Comments on: Column: Honoring Robinson and Rickey

By: Jack F

Jack F — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:51:30 +0000

From the Costa interview:

“ON MOVING FROM THE SEGREGATED SOUTH TO BROOKLYN IN 1948
It was a little strange seeing a black man play against white competition. I accepted it and Jackie Robinson became a very good friend of mine. I played cards with him, played golf with him, rode the train with him. It’s the most exciting and most eventful thing that’s happened in sports history, the breaking of the color line by Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey.”

Ernie Harwell

By: Jack F

Jack F — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:47:50 +0000

Ernie isn’t dead. He has inoperable cancer but is still very much alive.

By: Lou Perry

Lou Perry — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:18:47 +0000

Ernie Harwell was brought up in a segregated world; Blacks were inferior humans and no integration existed. Separate bathrooms, restaurant access, hotels and pretty much everything in the South was the norm. I was stationed in the Army outside of Richmond, VA in the late-sixties. Signs were everywhere “No Colored Served” (some restaurants also added Jews) and signs on public restrooms had signs directing “Colored” entrances. I’ll never forget a white soldier from Louisiana said to a towering Black man from Alabama “you are the nicest Nigger I know”; I was waited for all hell to breakout. The Black man from Alabama, who was a schoolteacher, accepted it as normal. Saying Ernie was a raciest is just a plan fact. Not long before Ernie’s death Bob Costa’s interviewed Ernie on MLB television and Bob didn’t pull punches in asking Robinson questions and Ernie answered politely and as we call it today, politically correct. He said It was awkward to see an African-American on the field. Ernie then said after a while he and Jackie became friends playing cards during train trips. Of course, we know his perspective on the integration of baseball and America changed. I knew Ernie from when I worked at WJR and we had dinner a few times. He was the pinnacle of a gentleman.

By: Jack F

Jack F — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:39:35 +0000

“One of the ironies of the Brooklyn Dodger organization when “Jackie joined the team, all broadcast announcers were southerners – Red Barber and former Tiger, Ernie Harwell for a few seasons; they were not very comfortable with Blacks on the team and pretty much said so. Ernie said he “respected” Robinson’s skills, Red Barber was more direct. All of them were out front about it.”

So you are saying Ernie Harwell was a racist when he was calling games for the Dodgers?

By: Lou Perry

Lou Perry — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:19:31 +0000

I was born in Brooklyn two days before Jackie Robinson put on a Brooklyn Dodger uniform for the first time and Ebbets Field became a regular destination for my Dad and me. Dad always tried to get seats along the first base line so could see Jackie close-up. Jackie Robinson is one of my heroes and what the Brooklyn Dodgers with Branch Rickey as the boss became like no other.
Even with Branch Rickey plowing through the barriers, I don’t think it could have happened in any other place but Brooklyn. Brooklyn back then was a unique place; it was the real unsegregated spot on the world map. In that era, every WWII movie had a G.I. from Brooklyn. The actor’s roles usually came from a variety of places but always one guy from Brooklyn. And from Brooklyn, he could have any ethnicity, except Black (Blacks in movies a no no and in real life WWII Negroes were segregated in the Army). In musicals, Frank Sinatra and others “came” from Brooklyn. I’m a member of the New York Friar’s Club and it seems most members when relaxed have a Brooklyn accent. Everyone from Brooklyn, no matter their religion or ethnic root spoke some Yiddish; even the Chinese waiters in Chinese restaurants and everyone had Italian words in their vocabularies. My Christian friends would go to Hebrew School with me and I’d go to Sunday School with them.
One of the ironies of the Brooklyn Dodger organization when Jackie joined the team, all broadcast announcers were southerners – Red Barber and former Tiger, Ernie Harwell for a few seasons; they were not very comfortable with Blacks on the team and pretty much said so. Ernie said he “respected” Robinson’s skills, Red Barber was more direct. All of them were out front about it.
A few years ago on my WLBY program, I had as a guest Jackie’s daughter Sharon Robinson. It was wonderful to hear that people around the world are in awe of Jackie and that the Jackie Robinson Foundation receives donations from all over the globe.
Mr. Rickey did not stop hiring African-American players after Jackie. He quickly signed Joe Black, Don Newcomb, Roy Campanella and others – All Hall of Famers. Other teams recognizing Black players exceptional skills started hiring also
The Jackie Robinson that Branch Rickey allowed to blossom are both important people to me, not just from professional sports, but because in changed so much for many.

By: PeteM

PeteM — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:02:14 +0000

John,

Great article. I wish I’d been able to make it to your talk on Rickey at the sequiscentennial.

Pete Mooney