Eddie Robinson, Lou Boudreau, Larry Doby discussed on Chicago's Afternoon News

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

There is a player there named Eddie Robinson, who was a was a rookie. And whenever Lou Boudreau, the manager and also the shortstop, he was a player manager told Eddie Robinson the next day after Doby find on the Indians that he wants to try to be out at first base. Eddie Robinson quits the team. And so I do not want this to happen, because not only he is from Texas, and so there was probably some racial, uh, stuff going on there, but also he was fighting to preserve his spot in the League and then suddenly, a player from the Negro leagues comes onto the team. He's just like, well, I'm just going to put them and so basically, that is the only game that Larry Doby starts the entire 19 47th season. I think Indians executives could see that if they sort of slotted him in the lineup, it could cause further unrest among the Indians teammates. Um and so Doby really only comes to about a handful of times, 1947 and by the end of the season, he's really kind of considered to be a failure, as opposed to Jackie Robinson, who really excels. That first year, which I imagine does not help. Not that Jackie Robinson had an easy because he was good, but that certainly has a way of winning people over. Yeah, So A lot of people thought that are a lot of sort of white executives and teammates thought that Larry Doby quote unquote Skip the line that he did not go to the minor leagues to sort of get the training that he would need to make it to the majors. And they said, Well, we had to go to the minor leagues. We had to work our way up through the system. How does this guy come right onto the Indians and Jackie Robinson himself when he was signed by the Dodgers got sent to the minor leagues for an entire season, so he had a year of transition. Before he went from the Negro leagues to the major leagues. He could sort of work out a lot, a lot of stuff in the minor leagues and get used to an all white dugout and what that would entail. Larry Doby does not. And so it harbored a lot of resentment among players like Eddie Robinson, who said, Well, I don't want to sacrifice my playing time to somebody who is not quote unquote put in his dues. He hits under 200 those limited plate appearances in his first year in 1947. He does end up in the Hall of Fame and Luke Apple in will tell us how after this on WGN The holiday weekend ends.

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