Two Days, No Runway
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@FieldzofDreams, via YouTube
Bill Veeck bought Larry Doby's contract from the Newark Eagles on July 3, 1947. Doby was in a Cleveland uniform on July 5.
Two days. No minor league seasoning, no spring training to get acclimated, no runway of any kind. Eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson, a 23-year-old walked into a clubhouse in Chicago and the American League was integrated, and the country mostly moved on to the next thing.
The count
2 days
from the Newark Eagles on July 3, 1947 to a Cleveland uniform on July 5
Then he was one of the best hitters alive for a decade and the voters kept looking elsewhere. In 1950 and again in 1952 he posted the highest park-adjusted OPS+ in the American League. Nobody in the league created more offense. He finished eighth and twelfth in the MVP balloting those two years.
The résumé is not ambiguous. Seven straight All-Star teams. A World Series ring in 1948, where he and Satchel Paige became the first Black players to play for a champion. The first Black player to lead either league in home runs. A center fielder good enough to commit two errors in 153 games.
Cooperstown got to him in 1998, by way of the Veterans Committee, 39 years after he played his last game. He was 74. He died five years later.
Being second is not a small thing when the first one changes the country. It only means fewer people were looking.
