Debut long overdue brings black players to fore

By Michael Madden, Globe Staff, 07/11/99

The New York Sun enticed its drama critic, Ward Morehouse, to meander off Broad-way and head out to Brooklyn to write a review of the 1949 All-Star Game at Ebbets Field. Morehouse came back with these words: "It was all very poky, all very slow and occasionally embarrassing ..."

Perhaps. And a gloomy, rainy day in Brooklyn did not aid the stage effects.

Yet, even a half-century later, Don Newcombe still turns in his office to look at a photo -- one of those stock, staged photos that newspaper photographers took in those days -- and grins. The photo was taken before that game, a photo of four players lined up in front of the dugout, each with one foot on the top step. The four are Newcombe, Brooklyn teammates Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella, and Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians.

The newspaper stories of the day paid scant attention to a historic barrier tumbling, many more consumed with the controversy that ensued when American League manager Lou Boudreau chose to start Joe DiMaggio in center instead of the Red Sox' Dom DiMaggio, forcing one of the fans' outfield choices -- New York's Tommy Henrich -- out of the lineup. Joe DiMaggio, recovering from an injury, had not played regularly that season until two weeks earlier.

"This year's All-Star Game marked the first time in history that a Negro player performed in the Classic," was the caption in The Sporting News to that photo that still warms Newcombe's soul. "Four Negroes were chosen and all appeared in the game."

For so, so many reasons, Newcombe was proud. For one, "I had been in the league only six weeks and here I was in the All-Star Game," recalled Newcombe, who still works for the Los Angeles Dodgers. "I had been called up from the minors and didn't get to Brooklyn until May 17th and [Boston Braves and National League manager] Billy Southworth still selected me for the squad. I had pitched pretty good once I was called up -- I think I was 8 and 2 -- but I never expected to be in the All-Star Game. But Southworth took me and was I proud to be there."

Even more, "To be there with Jackie and Campy and Larry made me even prouder. I remember when that picture was taken of us, all of us knew it was historic. And I remember Campy saying to the three of us when we were on those dugout steps, 'Guys, we've certainly made it ... Here we are ... Now, let's make the most of it."'

As Newcombe recalled those days, the racial taunts from other players had grown less frequent. But the same could not be said of the fans. "The guys playing were veterans and they were also veterans of the war and they were tired of that racism crap," recalled Newcombe. "[Brooklyn teammate] Pee Wee Reese would say, 'Who are these guys but Americans playing in the All-Star Game of America's sport, baseball?"'

And if some fans weren't as open-minded as Reese, those four "Negroes" on the dugout steps at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn were more concerned about putting on an All-Star-caliber performance, to prove they truly were All-Stars.

"We were playing before the Brooklyn fans and they were seeing a first with us playing," said Newcombe, "and now this was another first for the Brooklyn fans. They had seen a first two years earlier when Jackie was called up from Montreal, and now this. It was important for us to prove we were All-Stars."

The 1949 All-Star Game was baseball's 16th, and by then it had developed into a minuscule version of what it is now -- a convention of baseball people talking baseball issues. Players had few rights then -- baseball owners turned down a player's request that day in Brooklyn that would have allowed players to bring their wives and families to spring training, for instance -- and the Boston and New York players had to endure a most grueling two days so owners could make extra money.

In the 1949 version of "interleague play," the Red Sox and Braves had played Monday night before 36,607 fans at Fenway Park (the Red Sox won, 6-2, pummeling Boston Braves rookie pitcher Johnny Antonelli), while the Yankees, New York Giants, and Dodgers played in a series of round-robin games for the bragging rights to New York City that same night at Yankee Stadium. The next afternoon, of course, the All-Stars had to be in Brooklyn.

The grueling two days took their toll on the game's starting pitchers, both from Boston -- Mel Parnell of the Red Sox and Warren Spahn of the Braves. "Spahn had nothing," recalled Newcombe. And Parnell was little better.

Only four batters into the first inning, Southworth had Newcombe warming up in the bullpen after Joe DiMaggio singled in Detroit's George Kell, as the American League piled up four runs. In the bottom of the first, the National League answered with two runs off Parnell, the rally started by a Robinson double to left-center in his first All-Star at-bat. The Cardinals' Stan Musial followed with a blast high over the right-field screen onto Flatbush Avenue.

"You know, I got the loss in that game," said Newcombe. "But I thought I pitched well. If it wasn't for that guy Williams ..."

Ted Williams, the outfielder, that is, not Ted Williams the batter. Newcombe had been waved in from the bullpen in the second inning after Spahn had walked Williams -- playing with a broken rib -- on four pitches. "I was nervous," said Newcombe, but the righty got Joe DiMaggio to pop out to Pittsburgh's Ralph Kiner in left and the Philadelphia A's Eddie Joost on another popup to end the inning.

But it was the bottom half of the inning that still rankles Newcombe. "If if wasn't for all that controversy about Williams, all that controversy about his fielding and how he couldn't play the field, then maybe he doesn't get to the ball," said Newcombe of the game's turning point.

When Parnell hit Phillies catcher Andy Seminick on the arm, the bases had been loaded with no outs. Newcombe was the next batter, "and I don't know if they knew in the other league that I could hit," he recalled. Boudreau removed Parnell and brought in Detroit righty Virgil "Fire" Trucks.

"'Fire' Trucks threw me a fastball and I hit it pretty good to left ... and I thought it might be a home run, a lot of people did," recalled Newcombe. But Williams -- broken rib and all -- "raced over and he made a great running catch at the wall. If Ted doesn't catch the ball, the bases are cleared and we're ahead. All I know is if Ted was as bad an outfielder as they were saying, he would have missed that ball."

The baseball world would love to go the videotape on this because Williams apparently made a Willie Mays-style catch, but one sportswriter's description suggests Williams's catch was brilliant: "Williams made a spectacular gloved hand running catch of Newcombe's drive, snaring the ball several feet in front of the left-field wall with his back to the plate."

Instead of at least three runs, the NL scored only one. By the fourth inning, though, it had a 5-4 lead, recalled Newcombe, "when Eddie Joost hit this little squibbler off me, right off the end of his bat, to Gil Hodges at first." Kell had singled and Williams had walked, and both runners had moved up, "and then the ball took a crazy hop just as it got to Hodges and it got by him."

Two runs for the American League. One loss for Newcombe.

But Newcombe still glances at the photo of the four "Negroes" who played in that game, and the loss takes little of the luster from the day. "We had talked about it, that maybe one of us or some of us had a chance to be selected to the All- Star Game," said Newcombe. "It meant so much. It made us so very happy and so proud."

Newcombe paused for an instant. "You know, it wasn't just us," he said. "A lot of people were very happy and a lot of people were very proud that we were All-Stars."