How Jackie Robinson Nearly Missed Being MLB's 1st Black Player

[Pink Freud]

From today's Dodgers Dugout newsletter, polling readers about who was the franchise's all-time greatest catcher:

Roy Campanella loved baseball as a kid and grew up a Phillies fan. They once offered him an invitation to try out but rescinded it when they found out he was Black.

Campanella played in the Negro Leagues after high school, and in October 1945 he was the catcher for an all-star team that played five games against a team of major leaguers at Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dodger manager Chuck Dressen led the major leaguers and was impressed by Campanella. He touted him to Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who arranged a meeting.

Rickey offered Campanella a contract, but he said no because he mistakenly thought Rickey was offering him a contract with the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers, a Negro Leagues team Rickey was rumored to be starting. The next week, Campanella and Jackie Robinson happened to be staying at the same hotel. Robinson told Campanella he had signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was then that Campanella realized what Rickey was offering. He sent Rickey a telegram asking if he could sign with the team.

Campanella played for the Dodgers from 1948 until his career was cut short after the 1957 season. In that time, all he did was win three NL MVP awards, make eight All-Star teams, hit 242 homers, have a .500 slugging percentage and play Gold Glove-worthy defense behind the plate.

The Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, and Campanella was all set to be the team’s starting catcher in Los Angeles. But on Jan. 28, 1958, while driving in New York, Campanella’s car hit a patch of ice, ran into a telephone pole and overturned. Campanella broke his neck and was paralyzed. He eventually regained use of his arms but used a wheelchair for the rest of his life before dying of a heart attack on June 26, 1993.

After the Dodgers moved to L.A. they played a fundraising exhibition game at Memorial Coliseum, drawing 93,000 fans, who were handed lighters. At one point that night, the stadium lights were turned off and the fans held aloft the burning lighters to honor Campanella, who had been wheeled onto the field to receive the crowd's adoration.

Thus, as Dodgers Dugout reports above, Roy Campanella very nearly became the very first black player in MLB, for which #39, not #42, would have been universally retired. Ironic, too, that Jackie, by then 38, never came west with the Dodgers even though he was a superstar multi-sport athlete at UCLA, retiring after the 1956 season, and Campy also never played in L.A.. Yet, in their second season at the Coliseum, the Dodgers won the World Series.

[hugeCardfan]

Nice story. Thanks for sharing.

[BrummerStealsHome]

Thanks Clark. Good story.

[Quincy Varnish]

Moses Fleetwood Walker says hello.