From Stanley Woodward's 1947 New York Herald Tribune piece "One Strike Is Out":
A National League players' strike, instigated by some of the St. Louis Cardinals, against the presence in the league of Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn's Negro first baseman, has been averted temporarily and perhaps permanently squashed. In recent days Ford Frick, president of the National League, and Sam Breadon, president of the St. Louis club, have been conferring with St. Louis players in the Hotel New Yorker. . . .
The strike plan, formulated by certain St. Louis players, was instigated by a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers who has since recanted. The original plan was for a St. Louis club strike on the occasion of the first game in Brooklyn, May 6, in other words last Tuesday. Subsequently the St. Louis players conceived the idea of a general strike within the National League on a certain date. That is what Frick and Breadon have been combatting in the last few days.
It is understood that Frick addressed the players, in effect, as follows:If you do this you will be suspended from the league. You will find that the friends you think you have in the press box will not support you, that you will be outcasts. I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do it will encounter quick retribution. All will be suspended and I don't care if it wrecks the National League for five years. This is the United States of America and one citizen has as much right to play as another.. . .
The National league will go down the line with Robinson whatever the consequences. You will find if you go through with your intentions that you have been guilty of complete madness.
The blast of publicity which followed the New York Herald Tribune's revelation that the St. Louis Cardinals were promoting a player's strike against the presence of Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn's Negro first baseman, in the National League, probably will serve to quash further strolls down Tobacco Road. In other words, it can now be honestly doubted that the boys from the Hookworm Belt will have the nerve to foist their quaint sectional folklore on the rest of the country.
Tags: Stanley Woodward, Ford Frick, Jackie Robinson
No comments:
Post a Comment