking at Jackie and cursing and paying him more attention than the batter, and he throws the next pitch into the dirt. It’s a short [wild pitch], and here comes Jackie with the winning run. . . . That Robinson was something else.

  In 1950 and 1951 Robinson batted .328 and .338 and finished second and third respectively in the batting race. Both years the Dodgers lost the pennant on the last day of the season. The Dodgers returned to the top of the National League standings in 1952 as Robinson hit .308, scored 104 runs, stole 24 bases, and belted 19 homers.

  Five years had passed since Robinson had broken into the Majors, and while the harassment he had initially endured had tapered off, it was still there to a great extent. Some would never accept an African American in the country’s national pastime. Robinson received a letter before a game in St. Louis in 1953 that warned, “Robinson, you die, no use crying for the cops. You will be executed gangland-style in Busch Stadium.” That caused Pee Wee Reese to wisecrack during warm-up drills, “Not so close, Jack, please.”

  In 1952 an African American pitcher, Joe Black, joined the team. It didn’t take long for Robinson to get in his ear.

  “Can you fight?”

  “Yeah, I can fight,” Black said.

  “Good. This thing’s [integration] not over.”

  For the 1953 season, a top-notch second baseman, Junior Gilliam, was ready to advance to the Majors, so Robinson agreed to change positions if it would help the team. At age thirty-four he wound up playing 77 games in the outfield, 44 at third base, 9 at second base, and 6 at first base. He still hit .329, drove in 95 runs, and scored 109 times. Gilliam was selected the National League Rookie of the Year.

  For his good work on the field the Dodgers made Robinson the highest paid player on the team. But nobody was complaining. He earned $39,000 in 1953, $1,000 more than the runner-up. Owner Walter O’Malley made sure that Robinson was the best paid player on the Dodgers as long as he was on the field.

  Age was beginning to take its toll on Robinson. His statistics started to slide, although they remained solid in 1954. He continued to play left field and third base and batted .311, but he stole only 7 bases and missed 38 games. The Dodgers fell short of the World Series.

  In 1954 the Robinson family decided to move out of Brooklyn and began looking for land to build a house in Westchester County, New York. Jackie and Rachel found a piece they liked, and they offered the owner full price. They waited a “long time” and then were told the price had been raised $5,000. They agreed to pay that. More time passed, and then the owner told the Robinsons the property had been sold to someone else. “Everywhere we went it was like that,” Robinson said. They eventually found a house in North Stamford, Connecticut.

  In 1955 the Dodgers would win their first World Series, although Robinson’s contribution diminished even more from the previous season. Statistically Robinson had the worst season of his outstanding career. He missed 57 games and batted .256 with 12 stolen bases. In the Dodgers’ World Series win, Robinson played in six of the seven games. He hit only .182 with 4 hits, but he scored 5 times, including a steal of home in the eighth inning of a losing cause in the first game. “It was not the best baseball strategy to steal home with our team two runs behind, but I just took off and did it,” Robinson admitted. “I really didn’t care whether I made it or not—I was just tired of waiting. . . . Whether it was because of my stealing home or not, the team had new fire.” The Dodgers went on to beat the Yankees in the seventh game behind Johnny Podres’s shutout.

  During the offseason Robinson began thinking of retiring and what his next job would be. He had hoped at one time to work in the Dodgers’ organization, but his run-in with O’Malley and his dislike of manager Walter Alston made that unlikely. He had hoped that he could become the manager of the Montreal Royals but knew that wouldn’t happen under O’Malley’s reign. In 1956 there was talk that Robinson might become a manager in the PCL, a Triple A league, after he retired. Robinson met the talk head on. He told a newspaper reporter that he had no doubt he could manage in the Major Leagues. “The doors of the big leagues are opened wide now for any man who is qualified for any job that has to be filled,” he said. “With pride I say I had a hand in that. With pride, too, I say I can manage the majors.” He never got the chance. And he wasn’t any more hopeful other blacks would become managers either. “Negro players play their hearts out,” he wrote. “But when their popularity or their best playing days are over, there is just no room for them in the executive suite.” It was talk like that led to Robinson’s being called “the most hated man in baseball.”

  Not surprisingly as early as 1950 Branch Rickey thought that Robinson could do well as a big league manager. “I do not know of any player in the game today who could, in my judgment, manage a major league club better than yourself,” he wrote in a letter to Robinson. He wrote that he had suggested that to several sportswriters in the past, but they had ignored him.

  In 1960 Bill Veeck, who brought the second black player to the big leagues in Larry Doby, had doubts whether Robinson would have made a good manager. “I’m not sure that his temperament would be that of a basically successful major league manager.” Robinson said he had no interest in becoming a manager, “so the question of my qualifications or ‘temperament’ as a manager isn’t at all important.” He pointed to two white managers who had volatile temperaments and had succeeded—Leo Durocher and Casey Stengel. “None of these gentlemen could be accused of ‘lack of temperament’ and none could ‘prove’ a ‘particularly subdued personality.’”

  Robinson never let up on his crusade to move more blacks into the baseball hierarchy. “Baseball moguls and their top advisers seem to earnestly believe that the bodies, the physical stamina, the easy reflexes of black stars, make them highly desirable but that, somehow, they are lacking in the gray matter that it supposedly takes to serve as managers, officials, and executives in policy-making positions.”

  In 2009 ten African Americans or Latinos were managing Major League teams. By 2015 the only black manager left in the Major Leagues, Lloyd McClendon, was fired by the Seattle Mariners. Not long after, however, the Washington Nationals hired longtime baseball manager Dusty Baker.
A month later the Dodgers picked Dave Roberts as their first minority manager. A Latino, Fredi Gonzalez, managed the Miami Marlins and the Atlanta Braves between 2007 and 2016. McClendon won 499 games and lost 607 over seven years of managing the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Mariners. He had one winning season. The first black manager, Frank Robinson, managed sixteen years and finished with a record of 1,065 wins and 1,176 losses. He was the American League’s Manager of the Year in 1989 while with the Baltimore Orioles. He never won a division championship, finishing second twice. Bill White, who played for three teams in twelve seasons, was National League president from 1989 to 1994.

  The year 1956 was somewhat better on the field for Robinson. He hit .275 in 117 games in what was to be his last season. In the Dodgers’ seven-game World Series loss to the Yankees, Jackie drew 5 walks, scored 5 times, and blasted a home run. He hit .250. For the six World Series in which he appeared, Robinson’s batting average was .234.

  Robinson knew he wasn’t playing as well and that injuries were coming more often. In addition, with his integrity intact after nine years with the Dodgers, he began to assert himself on racial issues on and off the field. The Dodgers hoped Robinson would retire, but no announcement was forthcoming. The Dodgers’ front office then traded him to the New York Giants on December 13, 1956, for a journeyman pitcher and $30,000 in cash. “I’m shocked to the core,” said one Robinson fan. “This is like selling the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Jack Robinson is a synonym for the Dodgers. They can’t do this to us.”

  Robinson had decided to retire before the trade, but he had made an exclusive deal to make the announcement in Look magazine. (In the article he criticized the remaining segregated teams in the Majors.) He was being paid $50,000 to announce his retirement in the magazine. The Giants reportedly offered him $60,000 to stay, and the prospect of playing alongside Willie Mays definitely had some appeal. “There was so much pressure from fans and youngsters for me to remain in the game that I did have some vague second thoughts.” When Brooklyn general manager Buzzy Bavasi publicly implied that Robinson was just trying to use the magazine article to get a better contract, Robinson decided to prove the Dodgers wrong and declined the Giants’ offer. Besides, he wrote in Look, “My legs are gone and I know it . . . . [The Giants] ballclub needs . . . rebuilding. It needs youth. It doesn’t need me. It would be unfair to the Giant owners to take their money.”