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Could he be elected to the Hall of Fame had he not broken the color barrier?

Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was ahead of his time. Emerging almost 20 years before the Civil Rights movement, Robinson is known to African-Americans as a pioneer. He played second base in the Negro Leagues until age 25, when Branch Rickey, then the General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, discovered the talented prospect. Rickey, known as “the mahatma” for his devout faith, had been looking for the right guy to break the “color barrier” for years and felt Robinson fit the bill. After successfully proving himself in the Minors, Jackie Robinson shocked the world when he was called up to the Dodgers for the 1947 season at the ripe age of 28.

Robinson made an immediate impact, though initially it was not positive. By the end of April, he was only batting .225, but still garnered much attention from the media. He improved throughout the year and ended strong. He finished the season batting .297 with 125 runs scored, 29 stolen bases, and only 36 strikeouts. For both his bravery and performance, Jackie Robinson was awarded the inaugural Rookie of the Year Award and also finished fifth in MVP voting.

His career took off from there: after a similar 1948 campaign, Robinson exploded in 1949. Other than runs scored, he had career bests in every major offensive statistic. He batted a league leading .342 with 122 runs scored, 124 runs batted in, 37 stolen bases, 203 hits, 86 walks, and only 27 strikeouts. 1949 was obviously Robinson’s best year, and he was awarded the MVP for his feats. The second baseman would have many more notable years, but none comes close to 1949.

In 1956, his 10^th and final season, Robinson had a rather pedestrian showing for the second consecutive year, and afterwards, he decided to call it quits—to the chagrin of fans across the country.  Over the years, there has been much speculation as to the reason for Robinson’s retirement. Jules Tygiel, author of the acclaimed biography Extra Bases: Reflections on Jackie Robinson, Race, and Baseball History states that “upon his retirement in 1956, Robinson…had already begun to manifest signs of the diabetes that would plague the rest of his life.” Others believe he withdrew from baseball due to his refusal to play for his new team, the New York Giants. Regardless, Robinson had a successful ten-year tenure with the Dodgers.

Robinson was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF) in 1962, his first year of eligibility. The question is, upon what merit was he elected? Was it for his playing ability and leadership of the Dodgers? Or was it for his resolve in breaking the color barrier? Or both?

The middle question is quite easy to answer: Robinson’s boldness and grit merit him a spot in baseball’s hallowed grounds regardless of his playing career. He received an overwhelming amount of hate mail and death threats, and the typical man would have given up from the start. So the question now becomes, could Robinson’s playing career alone have gotten him accepted into the HOF?

We’ll look at the conventional stats. Basically, Robinson had eight great years in the MLB: 1947-1954. During this span, there were few people in the MLB as productive offensively as Robinson. He was in the top 10 in batting average six times, in the top 10 in runs scored seven times, in the top 10 in hits five times, and selected to six all star games. He also was in the top 10 in stolen bases seven times during that period. Traditionally, Bill Mazeroski is known as the greatest defensive second baseman ever, but had Robinson played longer, he would have given Mazeroski a run for his money. Robinson led the league in fielding percentage among second basemen every year from 1948-52, which were his only years that second base was his predominant position. Moreover, Robinson’s stats probably would have been even more impressive had he not been dealing with hate mail and death threats.

Though Jackie Robinson had all of that single season success, his career numbers are lacking. He did bat .311, good for 100^th place all time, but he is behind players like Nomar Garciaparra and Magglio Ordonez, neither of whom will get elected into the HOF. Robinson’s highest career ranking is on base percentage, in which he ranks 36^th all time. Other than that, he is not in the top 100 in any major offensive statistic. While he missed much of his prime, entering the league at 28, so did Ted Williams, Bob Feller, and Joe DiMaggio. Still, their career stats are far more impressive than Robinson’s.

Marker Illustration by Neal Portnoy www.idrawpeople.com

Robinson’s Dodgers won the pennant six times during his tenure, and, in the World Series, they lost to the New York Yankees five times. They conquered their only World Series trophy in 1955, avenging their losses to New York. However, Robinson was hardly superhuman in the Fall Classic. He batted lower than .200 in half of those series, and he never stole more than two bases. The nostalgic baseball fan would now point out Robinson’s memorable steal of home in Game 1 of the ’55 Series. While that was one of the most remarkable moments in World Series history, the rest of that Series was lackluster: he batted an anemic .182, and had no more stolen bases during the remainder of the Fall Classic. Overall, Robinson batted just .234 in his six career World Series appearances, and swiped only six bases. Clearly, Robinson’s two statistical weaknesses are his career and postseason stats.

So we have a problem: his single season stats are herculean, but his career and postseason stats are not there. Renowned statistician Bill James ran into the same problem as I have, so he invented four statistics specifically for judging a player’s HOF status: Black Ink Test, Gray Ink Test, Hall of Fame Monitor, and Hall of Fame Standards. The Black Ink Test rewards a player for leading his league in any major statistic, while the Gray Ink Test rewards a player for coming in the top ten in any major stat. Hall of Fame Monitor rewards a player for having statistics higher than a benchmark total (i.e. above a .300 batting average) in a single season, while Hall of Fame Standards does the same thing, except for career totals.

So when you test Jackie Robinson with these stats, he appears to be a borderline HOFer. The average HOFer scores 144 on the Gray Ink Test, while Robinson scored 121. Similarly, a likely HOFer scores 100 on the Hall of Fame Monitor Test, and Robinson scored 98. In James’s other two stats, Robinson’s scores are very similar. According to these stats, it appears Robinson is in the lower echelon of HOFers.

All in all, my best judgment says that, based solely on statistics, Robinson would have eventually reached the HOF, but not on the first ballot. This, of course, is a moot argument because regardless of his stats, Jackie Robinson was a pioneer for baseball and for African-Americans throughout the entire country. His efforts toward improving the quality of life for African-Americans were ahead of his time, and he deserves to be in the HOF, whether or not his stats show it.

The second reason for his breaking of the color line was to demolish some of the barriers of race that were present in the country at the time. Rickey knew that if he could bring Jackie Robinson into the game, he would be able to not only make those in baseball more accepting of African Americans, but through this, other barriers would fall as well. He turned out to pick the right person in this “experiment” since Robinson became very involved in the civil rights movement, making him a great spokesperson for race relations as well as baseball. Rickey could not have been more correct about his civil rights assumption as after Robinson had been in the league long enough to make a name for himself, which did not take long, he started communicating with the leaders of the civil rights movement (Lowenfish 428). It could be seen, “[f]rom reports provided by Wendell Smith and by his own sources in Southern California, Branch Rickey was also thoroughly investigating the personal character of Robinson” (Lowenfish 369). Robinson wrote numerous letters to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when King was just beginning his civil rights movement. It was Robinson, in fact, who asked King to serve on one of the earlier committees that planned how to tackle the racial divides in the country. Since King did end up joining this committee, it can be assumed that Rickey indirectly had a great influence over the civil rights movement in the United States.

Once Robinson had already made it into the league, Rickey attempted to make sure he was safe guarded as much as possible and did things such as “plead[ing] with the press not to suffocate Robinson and to allow him to become the great player and fine teammate that he was sure to become” (Lowenfish 431). Rickey had never before taken to the press like this, mostly because he was a scout and was usually not the focal point of major team matters, but also because there had never before been such consternation towards someone entering the game. There were other problems with the welfare of the player as well, but Rickey took the stance that it was best to fight through these and to ignore the various threats. Early on, “Phillies general manager Herb Pennock phoned Rickey and pleaded with him not to bring Robinson [to Philadelphia]. There had been threats on the player’s life, Pennock warned, and he could not guarantee his safety” (Lowenfish 431). To this Rickey replied that Robinson was part of a team and if the Phillies did not want the Dodgers to come, than they were more than welcome to forfeit the game.

Rickey knew not to push his luck. He knew that after he had integrated the game with Robinson, if he attempted to bring too many African American players into the game at once, neither he nor the players would be treated with respect. Rickey was still well aware of the fact that he was, “in a business called professional baseball where no quarter is asked and no quarter is given” (Rickey 250). He was not going to be willing to sacrifice other people’s well being on the business side of baseball in order to implement his integration plan. At this point, he had put himself in such a position where he believed he had a responsibility to the African American community. He did not want to make it look like bringing Robinson in was a complete publicity stunt, and when the second baseman started producing on the field, all of these thoughts were thrown out the window. If Rickey was not worried about being regarded as one of the best scouts in baseball history, he may have done things differently in bringing in African Americans by the boat load, but because he was, it probably helped him make sure that his hand selected players were ready for the big stage before they were brought on. Rickey did not frequently speak publicly about the incident because he knew that was not his roll in the organization, even though he quickly grew to become the most well known scout in the game due to his actions.

Rickey also had many other calculated moves dealing with integration of the game and acceptance of race in the entire nation during his career. He was a member of many committees whose main goal was to decide the affects and ramifications of the increasing number of African Americans on those already in the game and on society as a whole. During these meetings, many parts of the integration were taken into account such as how the teammates of an African American might react when he took the field with them. While he knew that a good number of African American players were good enough to take the field in MLB, he also realized the fact that if they got there and were not happy with their surroundings, they may just leave to go back to the Negro Leagues where they were comfortable. It is also because of this reason that Robinson spent a few months in the minor leagues of the Dodgers’ organization before making his major league debut. While he was probably ready to do so as soon as he was signed by the team, Rickey realized that he had to set Robinson in a place where he could get his mind used to the controversy he was going to face once he reached the highest level of the game (Rickey 253). Although his stay in the minor leagues did not change what he would face once he was called up to the majors, Rickey knew it was important for Robinson to get his mind and body ready for the abuse he would take once he reached Brooklyn.

Many scouts from this era in baseball and those that have come since then have been jealous of the risks that Rickey was willing to take in order to make his team better. Those scouts were obviously not prepared to take the risks Rickey was willing to in order to make their team better (Behn 33). Even though Rickey did face some opposition from some higher ups on his team, and at times had his job in jeopardy, he always pushed through and did what he had to do to get what he wanted done. Rickey also realized that he had to wait his time for some of his movements in the game to have their era.

While Rickey is highly regarded as one of the greatest scouts the game has ever seen, he was relinquished from his teams a few times during his career, perhaps mostly because his ideas were at times so revolutionary that the owner was not willing to put up with his thoughts. He actually left his third team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, in the late stages of his career because he felt the organization was not letting him grow enough. When most people reach this age in their career, they are looking to wind things down and finish what they have to before retirement comes, but Rickey was not that kind of person (Dodson 80). While looking back on his career, Rickey would claim that he eventually accomplished all of the major things he wanted to, but there is no doubt that he left some of his ideas in the wind.

The reason he switched teams during his career was almost always under his own accord. He did not care for people who did not share his beliefs on certain issues, although he did not mind the normal resistance, he took to the mind set that if he was given the job, the organization must already agree with his beliefs. This became evident early in Rickey’s career when “he realized he could never have pioneered signing a black player in St. Louis, the southernmost city in the Major Leagues” (Lowenfish 356). This was partly due to the fact that he knew the further south this tactic was tried, the more resistance it would receive, but he also felt this way because the heads of the St. Louis franchise at the time were in no way open to being the first team to break the color line. Due to all of the social change that Rickey wanted to occur in the game, he truly had to have the backing of management to be able to follow out his plans.

Rickey is highly regarded as one of the best scouts who traveled the nation, going to sandlots across the country, to find Major League ready talent. At one point, this was seen as a waste of time by most scouts, but soon after Rickey started doing it, this traveling became a mark of a successful scout. Soon every scout who wanted to be taken seriously was traveling the country, often disgruntled in doing so, to find talent that everyone else had missed (Lowenfish 309). Without Rickey’s hand guiding the integration movement in baseball, there is no telling when the game would have accepted the first African American between the lines. It is because of Rickey’s perseverance and convincing personality that he was able to get done what many at the time regarded as impossible. Without Rickey’s perseverance in the aspects of life that mattered most to him, he may not be able to be considered a social entrepreneur, but because he continually followed what he thought was right, he no doubt earned that title.

Bill Jordan is a contributor to BaseballReflections.com. He can be reached by e-mail at BillJordaniv@yahoo.com.

Works Cited:

Behn, Robert D. “Branch Rickey as a Public Manager: Fulfilling the Eight Responsibilities of Public Management.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART 7.1 (1997): 1-33.

Dodson, Dan W. “The Integration of Negroes in Baseball.” Journal of Educational Sociology 28.2 (1954): 73-82.

Lowenfish, Lee. Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.

Rickey, Branch. “What is Amateur Sport?” Journal of Educational Sociology. 28.6 (1955): 249-253.

Part 1 of 2

Not many people have heard of Branch Rickey, but most have heard of Jackie Robinson, the man who is credited with breaking baseball’s color line. What most do not realize is that without Rickey, there may have never been a Robinson. While Robinson is credited with what is widely considered the most important event in baseball history, Rickey, the person who was mainly instrumental in bringing Robinson into the fold, is rarely seen in the same light. There are arguments that, “on paper, Branch Rickey was a business manager—a very successful business manager” (Behn 1). In reality though, Rickey was much more than simply a manager, he was an incredibly successful social entrepreneur. During the 1940s, Rickey was a scout for the Brooklyn Dodgers, before moving on to other roles in the organization, and was willing to do whatever he could think of to make his team better. Once Rickey convinced his organization to sign Robinson, other teams followed in integrating their baseball teams. African American percentages in baseball were then on a steady rise through the next thirty years before leveling off in the 1970s. If it were not for Rickey’s persistence in the matter of convincing those around him to allow a black man to play in the formerly all white league, there is no telling how long it would have taken before someone else would have been the first to tap this source. Through the examination of Rickey’s actions surrounding the signing of Jackie Robinson, the fact that he was a great social entrepreneur in his own right becomes evident.

While there is no doubt that Rickey signed Robinson because of his extraordinary talent, there were also other reasons at play at well. Rickey was of the people on a small committee who were discussing different issues surrounding the breaking of the color line such as how their fans would react if the league was integrated and whether there was African American talent that could compete in the league. While Rickey noticed, and accepted, the negatives, he knew that the color line had to be broken. He also knew that the long term positives immensely outweighed the negatives in this case. When a journalist who was traveling the country trying to fix social injustices at the time spoke to the scout about the potential breaking of the color line, “Rickey didn’t exactly take Smith into his confidence at their first Brooklyn meeting, [but] he certainly gave the journalist the impression that Jackie Robinson was a player the Dodgers were going to evaluate thoroughly” (Lowenfish 364). Rickey claimed that whenever someone tried to change something as large as segregation was in American society, there is going to be a good amount of backlash towards them and their ideas. He was deemed correct about this as Robinson was not the only one to receive death threats for playing America’s pastime with white Americans.

Rickey was always looking for untapped resources during his time as a baseball man. He once attempted to try to start a new, competing, league in cities where Major League Baseball had not yet set up a team. His thought was that if cities were ready and willing to support a professional baseball team and there were owners who were willing to pay for them, the teams should be as many places as possible. He received great support from these cities while all were willing to, or at least had a rich owner who was willing to, put down the money needed for a brand new baseball team. While his league never got off the ground because when MLB found out about it, they bargained with him and promised to start new teams in a few of the cities he had targeted. One researcher claimed that, “It would be hard to assess the forces that went into the success of this venture [of integration], without reckoning with the personality of Branch Rickey” (Dodson 74). It was partly because of this innovative method that these cities have had baseball for nearly an entire century. This has no doubt turned out to be a great thing for baseball, and the country as a whole. While baseball was still in its younger stages, starting new teams was not seen as it is today.

A early as the late 1930s, Branch Rickey started to notice a need to integrate MLB with the talent of the Negro Leagues that were established at the time. When Rickey attempted his integration process, he saw claims that he would actually be hurting African Americans as a whole when people like Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith claimed, “Mr. Rickey is attempting to destroy two well-organized leagues which have been in existence for some time and in which colored people of this country have faith and confidence” (Lowenfish 368). His main reason for the integration was that he knew there was a core of untapped talent in the Negro leagues, some of which may have even been better than the best players in MLB. He also knew that if his team was the first to integrate their baseball team, they would no doubt have the upper hand on the other teams in the league. When this is noted, it can be seen that his reasons for breaking the color barrier were really two fold. His first obligation was to the team that was paying him for being a scout, and that was always foremost in his mind. Since this was the case, Rickey was never going to break the color line with someone who had any chance of not being successful at the Major League level. Rickey also kept his ideas about breaking the color line silent because he had an idea of how much it could help his team if it could be the first to cross the barrier.

Bill Jordan is a contributor to BaseballReflections.com. He can be reached by e-mail at BillJordaniv@yahoo.com.

Works Cited:

Behn, Robert D. “Branch Rickey as a Public Manager: Fulfilling the Eight Responsibilities of Public Management.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART 7.1 (1997): 1-33.

Dodson, Dan W. “The Integration of Negroes in Baseball.” Journal of Educational Sociology 28.2 (1954): 73-82.

Lowenfish, Lee. Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.

Rickey, Branch. “What is Amateur Sport?” Journal of Educational Sociology. 28.6 (1955): 249-253.

Carroll, B. (2006). Early Twentieth-Century Heroes: Coverage of Negro League baseball in the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender. Journalism History, 32, 34-42.

Carroll, B. (2006). From Fraternity to Fracture: Black Press Coverage of Involvement in Negro League Baseball in the 1920s. American Journal of Historians Association, 23, 69-95.

Dorinson, J., & Warmund, J. (1998). Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports, and the American Dream. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe.

Everbach, T. (2005). Breaking Baseball Barriers: The 1953-1954 Negro League and Expansion of Women’s Public Roles. American Journalism, 22, 13-33.

Hanssen, A. (1998). The Cost of Discrimination: A Study of Major League Baseball. Southern Economic Journal, 64, 603-627.

Heaphy, L.A. (2003). The Negro Leagues 1869-1960. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

Huddle, F. P. (1943). Baseball Jargon. American Speech, 18, 103-111.

Kaszuba, D. (2007). Review of When to Stop Cheering? The Black Press, the Black Community, and the Integration of Professional Baseball. American Journalism, 24, 199-201.

Long, M. G. (2007). The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson: First Class Citizenship. New York, New York: Henry Hold and Company.

Lowenfish, L. (2007). Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.

Marshall, W. (1999). Baseball’s Pivotal Era 1945-1951. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.

Nalbantian, H.R. & Schotter, A. (1995). Matching and Efficiency in the Baseball Free-Agent System: An Experimental Examination. Journal of Labor Economics, 13, 1-31.

O’Toole, A. (2003). The Best Man Plays: Major League baseball and the Black Athlete 1901-2002. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

Rennert, R. S. (1993). Baseball Great Henry Aaron. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Chelsea House Publishers.

Simon, S. (2002). Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball. Danvers, Massachusetts: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Spivey, D. (1983). The Black Athlete in Big-Time Intercollegiate Sports, 1941-1968. Phylon, 44, 116-125.

Vrooman, J. (1997). A Unified Theory of Capital and Labor Markets in Major League Baseball. Southern Economic Journal, 63, 594-619.

Winfield, D. (2007). Dropping the Ball: Baseball’s Troubles and How We Can and Must Solve Them. New York, New York: Scribner.

Wittenmyer, G. (2004, March 22). Decrease in African Americans in baseball has officials puzzled, concerned. Saint Paul Pioneer Press, pp. 1-5.

Part 2 of 4

Although it was not well documented, black women even had their time in professional baseball as well when the male major leagues were in turmoil over labor agreements. While they were not accepted into the women’s baseball leagues which is now well known (thanks to the film A League of Their Own), they had to start their own. Despite the fact that they had two stereotypes running against them, “black women ballpayers in the 1940s and early 1950s had to look beyond the women’s league for a professional sports outlet, so a few brave women athletes defied [society]” (Everbach, 2005, p. 14). Black women’s leagues did not receive much media coverage or funding and did not last long, but the women from those teams continued to play at a high level for a few years after the league’s demise. Many of them illustrated that they were not afraid of being known as the weaker sex and tried out for some of the male Negro League teams (Everbach, 2005, p. 18). Some of these women did make the active rosters of the teams, but most did not get to stay long enough to make a name for themselves.

There was one event in sporting history in this country that everyone can relate to; it is the breaking of the color line in Major League Baseball by Jackie Robinson in 1947 (Heaphy, 2003, p. 4). For some reason, this event has created more of a footprint in history than the first African Americans to play for the other major sports. At that time, it looked more like a baseball decision than anything else, but it turned out to be much more than that. “The breaking of baseball’s color barrier [would] then be seen as a milestone in race relations that foreshadowed, and indeed contributed to, the dismantling, within twenty years, of the long-established structures of legal and customary segregation” (Dorinson & Warmund, 1998, p. 183). Perhaps this was because baseball has forever been dubbed “America’s Pastime,” or perhaps it had something to do with the time period, but if there is one aspect of African Americans’ involvement in baseball that stands out today it is that the Jackie Robinsons of this world are dwindling. Barely anyone knows who the first African American to play professional football or basketball was, but most sports fans can name at least the first two African Americans to play MLB. The integration of baseball was seen across the country, by blacks and whites alike, as a breakthrough in society. Many experts claimed the quality of play during the period of integration was one of the best times in baseball history, and a lot of it had to do with the acceptance of race. There was an assumption that the white people who were already in the league started playing even harder than they had been because they did not want to be beat out for a job by a black person, and the black people were playing so well because they wanted to be sure not to embarrass themselves or their entire race (Carroll, 2006, p. 37).

When Robinson first entered MLB, there was much racism in response to his playing in the formerly all-white league; and despite consistently putting up Most-Valuable-Player-worthy numbers during his first few seasons, he constantly received death threats from fans of other teams as he traveled across the country. Many believed the scout who signed Robinson, Branch Rickey, was trying to make a statement about society when he helped promote Robinson to the big leagues. Although Rickey served on MLB’s committee to investigate what could be done about the color barrier, he was not willing to break it until he found “someone named Jackie Robinson, an all-around athlete who also starred in track and field, basketball, and baseball” (Lowenfish, 2007, p. 356). Further research suggested, however, that Rickey simply noticed there was a pool of baseball talent that no one was tapping and figured if he took the best player from that pool, he would get results (Carroll, “Early,” 2006, p. 40).

After Robinson made his statement in baseball, he was not going to stop there with the positive movement of integration in the United States as was evidence by what he said in this letter to Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., “I would be honored and grateful if you were to become a member of the National Advisory Committee to aid me in reaching the 1957 goal of one million dollars” (Robinson qtd. in Long, 2007, p. 25). This illustrated that Robinson, like other African Americans who came into the league around the same time, were not simply players; they were civil rights activists and cared about making the country better for others of their color. The influence of Robinson on the entire community helped to illustrate why it was so important for the color barrier to be broken in America’s game (Carroll, “From,” 2006, p. 86). The persistence, influence, and beliefs of Robinson altered many people’s careers that did not have anything to do with baseball, perhaps even Dr. King’s by inviting him to one of the most prominent civil rights groups of the time (Spivey, 1983, p. 117).

With the color barrier now officially broken, other teams around the league started to realize that they needed to integrate their teams as well and did so over the next decade. The last team to sign a black player was the Boston Red Sox, which was not surprising due to the well-known level of racism in the city. But it eventually became known that they were actually the first team to consider signing Robinson, especially when, “he slashed long line drives off of Fenway’s looming left field wall, clanking the numbered tin plates on the score board” (Simon, 2002, p. 49). Eventually, the front office members convinced their notoriously racist owner that in order to continue competing at the highest level, they would have to start diving into the pool of black talent just like everyone else.

Bill Jordan is a contributing writer to BaseballReflections.com and can be reached by e-mail at billjordaniv@yahoo.com.

PS – The bibiliography will appear after the last (4th) part of this paper.