Note: Presented here is Part III of “Sayin’ Goodbye to Hammerin’ Hank Aaron”, my tribute to my personal boyhood baseball hero, Henry Aaron, who passed away on January 22nd in Atlanta, Georgia. Aaron’s career as one the greatest baseball players who ever lived, and as the man who broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record, is well documented; and if that was all there was to his story it would be remarkable enough. As you will see when you read this installment, however, there is so much more to tell. While it is true that Jackie Robinson, who was Hank’s personal hero, was the first Black player to integrate the Major Leagues in 1947, it fell to Aaron and two lesser known Black players to do the same thing in the minor leagues of the Jim Crow deep South in 1953—before Brown vs. the Board of Education, before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white person, and before Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, there was Hank Aaron and his friends taking on Jim Crow in the deep South. Please read on. MA
(As Part III of this series builds on information provided in Parts 1 and II it is recommended to read those installments first. They are both linked here)
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As depicted in a dramatized scene from the movie “42”,[1] sometime in early 1945 the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey [2], called his assistant and chief scout, a former player named Clyde Sukeforth,[3] into his office and told him that he intended to sign and bring to the big leagues a Black baseball player. He told Sukeforth that he didn’t know who the player was, or where he was, but that he was going to do it, and he needed Clyde’s help to find the man he needed. On hearing Rickey’s plan, Sukeforth was somewhat incredulous. There hadn’t been a Black player in the Major Leagues since 1884, a period of 61 years. For the last 24 of those years, until 1944, the game had been ruled by the only commissioner MLB had ever known, a former federal court judge named Kennesaw Mountain Landis.[4] Landis had been hired to the post in the wake of the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” scandal and given near dictatorial powers by team owners desperately needing to restore public faith in their game. While there was no rule, Landis asserted, either written or unwritten, prohibiting Black players in the Majors, during his term in office, with support from virtually every team owner, he successfully prevented it. In 1944, however, something happened to change the equation—Kennesaw Mountain Landis died. His replacement was an ex-senator from the state of Kentucky named Albert “Happy” Chandler. Initially most observers assumed that Chandler would simply carry on the policies of his predecessor, but an interview of him, conducted by the famous Black sports writer Wendell Smith[5]in the spring of 1945, indicated that Chandler’s views on Black ballplayers were considerably more liberal than those of the iron-fisted Landis. “If a Black boy can make it on Okinawa and Guadalcanal,” [6]Chandler told Smith, “hell, he can make it in baseball!”
The movie notwithstanding, in truth Rickey had informed the Dodgers board of directors in 1943, the year before Landis’ death, of his intention to bring Black players to the Dodgers; and by 1945 had been scouting the Negro Leagues for likely prospects for some time. Ultimately this led to the Dodger GM finding the player he wanted; a shortstop playing for the Kansas City Monarchs [7] in the Negro Leagues named Jackie Robinson.[8] In August of ’45 he dispatched Sukeforth to Chicago, where the Monarchs were playing, to contact Robinson and convince him to come to Brooklyn and meet Rickey. The scout succeeded in the task, and the result of the Rickey-Robinson meeting was an agreement that the Dodgers would sign Robinson to a minor league deal to play the 1946 season with the Brooklyn AAA affiliate, the Montreal Royals. If Robinson made good there he would then be brought up to the Dodgers for the ’47 season. On October 23rd, 1945, Jackie formally signed the contract, and Rickey’s intention was announced to the world. Everything now rested on the shoulders of the 28-year old player from the Negro Leagues, to show he could play with the white boys of the Major Leagues.
to his minor league contract.
Robinson’s 1946 season with the Royals left little doubt that he had what it took to make it in the big leagues. He led Montreal to the International League title while also leading the league in hitting (.349), walks (92) and runs scored (113). With it being obvious to Rickey that he was ready, following the 1947 spring training Robinson came north with the Dodgers to start the season; and when he took his position at first base on opening day at Ebbets Field, the baseball color barrier at last was broken. A Black man was playing in the Major Leagues.
Jackie’s success with the Dodgers untapped a large reservoir of Major League ready or near ready Negro League talent, and it wasn’t long before more Black players began to arrive with regularity to the big leagues. Later in ’47 the Cleveland Indians brought up an outfielder named Larry Doby [9]and the St. Louis Browns added Hank Thompson and Willard Brown.[10] In 1948 future All-Star catcher Roy Campanella [11]came to the Dodgers and the Indians acquired the ageless wonder, Satchel Paige.[12] 1949 saw the arrival of left fielder Monte Irvin [13] to the New York Giants, pitcher Don Newcombe [14]to the Dodgers and the Cuban comet, Minnie Miñoso[15]to the Indians; and in 1951 the Giants hit pay dirt with the arrival of center fielder Willie Mays. By 1952, when Hank Aaron signed with the Boston Braves, five years had passed since Robinson had first set foot on Ebbets Field, and the big leagues, though not without counter-intention, were well on the way to integration. One might think that the same would be true in the minor leagues, but, especially in the Jim Crow South, where many such leagues flourished, it just wasn’t so. Thus, when the Braves assigned Hank and two other Black players, Felix Mantilla [16] and Horace Garner,[17] to their single A South Atlantic League affiliate in Jacksonville, Florida for the 1953 season, they would be the first to bring to the “Sally” League what Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey brought to the Major Leagues six years earlier—integration.
mid 1950s
The outright racist abuse endured by Jackie Robinson during his first couple of years with the Dodgers is a matter of well-known baseball history. Less well-known is the racism that players like Hank Aaron experienced in being the first Blacks to play in the Sally League and the other minor leagues across the South. In his book “I Had A Hammer” Hank speaks of several incidents that illustrate the point. Keep in mind that having been born and raised in the deep South, Aaron was no stranger to Jim Crow and its soul crushing effects. Such things as having to ride in the back of the bus, giving up one’s seat or a place in line if a white person needed or wanted it; not being able to go to the same schools or drink from the same water fountains; use the same bathrooms or eat at the same lunch counters as whites, was part and parcel to everyday life for Blacks in the South. Even the right to vote, which in 1870 had been guaranteed to all U.S. citizens by the 15th amendment to the Constitution, was consistently denied to Blacks in the South by combinations of threats, intimidation and bureaucratic resistance. All this was day to day life for Hank and any other Black person growing up south of the Mason Dixon line[18] in the 1930s and ‘40s, and especially in the deep South.
Looked at against this backdrop, it’s more understandable why the southern minor baseball leagues, such as the Sally League, were so slow to come to the integration table. It also makes what Aaron and the other early Black players to play in these leagues did to integrate them that much more impressive. Just handling the day to day life was a challenge, which in his book Aaron describes:
“Horace and Felix and I never stayed with the rest of our teammates when we were on the road—never even ate with them. The team would stop at a restaurant, and the three of us would sit on the bus while…some guy who rode the bench brought hamburgers out to us…”
with the Milwaukee Braves
As part of the day by day drill, Aaron relates that whenever the team got to the town where the next game would be played, the bus driver would take the white players to their hotel while Hank, Felix and Horace waited on the bus. Once the white players were situated the driver returned to the bus and drove the three Black players to their accommodations, usually a Black family on the “other side of the tracks.”
Hank then tells of a specific incident describing the kind of thing they routinely had to deal with:
“Once we stopped at a little store, and the white players got out to buy cold drinks. We stayed in the bus, but Felix wanted to get a drink out of the water fountain. There were two fountains, white and colored, and Felix took a drink out of the colored fountain. But it was hot water and he spit it out. Then he moved over and took a drink from the white fountain. The problem was that the store owner saw him do it, and, being a good law-abiding Southerner, he called the sheriff. The sheriff was there before the team was back on the bus, and he said he was going to put Felix in jail. Ben (team manager Ben Geraghty)[19] talked to the sheriff for a long time before he finally convinced him to let Felix come with us.”
While incidents and customs like those just described were woven into the woof and warp of life for Black people in the Jim Crow South, the incidents Aaron and his teammates experienced in the ballparks they played in were far more overt and abusive. Hank describes several in his book, the first involving his friend and teammate Felix Mantilla. Felix was from Puerto Rico and, not having lived or grown up in the South, wasn’t as familiar with the inherent racism there. Part of the experience that Black players had to deal with was being thrown at by the white pitchers they faced. Whenever Mantilla was hit, which apparently was often, he would get up and start yelling in Spanish at the pitcher, whereupon Aaron and Garner would yell at him to be quiet and take his base. In one instance, however, in a game in Macon, Georgia, after being plunked Mantilla got up and instead of yelling he charged the mound, intending to take the white pitcher’s head off. On seeing this, Garner sprinted from the dugout and caught Felix before he got to the hill, put a bear hug on him, and whispered in his ear, “You dumb son of a bitch! I know you don’t speak much English, but hear what I’m telling you. You’re gonna get us all killed!” As all this was going down, the agitated white fans in the stands along the first base line, with malice in mind, began to spill over the railing onto the field. Simultaneously Black fans began to rush from their section towards the white fans. The situation was on the verge of becoming a full-blown race riot, when the police arrived and got things calmed down. For the rest of that game policemen ringed the field, between the fans and players, their hands never far from their revolvers.
manager Ben Geraghty
Hank then relates that the very next day, in a game in Augusta, Georgia, the fans in the right field stands started throwing rocks at Horace Garner, who was stationed in right field for Jacksonville. Initially, with the bad aim of the red-necks, Horace wasn’t too concerned about the rock throwing, but once their aim improved and he took a few hits he decided to ask the umpire to do something about it. The ump then chose to make an announcement over the public-address system to ask the fans to stop throwing things at the right fielder. The PA announcement simply infuriated the fans even more, and the next time Horace came to the plate cries of “nigger” and death threats rained down on him. Between the threats and the rocks, Ben Geraghty, the Jacksonville manager, decided it would be safer to station Horace in left field, where the racist fans weren’t in such close proximity. That handled the rock throwing, if not the verbal abuse, and the game was completed with no further serious incident. In fact, the Black players got the last laugh, as between the three of them they got on base 13 of the 14 times they came to the plate.
And so it went for Hank, Horace and Felix, as they played their way through that 1953 Sally League season. In one game fans would throw black cats onto the field, and in the next they’d taunt Jacksonville’s white first baseman, a man named Joe Andrews,[20] who had befriended the three Black players, with claims he was getting blacker every day and speculating that he must be sleeping with Aaron’s sister. From time to time the players would receive death threats; letters claiming that in an upcoming game the letter writer would be in the right field stands with his rifle, intending to shoot the players. One time in Jacksonville, Felix received a letter that was considered so threatening that the FBI got involved, with agents sitting in the stands in the event the writer, or someone, was serious about shooting the player. Sometimes the incidents took on a humorous aspect, like the time Horace chased a foul ball down the right field line and into an area reserved for fans to stand while watching the game. While on the run he saw that he was about to knock down a little white kid, so instead of plowing into him he simply reached down, picked him up in his arms, and carried him a few more steps forward into the crowd. On seeing the Black player grab her kid and take him those few steps, the kid’s mother screamed, “My God! That nigger’s running away with my baby.” Hank and his mates got a kick out of that one, though today our humor must be tempered by the fact that the kid’s mother in this incident most likely really thought that Garner was stealing her kid.
Despite the antipathy of the fans, the Jim Crow culture, and the barriers they imposed, Aaron had an incredible season with the Jacksonville Braves in 1953. In leading the team to the Sally League regular season title, Hank hit a league leading .362. In addition, he hit 22 home runs and led the league in runs scored (115), hits (208), doubles (36), RBIs (125) and total bases (338); and won the league MVP award. Though Jacksonville lost a 7-game series in the league playoffs to their chief rival, the Columbia Senators, it didn’t dim for Hank what he, Felix Mantilla, and Horace Garner accomplished that season as the first Blacks to play in the deep South Sally League. In his book, he summed it up this way:
“We were disappointed to lose the playoffs, but Horace and Felix and I didn’t lose sight of what we accomplished that summer. We had played a season of great baseball in the Deep South, under circumstances that nobody had experienced before and—because of us—never would again. We had shown the people of Georgia and Alabama and South Carolina and Florida that we were good ballplayers and decent human beings, and that all it took to get along together was to get a little more used to each other. We had shown them that the South wouldn’t fall off the map if we played in their ballparks. At the end of the season, we still heard a few choice names being called at us from the stands, but not as often or as loudly as in the beginning. Little by little—one by one—the fans accepted us. Not all of them, but enough to make a difference. That was the most gratifying part of the summer. It showed us that things were changing a little, and we were part of the reason why…”
To be continued…
Except for quoted material
Copyright ©2021
by Mark Arnold
All Rights Reserved
[1] “42” is a 2013 American biographical sports film about baseball player Jackie Robinson, the first Black athlete to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) during the modern era. Written and directed by Brian Helgeland the film stars Chadwick Boseman as Robinson, with Harrison Ford taking the role of Branch Rickey. The title of the film is a reference to Robinson’s jersey number, which was retired across all MLB teams in 1997.
[2] Wesley Branch Rickey (December 20, 1881 – December 9, 1965) was an American baseball player and front office executive. One of the most influential baseball men ever, Rickey had a nearly 50-year career as a Major League front office executive, manager and general manager for the old St. Louis Browns (where he signed Hall of Fame first baseman George Sisler in 1913), the St. Louis Cardinals, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was not only instrumental in breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier by signing Black player Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers, he also created the framework for the modern minor league farm system, was one of the first to use advanced statistical analysis in the evaluation of players, and introduced the batting helmet. He died of a heart attack in 1965 and was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967.
[3]Clyde Leroy Sukeforth (1901-2000)nicknamed “Sukey”, was an American professional baseball catcher, coach, scout and manager. Though he was best known for helping Branch Rickey sign the first Black player in the modern era of Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson, he had a long career in baseball as a player before that and as a scout and minor league manager after. Not as well-known is the fact that Sukeforth was also Robinson’s first Major League manager. Rickey assigned him to be the interim manager for the Dodgers at the start of the 1947 season after the regular Brooklyn manager, Leo Durocher, was suspended for 1 year by commissioner “Happy” Chandler for having an out of wedlock affair with Hollywood actress Laraine Day, which was causing a public relations flap for MLB. Sukeforth managed the Dodgers for the first 2 games of the ‘47 season, both victories.
[4]Kennesaw Mountain Landis (November 20, 1866 – November 25, 1944) was an American jurist who served as a US federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and the first Commissioner of baseball from 1920 until his death. He is remembered for his handling of the famous “Black Sox” scandal, in which he expelled eight members of the Chicago White Sox from organized baseball for conspiring to lose the 1919 World Series and repeatedly refused their reinstatement requests. His firm actions and iron rule over baseball in the near quarter-century of his commissionership are generally credited with restoring public confidence in the game. He is also remembered, however, for his stalwart opposition to allowing Black players into Major League Baseball.
[5] Wendell Smith (1914-1972) is one of the unsung figures in the struggle for racial integration. As portrayed in the recent film “42”, Smith played a key role in the Jackie Robinson story but his effect on American life extended far beyond Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers. As a sportswriter he wrote thousands of columns between 1937 and 1972, was an ardent advocate for the integration of the game, and became the first African-American member of the Baseball Writer’s Association of America. Smith died in 1972 of pancreatic cancer, just one month after the passing of Robinson. He was 58 years old.
[6] Part of the impetus for the integration of Major League Baseball was driven by the increasing awareness of the hypocrisy made apparent by the fact that Black men had served and fought valiantly for the nation in World War II but could not enjoy the full benefits of the cause they fought for at home in the United States. Guadalcanal (1942-43) and Okinawa (1945) were two of the more famous battles fought against the Japanese in the Pacific theatre in the war.
[7] Established in 1920, the Kansas City Monarchs were one of the Negro Leagues’ most famous and successful clubs. Owned and operated by white businessman J.L. Wilkinson, the Monarchs took home an unsurpassed 10 league pennants (including multiple flags in both the Negro National and Negro American Leagues) and suffered through just one losing season during their entire association with the Negro Leagues. Besides Jackie Robinson, famous players such as Satchel Paige, Ernie Banks, “Cool Papa” Bell and Buck O’Neil played for the Monarchs. Ironically, the integration of MLB signaled the death knell of the Negro Leagues, which by 1958 had practically ceased to exist. The Monarchs continued to barnstorm (travel from town to town playing exhibition games) for a few years before finally disbanding in 1965.
[8] Jack Roosevelt Robinson (1919-1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. A superb athlete, Robinson was the first person to letter in four sports (football, basketball, baseball and track) at UCLA. He served in the US Army during World War II. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1943, Robinson was court martialed in 1944 for refusing to comply to an Army bus driver’s demand that he move to the back of the bus. Ultimately acquitted by an all-white nine officer panel, Robinson’s reputation as one who would not knuckle under to racism was growing. Following the war, in 1945 he signed a contract to play for the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs at $400 per month and later that year had his fateful meeting with Branch Rickey in Brooklyn. An All-Star 6 times, he played 10 years for Brooklyn in the Major Leagues, helping the Dodgers to win the 1955 World Series and winning the 1949 MVP award. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1962. A powerful voice for civil rights to the end, Jackie Robinson died of a diabetes related heart attack on October 24, 1972. His number 42 is today the only number formally retired by Major League Baseball.
[9] Lawrence Eugene Doby (1923-2003) was an American professional baseball player in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball who was the second black player to break MLB’s color barrier and the first Black player in the American League when he signed with the Cleveland Indians. A seven time All Star center fielder, Doby, along with Satchel Paige, were the first Black players to play on a World Series champion when the Indians took the title in 1948. A career .283 hitter (across 13 seasons) with good power (253 career HRs with 970 RBIs) Doby followed his career as a player with a long career as a scout, manager and front office executive in baseball. In 1978 he became the 2nd Black manager in big league history when he took the Chicago White Sox job. He was elected to the Hall of Fame by the veteran’s committee in in 1998. Larry Doby passed away in 2003 after a long battle with cancer.
[10] Henry Curtis Thompson (1925-1969), best known as Hank Thompson, was an American player in the Negro leagues (Kansas City Monarchs) and Major League Baseball (St. Louis Browns and New York Giants) who played primarily as a third baseman, but also as an outfielder. A left-handed batter, he was the first Black player to play in both the American and National Leagues. He was also, along with Monte Irvin, among the first two Blacks to play on the New York Giants, and later that season was the first Black player to face a Black pitcher in the Majors when he faced Don Newcombe of the Dodgers. In 1951 he helped the Giants to the World Series title, and was involved another first when, along with Willie Mays and Irvin, he was part of the first all-Black outfield in World Series history. Thompson had a 9-year career in the Majors with a career batting average of .267. He died after suffering a seizure in 1969. He was 43 years old. Willard Jessie Brown (1915 – 1996), nicknamed “Home Run” Brown, was an American baseball player who played outfielder in the Negro Leagues and in Major League Baseball (MLB). Described by Buck O’Neil as the most natural ball player he ever saw, Brown had a phenomenal career in the Negro Leagues, described by many as one of the best players and power hitters ever. He was given the nickname “Home Run” by none other than the legendary Josh Gibson, due to Brown’s ability to hit the “big fly.” For all his skill, Brown did not fare well in the Majors due to not being able to deal with the racism he encountered. Though he played in only a few games for the St. Louis Browns, he made history when he and Hank Thompson became the first two Black players to appear in the same game together. Later that season he became the first Black to hit a home run in the American League; ironically an “inside-the-park” shot, and the only HR he would hit in the Majors. Mostly due to his superb career in the Negro Leagues, Willie Brown was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006. He died in 1996 in Houston at the age of 81.
[11] Roy Campanella (November 19, 1921 – June 26, 1993), nicknamed “Campy“, was an American baseball player, primarily as a catcher. The Philadelphia native played in the Negro leagues and Mexican League for 9 years before entering the minor leagues in 1946. He made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut in 1948 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, for whom he played until 1957. His playing career ended when he was paralyzed in an automobile accident in January 1958. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest catchers in the history of the game.
[12] Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige (July 7, 1906 – June 8, 1982) was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro League baseball and Major League Baseball(MLB). His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. A right-handed pitcher, Paige first played for the semi-professional Mobile Tigers from 1924 to 1926. He began his professional baseball career in 1926 with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts of the Negro Southern League and became one of the most famous and successful players from the Negro leagues. On town tours across the United States, Paige would sometimes have his infielders sit down behind him and then routinely strike out the side. .At age 42 in 1948, Paige made his Major League debut for the Cleveland Indians. Paige was the first black pitcher to play in the American League and was the seventh black player to play in Major League Baseball. Also in 1948, Paige became the first player who had played in the Negro leagues to pitch in the World Series; the Indians won the Series that year. He played with the St. Louis Browns from 1951 to 1953, representing the team in the All-Star Game in 1952 and 1953. He played his last professional game on June 21, 1966, for the Peninsula Grays of the Carolina League In 1971, Paige became the first electee of the Negro League Committee to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
[13] Monford Merrill “Monte” Irvin (February 25, 1919 – January 11, 2016) was an American left fielder and right fielder in the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball (MLB) who played with the Newark Eagles(1938–1942, 1946–1948), New York Giants (1949–1955) and Chicago Cubs (1956). He grew up in New Jersey and was a standout football player at Lincoln University. Irvin left Lincoln to spend several seasons in Negro league baseball. His career was interrupted by military service from 1943 to 1945. When he joined the New York Giants, Irvin became one of the earliest African-American MLB players. He played in two World Series for the Giants. When future Hall of Famer Willie Mays joined the Giants in 1951, Irvin was asked to mentor him. Later In 1951, together with Mays and Hank Thompson, he was part of the first all Black outfield in World Series history. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973. After his playing career, Irvin was a baseball scout and held an administrative role with the MLB commissioner’s office. Monte Irvin died in 2016 of natural causes at the age of 97.
[14] Donald Newcombe (June 14, 1926 – February 19, 2019), nicknamed “Newk“, was an American professional baseball pitcher in Negro league and Major League Baseball who played for the Newark Eagles(1944–45), Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers (1949–1951 and 1954–58), Cincinnati Reds (1958–1960), and Cleveland Indians (1960). Newcombe was the first pitcher to win the Rookie of the Year, MVP and Cy Young Awards during his career. This distinction would not be achieved again until 2011, when Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander, who was Rookie of the Year in 2006, won the Cy Young and MVP awards. In 1949, he became the first black pitcher to start a World Series game. In 1951, Newcombe was the first black pitcher to win twenty games in one season.[1] In 1956, the inaugural year of the Cy Young Award, he became the first pitcher to win the National League MVP and the Cy Young in the same season. Newcombe was an excellent hitting pitcher who compiled a career batting average of .271 with 15 home runs and was used as a pinch hitter, a rarity for pitchers. He died in 2019 at the age of 92, following a long illness.
[15] Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso, born Saturnino Orestes Armas Miñoso Arrieta; (November 29, 1925 – March 1, 2015), nicknamed “The Cuban Comet” and “Mr. White Sox“, was a Cuban professional baseball player. He began his baseball career in the Negro leagues in 1946 and became an All-Star third baseman with the New York Cubans. He was signed by the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball (MLB) after the 1948 season as baseball’s color line fell. Miñoso went on to become an All-Star left fielder with the Indians and Chicago White Sox. The first Black Cuban in the major leagues and the first Black player in White Sox history, as a 1951 rookie he was the one of the first Latin Americans to play in an MLB All-Star Game. Miñoso was an American League(AL) All-Star for seven seasons and a Gold Glove winner for three seasons when he was in his 30s. He batted over .300 for eight seasons. He was the AL leader in triples and stolen bases three times each and in hits, doubles, and total bases once each. Willie Mays and Miñoso have been widely credited with leading the resurgence of speed as an offensive weapon in the 1950s. Miñoso was particularly adept at reaching base, leading the AL in times hit by pitch a record ten times, and holding the league mark for career times hit by pitch from 1959 to 1985. Miñoso, as a defensive standout, led the AL left fielders in assists six times and in putouts and double plays four times each. Though players with lesser resumes have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame, Miñoso and other Cuban players such as Tony Oliva have yet to be voted in. Minnie Miñoso died in 2015 due to complications from heart disease. He was 89 years old.
[16] Félix Mantilla Lamela (born July 29, 1934) is a Puerto Rican former professional baseball utility player, who appeared mostly as an infielder. In his 11-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, Mantilla played for the Milwaukee Braves (1956–61), New York Mets(1962), Boston Red Sox (1963–65), and Houston Astros (1966). He played second base the majority of his big league career (326 games), but also adeptly played shortstop (180), third base (143), outfield (156) and (in the latter part of his career), first base (16). Mantilla batted and threw right-handed. In 1953, Mantilla (along with Hank Aaron and career minor league outfielder Horace Garner) joined the Class-A Minor League Baseball (MLB) Jacksonville Braves, of the South Atlantic (Sally) League, which was (at that time) one of the first two integrated baseball teams in the Southern United States. (Mantilla and Aaron were roommates. In 1954, Aaron became the MLB Braves’ left fielder when Bobby Thomson broke his ankle. Mantilla joined the Major League club two seasons later.) Both Mantilla and Aaron were vital contributors to Milwaukee winning the 1957 World Series title over the New York Yankees. Mantilla is currently 86 years old.
[17] Horace T. Garner (July 17, 1923 – July 6,1995) was an American baseball outfielder. He played for the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League in 1949 and played in minor league baseball for ten seasons, from 1951 to 1959 and in 1961. In the minor leagues, Garner played in the Boston Braves (later the Milwaukee Braves) farm system. In 1953, the Braves sent Garner, along with fellow black teammates Hank Aaron and Félix Mantilla, to the Jacksonville Braves in the South Atlantic League The team thus became one of the first two racially integrated teams in the South Atlantic League, and one of the first ever in Florida. Garner spent ten seasons in the minor leagues, from 1951 to 1959 and in 1961. He hit .321 with 1,115 hits, 190 doubles, 37 triples and 157 home runs in 997 games. Horace Garner died in 1995 at the age of 71.
[18] The Mason–Dixon line, also called the Mason and Dixon line or Mason’s and Dixon’s line, is a demarcation line separating four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia (part of Virginia until 1863). It was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in the resolution of a border dispute involving Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware in Colonial America.The Mason–Dixon line along the southern Pennsylvania border later became informally known as the boundary between the free (Northern) states and the slave (Southern) states. The Virginia portion was the northern border of the Confederacy. This usage especially came to prominence during the debate around the Missouri Compromise of 1820, when drawing boundaries between slave and free territory was an issue. It is still used today in the figurative sense of a line that separates the North and South politically and socially.
[19] Benjamin Raymond Geraghty (July 19, 1912 – June 18, 1963) was an American infielder in Major League Baseball and one of the most successful and respected minor league managers of the 1950s. A native of Jersey City, New Jersey, Geraghty was a graduate of Villanova University, where he received a degree in journalism. He went right from the Villanova campus to the 1936 Brooklyn Dodgers, but would appear in only 70 Major League games, 51 with the Dodgers in his rookie season and 19 more with the Boston Braves (1943–44). He compiled a batting average of .199 in 146 at bats, with his 29 hits including four doubles. He also played ten seasons in the minor leagues. In his 17-year managing career, Geraghty won 1,317 games and lost 1,021 (.563) and won five pennants in seven years (1953–59) while piloting Class A Sally League and Triple-A American Association farm clubs of the Braves, then based in Milwaukee. In the ten seasons of 1953 through 1962, a Geraghty-managed team never finished lower than second place. But his impact was felt beyond mere wins and losses. In 1953, Geraghty managed a racially integrated Jacksonville Braves team in the Jim Crow South, and one of his players was 19-year-old Henry Aaron. Aaron, wrote author and former minor league pitcher Pat Jordan in his 1975 memoir A False Spring, “believed that Ben Geraghty was the greatest manager who ever lived, certainly the greatest manager he ever played for …” In addition to his on-field strategic acumen and his ability to develop playing talent, Geraghty, a white man, regularly confronted the rigid racial segregation of the times, insisting that he and his Black players be served as equals at the finest restaurants. “Invariably, they would be refused service”, Jordan wrote. “While Aaron waited nervously outside, Geraghty complained loudly to the management …They [would go] to the next best restaurant, and the next and the next, until Geraghty finally located one that would serve [them].” Ben Geraghty died in 1963 in Jacksonville, Florida at the age of 50.
[20] Joe Andrews, who died in 2001 at the age of 68, is described in Hank Aaron’s autobiography: “Joe, (who was white and played first base) was our protector,” Aaron wrote. “We couldn’t talk back to the fans calling us names, but Joe could, and he damn sure did.” As Aaron became a Hall of Fame player with the Braves, Andrews saw his professional career stalled by alcoholism; he was out of the game by 24. He eventually stopped drinking and overcame drug abuse — experiences he masterfully used while counseling incarcerated addicts. While Aaron was a top prospect, in that 1953 season Andrews nearly matched him. Aaron hit .362, Andrews .358. Aaron had 28 homers and 119 RBI, Andrews 27 and 118. Meanwhile, Andrews’ friendship with Aaron drew attention throughout the league. Fans heckled him, and Andrews yelled back. He was arrested three times for defending Aaron, who simply ignored the chanting.
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