Thursday, February 08, 2007 |
Today's Birthdays
Joe Black BRO b. 1924, played 1952-1955, d. 2002-05-17. He grew up in Plainfield, NJ, playing ball in the integrated prep leagues there. He harbored pre-integration dreams of becoming a major leaguer, but told by a scout who had signed some of his teammates that "colored guys don't play baseball", he destroyed a scrapbook of player photos he had collected, save for Hank Greenberg. He attended Morgan State University in Baltimore, where he played football and baseball, and played with the Negro League Baltimore Elite Giants to help pay for tuition.
His Dodger career was almost a total accident. With the majors integrating, the Negro League teams were steadily collapsing financially; all of them were selling their best players to the majors in a suicidal attempt to save money. Brooklyn had come calling on the Elite Giants, wanting a pitcher named Leroy Farrell, at the time in the Army. The Giants wanted $10,000, but Dodgers assistant farm director Fresco Thompson insisted on adding two more players to the deal to sweeten it. Black was one of the two, and the other was Jim Gilliam — a tremendously rich haul.
Traveling with the Dodgers but not yet on the team before the 1952 season, Roger Kahn asked him how he liked the South. Black smiled. "I can't tell. They won't let me in." The normally easygoing Black had a mean streak on the mound, and given the day's attitudes about headhunting, he quickly silenced the sometimes still-racist opposition. Once, playing in Cincinnati, the home dugout broke out in a chorus of "Old Black Joe". After Black threw at the next seven Reds, the chorus stopped.
He was blessed with a hard fastball, and a slider that Don Zimmer observed didn't break much — but "he could hit a gnat with it". He won the 1952 Rookie of the Year award while helping to lead the club to a 1952 World Series appearance, including a Game 1 complete game victory, the first Series win ever by a black pitcher. In 1953, Charlie Dressen attempted to get him to learn a third pitch, but with stretched tendons in his finger, his repertoire couldn't expand. He never got his control back again; he was off the Dodgers in 1955, and out of baseball two years later. He remains one of the great "what-if" stories of the Dodgers.
In retirement, he hit the lecture circuit talking about his experiences with the Dodgers and Jackie Robinson, and worked to get pensions for Negro League players from MLB; for those who didn't meet the pension cutoff, he worked with the Baseball Assistance Team, an organization that quietly gave money to those who needed it, often who were too proud to take it as well.
Bruce Caldwell BRO b. 1906, played 1932, d. 1959-02-15
Bert Haas BRO b. 1914, played 1937-1938, All-Star: 1947, d. 1999-06-23. Eric Owens, with some luck and a good year.
Bob Oliver CAL b. 1943, played 1972-1974
Costen Shockley CAL b. 1942, played 1965
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