Our Viewpoint: Doby deserves a day, too

Most people know that April 15 is tax day, but it’s also Jackie Robinson Day, commemorating when Robinson broke the “color barrier” in baseball, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

On April 15, every baseball player wore number 42, Robinson’s jersey number, as Major League Baseball has done for the last 15 years. Robinson has been celebrated time and time again for helping to integrate African-Americans into the game, and rightly so. He received death threats, racial slurs, and indignities. The Los Angeles Dodgers, (they moved to California in 1958) retired Robinson’s jersey number in 1992 and MLB retired it for all teams.

Americans love their firsts — George Washington, Neil Armstrong, Charles Lindbergh, Benjamin Franklin, and of course, Jackie Robinson. But what about those Blacks that immediately followed Robinson? Larry Doby, the second African-American to play professional baseball, signed with the Cleveland Indians only three months later, the first in the American League. And he was the first to go directly from the Negro Leagues to Major League Baseball. Doby put up with the same crap as Robinson — same threats, racial slurs — and was just as unwelcome as Robinson.

Bill Veeck, owner of the Indians, had to hire plainclothes policemen to escort Doby into Comiskey Park for his MLB debut. He wasn’t exactly accepted by all his teammates. Some refused to shake hands with him. Like Robinson, Doby couldn’t stay in the same motels as the white teammates. And, like Robinson, he was told to not make waves so not to ruin it for other Blacks after them.

And Doby was no second-rate player. Seven times, Doby was the All-Star center fielder. In 1948, he became the first African-American to win a World Series. He helped the Indians to an American League pennant in 1954. In that year he was the AL RBI and home run leader. He also played for the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers and served as the manager of the White Sox, the second Black to be an MLB manager, and in 1995 was an executive with the American League. In 1998, he was named to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, which means his time in the major league was well above average.

Doby passed away at age 79 in 2003. He’s gone but he shouldn’t be forgotten. The Indians retired Doby’s jersey number 14 in 1994, but he should get the same esteem and fame as Jackie Robinson. Where is Larry Doby Day?

— Ed Moreth