Week 9, Desegregation of Baseball: Lamb and Wiggins

In this week’s set of reading, we see the struggle of the black athlete and black journalism in the mid-20^th century. The two readings pay particular attention to the Negro Leagues, Jackie Robinson, and an influential black journalist by the name of Wendell Smith, who almost single-handedly changed the face of Major League Baseball and professional sports in America.

The reading by Chris Lamb, “Democracy on the Field,” discussed the different roles black sportswriters and white sportswriters played during the desegregation of baseball. The article focused particularly on Jackie Robinson’s first Spring Training with the minor league affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946. Using this event as an example, the article focused on the roles that black sportswriters and white sportswriters played in covering the event, as well as the differences in coverage between the two.

Lamb first begins by stating a major difference between black journalists and white journalists as a whole. Lamb identifies black press as a “fighting press,” or a press that constantly challenged societal norms of segregation, even if it largely went unnoticed by the majority of white society. Black journalists were incredible advocates for desegregation, both in sports and in society. They were not only critical against segregation, but also helped to establish a sense of unity within the African-American community in America.

With this established, Lamb went on to describe the different roles that black journalists and white journalists played in the desegregation of baseball, focusing on Robinson’s first Spring Training with the Montreal Royals in 1946. Throughout his article, Lamb described how black journalists – especially Wendell Smith – advocated on behalf of Robinson and Johnny Wright, another black teammate of Robinson. They put the stories of Robinson and Wright into a much larger context, explaining the importance of the beginning of desegregation in baseball and society. Along with this, Lamb describes how black journalists displayed a tendency to downplay any struggles faced by Robinson and Wright, instead choosing to highlight their ability to overcome adversity and essentially act as the face of desegregation.

However, as Lamb described, not the stance taken by most white journalists. Most white sports journalists, including the famed sports writers of the time, did not approach the desegregation of baseball with the same importance that black sports journalists did. They did not contextualize the importance of what was really happening in baseball, if they chose to even acknowledge it at all. In most cases, white journalist and the white press barely covered the event, writing a few short paragraphs about their first game or sending quick information over the news wire. The desegregation of baseball, despite its obvious importance, was an afterthought in white press.

This trend would continue in the other reading for the week written by David Wiggins. Wiggins focused on a black journalist by the name of Wendell Smith, who was a sports editor for the Pittsburgh Courier-Journal, one of the largest black newspapers in America during its time. Wiggins focused on Smith and his influence on the eventual desegregation, but unlike Lamb, Wiggins’s story begins well before Jackie Robinson.

Wiggins describes the long journey of Wendell Smith and how he was an advocate for desegregation in baseball well before Jackie Robinson ever signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In fact, Wiggins described Smith as advocating for desegregation in the 1930s, when Smith compared the struggle of black athletes and the black community to what Hitler was doing in Europe during this same time. Wiggins described how Smith and other black journalists advocated on behalf of black athletes and the black community to everyone in a position of power: Major League Baseball commissioners, baseball owners, players, managers, and even the President of the United States. Despite many failed attempts at convincing these figures to desegregate baseball, Wiggins continually described how Smith and other black journalists of the time continued to fight for the desegregation of baseball.

It was not until much later in the article that Wiggins would touch upon Smith’s direct influence in getting Jackie Robinson signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers. After years of advocating and speaking with owners in order to even get black athletes a tryout with a team, Smith was finally approached by Branch Rickey. Wiggins described how Rickey used the thin veil of a United Baseball League in an attempt to scout players and because of Smith’s advocacy over the years and knowledge of the Negro Leagues in America, Rickey asked Smith directly who might be a candidate to try out for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Smith, of course, gave Rickey the name Jackie Robinson and the rest is history.

However, as both readings pointed out, it took years and decades of black journalists advocating on behalf of black athletes and convincing white owners, players, managers, and league officials to even consider the desegregation of baseball. Without the role of these black journalists, it is entirely possible that the desegregation of baseball would have been severely delayed.