Beyond The Point Of No Return

The Royals won the game 14-1, and as The Pittsburgh Courier's front page headline proclaimed, JACKIE 'STOLE THE SHOW.' "He did everything but help the ushers seat the crowd," wrote Bostic. In five trips to the plate Robinson had four hits, scored four times, and drove in four runs. He also stole two bases and scored two of his runs after causing the pitcher to balk. "Eloquent as they were, the cold figures of the box score do not tell the whole story," reported The New York Times in an assessment that proved prophetic of Robinson's baseball career. "He looked as well as acted the part of a real baseball player."

"[Baseball] has given employment to known epileptics, kleptomaniacs and a generous scattering of saints and sinners," wrote black sportswriter Sam Lacy in the Baltimore Afro-American in 1945. "A man who is totally lacking in character has often turned out to be a star in baseball. A man whose skin is white or red or yellow has been acceptable. But a man whose character may be of the highest and whose ability may be Ruthian has been barred completely from the sport because he is colored."

Lacy thereby underscored the inconsistency and irrationality with which the baseball establishment enforced its color barrier. In preseason exhibitions, postseason barnstorming tours and Latin American winter leagues, blacks and whites played together. In the major leagues rumors abounded that light-skinned blacks had infiltrated the game.

By far the most frequent contact between players of different races occurred in exhibition games that pitted black and white teams against each other. In the early years of the century, black clubs played against the regular rosters of major league squads, particularly when teams toured Cuba for spring training. At times the white outfits were major league in name only, lacking several stars or including nonroster players. In other instances, entire big league teams participated. In either event, Cuban and black stars fared well. According to John Holway, an authority on the old Negro leagues, from 1908 to 1911 the record of major league teams in Cuba was .500 (32-32-1). That led American League President Ban Johnson to denounce such exhibitions. "We want no makeshift club calling themselves the Athletics to go to Cuba to be beaten by colored teams," he proclaimed.

Nonetheless, games between major league and black teams continued until the 1920s, when Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis forbade clubs from appearing as a unit in the off-season; thereafter major league all-star squads could barnstorm, though Landis limited the number of players from a big league team allowed on any all-star squad. Black players believed that Landis promulgated this rule in order to end the embarrassing defeats they handed major league clubs.

"There is no rule, formal or informal, or any understanding—unwritten, subterranean, or sub-anything—against the hiring of Negro players by the teams of organized ball," declared Landis in 1942. The statement typified the hypocrisy of the baseball establishment. The men who controlled the national pastime in the first half of the 20th century had inherited a system of rigid racial exclusion. Although theirs was a sport played primarily in cities removed from the dictates of Jim Crow, baseball officials religiously policed the color line.

The task of defending the baseball establishment against its critics often fell to Landis. In 1920 baseball officials had selected Landis, a federal district court judge, to restore the game's tarnished image in the aftermath of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. The owners granted Landis absolute power to "safeguard the interests of the national game of baseball." In the eyes of the general public, Landis ruled wisely, courageously and fairly throughout his 24-year reign. Few Americans of the era matched his esteem and popularity. Yet Landis didn't warrant this reputation. He brought to baseball a disdain for law and due process characteristic of his judicial career. A "grandstand judge" who won fame in controversial cases, such as the Standard Oil Antitrust Case of 1907 and the wartime trials of Industrial Workers of the World leaders, Landis often .acted arbitrarily, and higher courts frequently overruled his decisions. As baseball commissioner he imposed life suspension on players accused of gambling, even after the courts had acquitted them. In other instances he ignored similar offenses.

While denying the existence of a color line in baseball, Landis carefully guarded his personal opinions on the race issue. Most contemporaries agreed, however, that he adamantly opposed desegregation. "Judge Landis had convenient hiding places for his ideals," wrote former Umpire George Moriarty in a 1947 letter to Happy Chandler, Landis' successor. "If the populace was not looking he had little compunction about defending the underdog [Moriarty meant he didn't feel compelled to], but if the spotlight were turned on in full focus, he would defend anyone to the last camera." During the mid-1930s, according to then National League President Ford Frick, Landis short-circuited a suggestion by several owners to debate the race issue in closed session, ruling that the topic had not properly been placed on the agenda. In 1942, when Brooklyn Dodger Manager Leo Durocher stated that he would sign black players if allowed to, Landis publicly proclaimed, "Negroes are not barred from Organized Baseball...and never have been during the 21 years I have served." The following year, a group of black leaders attended a major league meeting in Manhattan. Actor Paul Robeson, speaking for the group, urged the owners to give black players the same opportunity he had been given in the theater. Landis stifled any discussion of their proposals.

Some baseball "experts" even argued that the absence of blacks in the majors stemmed from their lack of talent, intelligence and desire. "There is not a single Negro player with major league possibilities," alleged a Sporting News editorial of Nov. 1, 1945. And Cleveland Indians owner Alva Bradley later asserted, "In 1945 there was only one Negro player mentioned as being of major league caliber. That was Satchel Paige." Owners frequently complained about the absence of minor league seasoning among black athletes, but they never gave them the opportunity to start at the lower levels and prove their abilities.

Smith, of The Pittsburgh Courier, the nation's leading black weekly, was the most talented and influential of the black sportswriters. An athlete of considerable talent in his youth, he found his path to pro sports blocked by the color barrier. In 1933 he pitched his American Legion team to a 1-0 victory in a playoff game. A scout from the Detroit Tigers signed Smith's catcher, Mike Tresh, who later played and coached in the majors, as well as the losing pitcher. For Smith, the scout had only wistful words, "I wish I could sign you, too, kid. But I can't." Smith attended West Virginia State on an athletic scholarship and joined the Courier in 1937. A year later he became the sports editor.