Eddie Robinson is the only living member of the 1948 Indians, the last Cleveland team to win the World Series. He was also an anti-integrationist who refused to shake hands with Larry Doby when Doby joined the Indians and became the first black player in the American League.
It had looked like the Indians were going to avoid having the 95-year-old Robinson around during the team’s return trip to the World Series, but the club reversed course Tuesday morning.
Eddie Robinson, the last living member of our '48 team, will be in the house tonight. https://t.co/pJZTMuyFJA #RallyTogether pic.twitter.com/wyHIngBpve
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) November 1, 2016
The only living member of the Cleveland Indians' 1948 World Series team, Eddie Robinson, will attend Game 6. pic.twitter.com/ztIakQnrDx
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 1, 2016
The Robinson situation hasn’t gotten much publicity, but Joe Posnanski wrote a thought-provoking piece about it on his blog Monday.
Here’s how Posnanski describes Robinson’s interactions with Doby:
There is a famous story — two famous ones, actually — that have been told about Eddie Robinson when he was a member of the 1947 Cleveland team. The first was told by Boudreau and confirmed by various others. On July 5, 1947, Larry Doby showed up in Chicago to join Cleveland and become just the second African-American to play in the Majors in the 20th Century and, more to the point, the first in the American League. Boudreau, as manager, met with Doby and then took him around the clubhouse to meet the guys.
Two players, Boudreau said, refused to shake Larry Doby’s hand. They were both Texans.
One was Les Fleming. The other, alas, was Eddie Robinson.
Then:
Of course, there is also the glove incident, again told by Boudreau and again confirmed by others. Boudreau was not there when it happened but he said that he heard the story from the team’s traveling secretary, Spud Goldstein. Boudreau wanted Doby to get some work at first base — not many people remember this but Doby was a natural second baseman. The Tribe already had Joe Gordon at second. So Boudreau was looking for a good spot for Doby and asked him to take some grounders as a first baseman. Doby did not have a first baseman’s glove. He asked to borrow Robinson’s.
Robinson’s response has been told in different ways through the years. According to the most exhaustive book, “Pride Against Prejudice: The Biography of Larry Doby,” the alleged response was: “No, I won’t lend my glove to no n—-.” Boudreau would only write that Robinson refused to lend his glove to Doby though, bizarrely, he did agree to lend it to Spud Goldstein who then lent it to Doby.
Robinson, years later, would say it had nothing to do with race; he was just upset that Doby, a not-natural first baseman, was being set up to take his job. “I had no animosity toward Larry Doby,” he would say.
Posnanski ultimately comes down on the side of honoring Eddie Robinson during the World Series because that’s how his friend Buck O’Neill would have wanted him to feel. Of course, O’Neill is was one black man in a nation of millions, and surely there are others who are upset or offended that the Indians (a team with a racist logo and insensitive name) are honoring a noted anti-integrationist.
On one hand, these incidents were nearly 70 years ago, and people certainly can change over that period of time. Plus, baseball honors virulent racists all over the place, including in Cooperstown.
On the other hand, what message does it send to celebrate someone who stood directly in the way of progress and caused tangible damage to the cause of integration?
On Tuesday, the Indians made their decision.
