Part 2: Wendell Smith – Back Story
It is hard to determine when it came into Branch Rickey’s or Bill Veeck’s minds to integrate baseball. The record shows that Rickey began his quest in 1945 and by October of that year signed Jackie Robinson to start play ostensibly in the minor leagues in 1946. Bill Veeck jumped in feet first after Jackie Robinson debuted in the majors in 1947 by bringing a hopefully majors ready Larry Doby straight from the Negro Leagues later that season. There is somewhat disputed evidence that Veeck hatched that plot five seasons earlier in 1942 with the purchase of the Phillies.
What we do know is sportswriter Wendell Smith’s journey to integrate baseball was hatched in the 1930s. So, we’ll begin at the known beginning and tell Wendell’s story first. Wendell Smith, an African American, was born in 1914 in Detroit, Michigan. His father, John Henry Smith, a cook by trade, had migrated to Detroit in 1911 and was head steward at an exclusive social club while also working as a private chef for the Henry Ford family. Smith grew up in a predominately white neighborhood on the east side of Detroit where he played with the Ford family children as well as kids of various races in his neighborhood and at school.
That didn’t make Smith untouched by problems brought on because of his race. Smith was a good athlete growing up in addition to being good sized at that time. However, at his predominately white high school he was not allowed to participate on its sports teams. He made the American Legion baseball team in the summer, then was removed by officials before Henry Ford intervened and got him reinstated.
It was with the Legion team that an event occurred which would focus his future. In 1933 Smith pitched a shutout in a championship game. Detroit Tiger scout Wish Egan was there scouting one of Smith’s white teammates. After the game, Egan sought Smith out and believed he was paying the boy a compliment. He told Smith, “… if he was white, he would sign him.”
At that point Smith decided to become a sportswriter hoping to one day break down the racial barriers that currently existed. He attended West Virginia State College, participated on the basketball and baseball teams, worked as the football team’s publicist and wrote a sports column for the campus newspaper. Upon graduating in 1937 Smith signed on with the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the leading African-American newspapers in the country. Smith would cover both Negro League baseball as well as the local Pirates.
It didn’t take long for Smith to get going. In 1938, Smith pleads with the Negro community to stop supporting white baseball with their money until white baseball begins supporting them. In an article titled “A Strange Tribe”, Smith concludes by writing “We have been fighting for years in an effort to make owners of major league baseball teams to admit Negro players. But they won’t do it, probably never will. We keep crawling, begging and pleading for recognition just the same. … but we still keep giving them our money.”
In 1939 Smith will set out to settle the argument of whether it is with the owners or with the coaches and players that prevents baseball from integrating. He interviews managers and players (40 total) of all eight National League clubs that visit Pittsburgh.
To be shared in next week’s post.
Leave a Reply