[ SPORTS ] 1949-1955 and finished in the top ten of the MVP voting in 1950 and 1954. After his playing career, he became a scout and a coach before Veeck, who by this point was owner of the White Sox, called upon him again in 1978 by making him MLB’s second Black manager, behind Cleveland’s Frank Robinson three years earlier. As was the case in his AL debut, Doby was thrust into that duty in the middle of the season. To be second, Doby learned, is to be generally underappreciated and acknowledgement can be a long time in coming. He went 39 years between his final game as a player in 1959 and his rightful induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998 — an honor that came just five years before his death from cancer at age 79. Doby though, set a template that not even Robinson could claim, for he was the first Negro Leaguer to jump directly into the big leagues. Imagine being cheered lustily one day at a ceremony in your honor and then having a teammate deny you a handshake the very next. For his part, though, Doby was glad to have had so little time to prepare for the “new and strange world” he penetrated.
16 JUNE 2022 / CODE M
“I look at myself as more fortunate than Jack,” he once said of Robinson, with whom he became close. “If I had gone through hell in the Minors, then I’d have to go through it again in the Majors. Once was enough!” There was only one Lawrence Eugene Doby. No, he was not MLB’s first Black player. No, he does not have a day in which the entire league wears his No. 14, as they do for Jackie and his No. 42 each April. No, he is not the subject of dozens of books or a feature film. And no, he was not saluted as a firstballot Hall of Famer. But this much must be said and understood about the man whose legacy is too often neglected: The call came, rousing him from sleep and inviting him to do something he had never been done. And to the benefit of the many who followed in his footsteps, Doby answered. ●
Larry Doby Debut 75th Anniversary Celebration Saturday, July 2 Yankees vs. Guardians at 6:10 pm Doby 1947 Jersey, courtesy of Discount Drug Mart (15,000 fans)
