Red Sox Passed on Jackie Robinson

  • Friday, April 13, 2012
  • B.B. Branton

(First of a two-part series on Jackie Robinson and the 65th anniversary (April 15, 1947) of his first major league game with the Brooklyn Dodgers)

 

Imagine your 1950 Fantasy League baseball team with hall of famers Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson.

 

Then add rookie of the year Walt Dropo (1B, .322 batting average) a trio of all-stars in Dom DiMaggio (OF, .328), Bobby Doerr (3B, .294) and Vern Stephens (SS, .295) and Billy Goodman (.354 batting average) who was second that season in the MVP voting to Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto.

Williams batted .321 that season.

 

All played for the Boston Red Sox – or could have – in the summer of 1950, as the Sox finished third only four games back of American League champion New York Yankees.

 

Robinson was a Brooklyn Dodger that summer, batting .328 with 14 home runs and 81 RBIs, but could have been in a Boston uniform and may have helped the Sox to the pennant.

 

Back track five years to April 16, 1945 and a one-day tryout at Boston’s Fenway Park for a trio of Negro League players – Jackie Robinson (K.C. Monarchs), Sam Jethero (Cincinnati Buckeyes) and Marvin Williams (Philadelphia Stars) – in front of Boston manager Joe Cronin (who later would be the American League president), his coaches and general manager Eddie Collins, but the Sox decided to pass and not sign any of the three ball players.

 

A decision that would change baseball history.

 

All three continued the 1945 season in the Negro League as Jethero led the league in hitting in 1945 for the Buckeyes who swept the Homestead Grays in the Negro League World Series.

 

Black sports writer Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier was instrumental in setting up the tryout so when Boston said “thanks, but no thanks”, he contacted Brooklyn Dodger general manager Branch Rickey who signed Robinson on Oct. 23, 1945 and the rest is history.

 

Rickey had one of his scouts, Clyde Sukeforth (who would manage Robinson for the  first two games of the 1947 season with the Brooklyn Dodgers), trail Robinson who was in his second year with the Kansas City Monarchs.

 

Robinson played for the Dodgers farm team in Montreal in 1946, made his major league debut April 15, 1947 – one day shy of exactly two years since the infamous Red Sox tryout – and scored what proved to be the winning run in the Dodgers 3-2 win against the Boston Braves.

 

Robinson, a four-sport athlete at UCLA, went on to earn Rookie of the Year honors in 1947 batting .297 with 12 homers and 48 RBIs.

 

He was the first of four Dodger Rookies of the Year over a seven-year period joining Don Newcombe (1949), Joe Black (1952) and Junior Gilliam (1953). All but Black were instrumental in the Dodgers winning the World Series in 1955.

 

And what happened to Jethero? 

 

In 1950, he did play major league baseball in Boston – ironically across town from Fenway at Braves Park – and had a Rookie of the Year season for the National League Boston Braves.

 

Originally signed by the Dodgers in 1948, Jethero led the N.L. that season in stolen bases (35) and batted .273 with 18 home runs and 53 RBIs.

 

Ted Williams broke his elbow in the 1950 All-Star game and was out of the lineup for two months as the Red Sox chased the Yankees and runner-up Tigers during the summer months.

 

With the talented duo of Robinson and Jethero, Boston would have had plenty of offensive depth (six starters batted .310 or higher in 1950) to warrant a trade of a top player or two for more pitching to give the Yanks a run for the title in the years to come.

 

In 1946 – the year after passing on Robinson and Jethero – the Red Sox won the pennant and lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3, in the World Series

In 1948, Boston lost the pennant to Cleveland in a one-game play-off and finished one game back of the champion Yanks in 1949, while Robinson batted .342 and won the N.L. MVP award to lead the Dodgers to the pennant (losing to the Yanks in five games).

 

Boston – the last big league team to add a black player (Pumpsie Green in 1959) to its roster – would finish no higher than third after 1950 until they won the 1967 pennant led by Carl Yastrzemski (Triple Crown winner), the Italian duo of Rico Petrocelli and Tony Conigliaro and a 25-year-old Jim Lonborg who had a career-best 22 wins.

 

What might have been, if Boston had signed Robinson and Jethero that April afternoon long ago.

 

Contact B.B. Branton at william.branton@comcast.net

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