Background: Recently I’ve been reading Brad Snyder’s interesting book A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports. Though the book's central subject is former major league baseball player Curt Flood's honorable challenge to the reserve clause, perhaps the most fascinating part of the book is its description of what one might call “The Other Drive to Integrate Baseball.” 

Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball in 1947, and while things certainly were rough, within a few years there were dozens of blacks playing in the major leagues, and overt racism dissipated. The “other” drive to integrate baseball is the experiences of black players in the minor leagues in the South during the 1950s and early 1960s, an area which in some ways has largely been ignored.

In my blog posts "The OTHER Drive to Integrate Baseball Part I and Part II" I excerpted from Snyder’s book his description of Flood’s experiences playing in the minor leagues in the South during the 1950s. Another important and interesting facet of the integration struggle--one which lasted well into the 1960s--was the segregation black major league players experienced during spring training camps in Florida. Famous, well-paid, and widely admired black baseball players had to go to spring training in the South and live under Jim Crow. From A Well-Paid Slave:

“In 1961, [Cardinal first baseman Bill] White spoke up about one of the most important baseball issues of the day: segregated spring training facilities. White arrived in St. Petersburg, Florida, an All-Star first baseman only to be treated like a second-class citizen. His white Cardinals teammates either rented private beachfront condos for their families or sunned themselves by the pool at St. Petersburg’s Vinoy Park Hotel. White and his fellow black players stayed in boardinghouses in the black section of St. Petersburg and were afraid to bring their families to Florida. As a result, any team unity fostered in spring training was destroyed once the Cardinals left the field.

"That year, an incident in spring training finally made White speak up. He saw a list of Cardinals players invited to a March 9 ‘Salute to Baseball’ breakfast for the Cardinals and Yankees at the local yacht club, sponsored by the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce. No black players were on the list...White was so incensed that he mentioned the situation to Associated Press reporter Joe Reichler [who]...put White’s comments on the national wire.

"'When will we be made to feel like humans?' White asked Reichler. 'They invited all but the colored players. Even the kids who never have come to bat once in the big leagues received invitations--that is, if they were white…. How much longer must we accept this without saying a word? This thing keeps gnawing away at my heart. I think about this every minute of the day'...

"Flood had spoken out about the spring training situation a month before White helped make it a national issue. 'The rookie who is trying to win my job can bring his wife to camp and live in the most lavish surroundings...Me, I’m forced to leave my wife at home because we can’t find a decent place to stay. It just doesn’t make sense.'

"At spring training, Flood broached the issue with Cardinals owner Gussie Busch. It was unfortunate, Flood told Busch, that he and the team’s other players had to stay in the black section of town.

"'Do you mean to tell me,' a surprised Busch said, 'that you’re not staying here at the hotel with the rest of the fellas?'

"'Mr. Busch,' Flood replied, 'don’t you know that we’re staying about five miles outside of town in the Negro section?'

"Busch said he did not know, and from that point on the Cardinals organization began to take White’s and Flood’s complaints seriously."

[The Cardinals were among the last major league teams to integrate, but were one of the most progressive teams on race relations in the 1960s. Busch had a lousy record on labor relations, being one of the owners who tried to break the players' union in the late 1960s and early 1970s. To his credit, however, he did have a good record on civil rights, as is indicated below.--GS]

"[Busch secured housing for the Cardinals in 1962 at] two adjacent motels, the Skyline Motel and the Outrigger Motel, on the southern tip of St. Petersburg...Twenty-nine of the 32 players stayed at the 49-unit Skyline Motel...

"Captain Ken Boyer and future Hall of Famer Stan Musial sacrificed their private beachfront condos that season and moved into the motel with their families. The motel’s food, based on its Polynesian theme, was awful. Cardinals players and their families responded by barbecuing their own food. White and Gibson cooked, pitching coach Howie Pollet made the salad, and Boyer and pitcher Larry Jackson purchased the meat and worked the grill. Players, front-office personnel, and sportswriters stayed there, 137 people in all, including 32 wives and 25 children. It was like Camp Cardinal.

"Each week the team held a fried chicken picnic dinner. The team showed nightly movies, held costume parties for the kids, organized fishing trips, toured Busch Gardens, and cruised on Gussie Busch’s yacht. This was the beginning of the social integration of the Cardinals. Flood, Gibson, and White spent the next few years completing the job." 

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Baseball/Sports, African-American Issues, Racism. You can trackback from your own site.