Final Reflections on "42": The '59 Dodgers and the Consolidation of Integration

After Jackie Robinson had "made it" in the major leagues, especially with Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe at his side, it was a certainty that black superstars like Mays, Aaron, Banks, and Frank Robinson would find a place in starting line-ups.  Black players whose abilities were not indisputably superior to that of the white players they were competing with for jobs, however, were not necessarily going to get a fair chance to become regulars in the major leagues.  This Baseball Historical Insight looks at how the success of the 1959 Dodgers made the most compelling case for integration by winning the pennant and World Series with four black players, whose abilities were more typical of the average major league regular, in key starting roles in the pennant-race drama.  

Final Reflections on "42":  The '59 Dodgers and the Consolidation of Integration

My previous post about the first generation of black players following Jackie Robinson into the major leagues noted that the majority of those who became core regulars for at least five years between 1947 and 1960 were elite players who were among the best in their league or with a career arc headed towards the Hall of Fame.  I concluded by writing: "for integration to take hold, it was still necessary for black players blessed with only average major league ability to be given the chance to compete for--and win--regular positions against white players of comparable, ordinary major league ability."  Even enlightened Brooklyn was careful at first not to push the envelope on integration too far beyond the comfort level of most major league teams in the first five years of Jackie's career, limiting the number of blacks on their team to three superior players--Robinson, Roy Campanella, and Don Newcombe.

It was not until 1952 that the Dodgers began to expand their horizons about which blacks would be given a chance in the major leagues.  Joe Black made a substantial contribution as an ace reliever to the  Dodgers' 1952 pennant (winning NL Rookie of the Year honors); second baseman Jim Gilliam did the same when Brooklyn was the NL's best team in 1953 (winning Rookie of the Year honors), 1955, and 1956; and outfielder Sandy Amoros was a competent platoon player on the 1955 and 1956 Dodgers, making an iconic catch in the 7th game of the 1955 World Series to help preserve Brooklyn's one and only World Series triumph.  But the cornerstone players on the Dodgers' four pennant-winning teams in Brooklyn in the 1950s (before their westward ho) still included Robinson, Campanella, and Newcombe, although big Newk missed out on 1952 and 1953 when he was serving as a draft pick in the Selective Service on account of the Korean War.  All three were elite players:  from his rookie season until he started slowing down in 1954, only Stan Musial and Ted Williams could credibly be considered better players than Jackie Robinson, and he was the best player in major league baseball in 1951 and 1952 according to the wins above replacement (WAR) metric for player value; Campanella won three National League MVP awards in the odd-number years between 1951 and 1955; and Newcombe won the first-ever Cy Young award and was the NL Most Valuable Player in 1956.

With black players not of superstar stature having been added seamlessly, although piecemeal, to the roster throughout the 1950s, by the time the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, it was no longer necessary for the black players they promoted from their vaunted farm system to be great players the caliber of Brooklyn's early trailblazers. When the Dodgers in 1959 unexpectedly--(because they had ended the previous year next-to-last in the National League)--competed with a far superior Milwaukee Braves team coming off back-to-back pennants for the right to go to the World Series, they did so without their Big Three from Brooklyn; Robinson had retired (after being traded to the arch-rival New York Giants, it must be said); Campanella was paralyzed in a tragic accident before their first season in LA; and Newcombe had been traded to Cincinnati after an 0-6 start to the 1958 season.  Most of the other "boys of summer" from Brooklyn were also either gone or in the twilight of their careers. The Dodgers would not have finished the scheduled season tied for first with the Braves and gone on to sweep a best-of-three playoff to win the pennant without significant contributions from four blacks in their starting line-up--none of whom would ever play to the level of Robinson, Campanella, or Newcombe.

• Switch-hitting Jim Gilliam, a regular in the Dodgers line-up since his rookie season in 1953, was a versatile player who had started out as Jackie Robinson's replacement at second base (with Jackie finishing his career alternating between third and left field) and moved to third in 1959, hitting .286 in the lead-off spot.  He was in the middle of a very respectable fourteen-year career in Dodger blue.  His season high was .349 at the All-Star break, which was crucial to an inferior Dodgers team keeping pace with the Braves and the Giants, only a half-game behind both at the break.
• Charlie Neal made Brooklyn's spring training cut in 1956, by 1957 had replaced Pee Wee Reese at shortstop (with Reese moving his body of declining skills to third), and by 1958 was the Dodgers' new second baseman in their first season in LA (with Gilliam alternating between the outfield and third base). Batting behind Gilliam, Neal had the best season of his career in 1959, hitting .287 and leading the team in runs scored (103), hits (177), doubles (30), and triples (11, which also led the league).  Neal hit .295 down the September stretch, and his 4.5 wins above replacement was the second-highest (behind outfielder Wally Moon) on the '59 Dodgers.
• Catcher Johnny Roseboro was in his second full season with the Dodgers in 1959, after becoming their backstop the previous year only because of the accident that abruptly ended Campanella's career.  A left-handed hitter, Roseboro was platooned at catcher with Joe Pignatano and had only 41 plate appearances against southpaws, hitting .232 with 10 home runs.  His 10th home run broke a 2-2 tie in the sixth inning of the first playoff game against Milwaukee and proved the difference in LA's 3-2 victory.
• Maury Wills was called up in June and became the Dodgers' regular shortstop beginning on July 4, displacing Don Zimmer, who was batting all of .175 at the time. Batting primarily in the eighth spot, Wills hit .260 in 88 games for the season, but his .345 batting average in September was absolutely indispensable to the Dodgers winning the pennant in a tight three-team race that also involved the Giants until the final week of the season.

All four were productive players through most of their big league careers.  But none of the four were so good that had they come along in the first years of integration they would have been given the opportunity to compete for a position as a regular on a major league team at the expense of a white player.  According to the WAR metric, in their collective fifty years in the major leagues, only Gilliam (in 1956 and 1963) and Wills (in 1962 and 1965) played at or close to All-Star level, contributing at least 5 wins above what would be expected of a replacement-level player.  Of the four, only Wills received any Hall of Fame votes by the Baseball Writers Association of America, and though he was on the BBWAA ballot all fifteen years of eligibility, Wills never came close to the threshold for Cooperstown immortality.

It was almost certainly necessary for Jackie Robinson and his fellow trailblazers to be far better than the typical (white) major league player for them to win and hold onto starting roles before blacks became accepted in major league baseball.  But integration could only be consolidated once teams allowed any black player with potential major league ability to realistically compete for a starting position.  It was the 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers winning the pennant and World Series with Robinson, Campanella, and Newcombe no longer in Dodger blue but four blacks (Jim Gilliam, Charlie Neal, Johnny Roseboro, and Maury Wills) who were not close to being elite players that paved the way for major league baseball's broader acceptance, based on merit, of African Americans and black Latinos--not just superstars and a token handful of others--in starting positions.

The powers that be in major league baseball surely took notice, including teams that even by 1959 were slow-walking integration (even though it was obvious by now there was no going back to segregated baseball).  Because, even for an ownership group that was in general not enlightened about racial diversity, still less about equality, winning was the bottom line.

Continuing Reflections on "42": Great Players Dominate Integration's First Generation

A postscript to the movie "42" could well have ended on the inspirational (and educational) point that the first (1950s) generation of black players in the major leagues spearheaded by Jackie Robinson included a disproportionate share of great players who otherwise would not have had the opportunity.  This Baseball Historical Insight looks at what their excellence meant in the process of integrating major league baseball.

Continuing Reflections on "42":  Great Players Dominate Integration's First Generation

Ten years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, 88 black players had donned a major league uniform.  Of those 88 who had major league experience by the end of the 1957 season, only 19--sixteen position players and three pitchers--could claim to have been a core regular on their team for at least five years by 1960.  (Five others would become established regulars in the 1960s.)  Eleven of those 19 were elite players--defined here as those who were among the ten best players in their league for the years they were regulars, based on the wins above replacement (WAR) metric of player value, or who had career arcs that led them ultimately to the Hall of Fame--including Roberto Clemente, who really did not reach elite status until the next decade.  Of the elite eleven, all but two are in the Hall of Fame, including Monte Irvin, who was elected for his career in the Negro Leagues.  And the two who are not?  Well, Minnie Minoso was good enough to be on the Veterans Committee ballot last year for reconsideration, and Don Newcombe, who also failed to be elected when he was on the Veteran Committee ballot in 2007, might well be enshrined in Cooperstown today had he not lost two years of his prime in the service during the Korean War.

That nearly 60 percent of the black players in the 1950s who were five-year regulars for their teams were far better than the average major league player is astounding when you consider that fewer than one in five of all major league players (regardless of race) who were core regulars for at least five years between 1947, Robinson's rookie season, and 1960 could be considered "elite." Quite clearly, the 11 elite black players--(in order of appearance: Jackie, Larry Doby, Roy Campanella, Newcombe, Irvin, Minoso, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Clemente, and Frank Robinson) --were too good to be denied.  What this speaks to is the lack of opportunity given to other black players with more ordinary major league-level talent to compete against whites with comparable ability for starting positions, which in turn was indicative of the continued resistance at the time by most major league owners to the idea of integration, even once Jackie Robinson's success ensured that would be no turning back to the days of whites-only big league ball.

It is also revealing that from 1947, when Robinson integrated major league baseball, to 1960, when there was no longer any doubt about the ability of blacks to play at the major league level, five of the top ten position players in the National League, based on their cumulative WAR for their five best consecutive years, were black, compared to only two of the top ten in the American League, which was by far the more resistant league to integration.  (See table at the end of this post.)  By 1959, when the major league's last holdout against integration--the Boston Red Sox--finally fielded a black player, 41 blacks had played in the American League, less than half the number (89) who had worn the uniforms of National League teams.  And only five of those 41, including Minoso and Doby (who both played for more enlightened AL franchises, at least where integration was concerned), were regulars on their team for as many as five seasons, compared to fourteen black five-year regulars in the National League.

Black players dominated the top half of the NL list, accounting for three of the league's four best position players and four of its top six.  All five had an average annual player value during their five best years well above the standard for All-Star quality performance of 5 wins above a replacement-level player, with Mays and Jackie Robinson playing at an MVP-level of 8 wins above replacement, and Banks and Aaron were just below.  Roy Campanella, meanwhile, was the NL's fourteenth best position player based on his best years from 1949 to 1953--far ahead of Cincinnati's Ed Bailey in player value as his league's best catcher during this time frame.

It was likely necessary that the majority of the first black players to become regulars on major league teams were exceptional ballplayers.  Given the opposition to integration by most club owners and their concern that it would destabilize the game, implicit quotas limiting the number of blacks on big league rosters to a handful well into the 1950s--accepted even by the enlightened teams at the forefront of integration (including the Brooklyn Dodgers)--put a premium on favoring elite black players for scarce big league jobs.  A key consideration for doing so was to avoid provoking any more clubhouse dissension than necessary among white players who were skeptical, wary, or downright hostile to the idea of black teammates.  For the great majority of (white) major league players at the time, for whom big league jobs were intensely competitive and tenuous, accepting a black teammate who played with much superior ability--like the Dodgers' big three (Robinson, Campanella, and Newcombe), Doby, Mays, Aaron, or Ernie Banks--was one thing, a hurdle that could be overcome in the beginning phases of integration because superior talent cannot be denied; having to compete for their positions with players of comparable ability, with the better player winning the job, was something else entirely--a far bigger obstacle to overcome.

Major league baseball would first have to accept black players as worthy of the big leagues before black players of more ordinary talent would be welcome.  Branch Rickey understood this dynamic.  He calculated that the social experiment he unleashed on major league baseball was most likely to be accepted sooner if there were no doubts about the major league ability of the black players presented at big league ballparks.  That integration's first generation of black players was so disproportionately weighted towards players with exceptional ability guaranteed there was no going back in time.  But for integration to take hold, it was still necessary for black players blessed with only average major league ability to be given the chance to compete for--and win--regular positions against white players of comparable, ordinary major-league ability.

Top 10 NL and AL Position Players, 1947-60: 

Most Wins Above Replacement By Position Players For Their Best Five Years

Top 10 NL Position Players                WAR          Top 10 AL Position Players                  WAR

Willie Mays, OF, 1954-58                 44.3            Mickey Mantle, OF, 1954-58                46.4

Stan Musial, OF/1B, 1948-52             43.1            Ted Williams, OF, 1947-51                  38.1

Jackie Robinson, 2B, 1949-53          40.5            Al Kaline, OF, 1955-59                        31.6

Ernie Banks, SS, 1955-59                37.8             Larry Doby, OF, 1950-54                   28.9

Duke Snider, OF, 1953-57                 37.7             Al Rosen, 3B, 1950-54                       28.8

Hank Aaron, OF, 1956-60                37.6             Minnie Minoso, OF, 1954-58             27.3

Eddie Mathews, 3B, 1953-57             35.3             Yogi Berra, C, 1952-56                       25.3

Ralph Kiner, OF, 1947-51                  34.5             Nellie Fox, 2B, 1955-59                      24.2

Richie Ashburn, OF,1954-58              30.7             Joe DiMaggio, OF, 1947-51                23.4

Frank Robinson, OF/1B,1956-60      28.2             Gil McDougald, IF, 1953-57                22.5

     

Black Players in bold face italics.