The Jet

[GeoPoto]

Boston’s African-American newspaper, the Boston Chronicle, reported Jethroe’s signing, but also with little fanfare. When he signed his Braves contract with GM John Quinn in New York, the Chronicle noted that “the speedy Negro outfielder had just played in the Little World Series in Indianapolis before coming to New York.” About all Jethroe himself had to say was, “I’ll let the records do the talking. I just played in the Little World Series, now I hope to get into the big one.”

Before the traditional preseason “City Series” games against the Red Sox, the Boston Post – never referring once to his race – wrote, “Jethroe received more press interviews yesterday than all of the other Braves players combined. Sam is easy and natural with all members of the fourth estate.”

After the first exhibition game against the Red Sox, Gerry Hern of the Post acknowledged race in a single clause. Braves fans, he wrote, “have waited a long time to make a personal appraisal of Sam Jethroe, the first colored player ever to wear a Boston uniform, and Dick Donovan, the 25-year-old Wollaston resident, who earned his letter yesterday. Sam was slightly terrific in his Boston debutante party. There were no flowers, but he slashed a couple of singles that took the strain off the Braves followers, who have not been accustomed to seeing a Braves outfielder who could hit, throw and run.” The novelty of Jethroe’s darker skin color was apparently on no more than a par with the novelty of a Brave from the nearby Wollaston neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts.

The Braves won that first game in the series, 4-1, and the Red Sox came back and won the second, 3-1, at Fenway. It was Jethroe’s first time playing in the park he’d tried out in five years earlier . Batting in the bottom of the eighth with the Braves ahead, 1-0, Ted Williams slammed a three-run homer into the right-field bullpen. Jethroe, unfamiliar with the park and anxious to catch the ball, slammed hard into the bullpen wall, in vain. The Herald noted he was “courageous and speedy” but didn’t see the need to remind readers of his darker hue. He was just another ballplayer – covered exactly the way one might wish. He was “Switching Sammy, getting plenty of encouragement from the 7,049 spectators.” But there was no mention of his race.

The Globe’s game story noted that Jethroe had singled in the first run. It commented on his speed at one point and observed that “Like many another big leaguer, Jethroe is superstitious…He kicks third base to and from the outfield.” His similarity to the other players was thus noted; there was nothing in the way of noting his difference.

The next day, in picking both the 1950 Braves and Red Sox to win the pennants in their respective leagues, the Globe‘s Harold Kaese noted race, in passing: “Sam Jethroe, Boston’s first Negro player, will display his phenomenal speed of foot by (1) scoring from first on a tap to the pitcher; (2) stealing more bases than the rest of the Braves and Birdie Tebbetts put together; and (3) dashing to the plate in time to catch his own throw from DEEP centerfield.”

There was no mention at all of Jethroe’s race in Clif Keane’s lengthy feature on Jethroe’s very first game, which ran the morning of that game in Boston.

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[GeoPoto]

The Braves opened the regular season in the Polo Grounds, where they beat the Giants, 11-4. Jethroe went 2-for-4 with an eighth-inning homer in his first game.

When it came time for Jethroe’s Braves Field debut, the Boston Traveler suggested that “Sam Jethroe’s debut in a championship game vies for attention at the Braves opener with the return of Eddie Waitkus to major-league action.” It was Waitkus’s first day back (he was playing for the Phillies) after being shot by Ruth Steinhagen in Chicago the prior July.

In the home opener, attended by the governor of Massachusetts (who threw out the first ball), the governors of Rhode Island and New Hampshire, and numerous other celebrities, Jethroe singled but his play barely rated mention in the papers. The game wound up a 2-2 tie, called due to rain in the last half of the eighth inning.

A few days later when the Brooklyn Dodgers came to town, Leslie Jones shot a photo for the Herald that depicted “five Negroes…advancing the cause of their race in baseball” — Jethroe with Dodgers Dan Bankhead, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Jackie Robinson.

Jethroe knocked out nine hits in his first seven games in Boston. On May 6 in Cincinnati, he singled twice batting left-handed and tripled and singled batting righty.

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[Harliduck]

Wish we had more threads like this...thanks George!! Hope it continues...

[GeoPoto]

In May, Jethroe was one of the three Boston Braves outfielders invited to a “brotherhood” dinner of the Massachusetts Council of Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Sid Gordon was the Jew, Willard Marshall the Protestant, and Sam Jethroe the Catholic. Sam always wore a St. Christopher’s medal.

Almost the only newspaper story that looked at him other than as just another player was a Boston Globe feature by Ernie Roberts that ran in July, “Jethroe, Hero of Thousands at Park, Goes Unrecognized on Boston Streets.” According to that story, he lived on Columbus Avenue with a young couple who had invited him.

In Boston, Jethroe kept to himself. “I stayed pretty close to home. The High Hat Club on Mass. Avenue was my favorite spot. I didn’t go around to many white places – bars, movies, etc. But I met a lot of nice people. One of them was Archbishop Cushing. He would call up to make sure I got to church.”

Jethroe had had a little trouble on the road as mentioned earlier, but it was only when visiting his native St. Louis that he could not stay at the team hotel, the Chase. And at St. Louis’ segregated ballpark, Sam’s father was forced to sit in the “Negro section” of seats.

For the most part, Jethroe roomed alone on the road. Lewis, Luis Olmo, and Earl Torgeson were his closest friends on the team. He did get some razzing at parks around the league but said it didn’t bother him. “I don’t have rabbit ears; I don’t hear a thing. This is a country of free speech. Why not let the fans get their money’s worth?” he smiled.

Here is Sam appearing for the first time in a Boston uniform during spring training 1950. Providing moral support are his manager Billy Southworth and coach John Cooney:

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[GeoPoto]

Jethroe seemed to have been welcomed by Braves fans. “The people in Boston were crazy about me,” he remembered later. “Everyone crowded around me for autographs after my first game. There was this woman who wanted to take me to dinner. A white woman. I didn’t do it because I figured that was one of the reasons they didn’t want us in the majors to begin with.” Jethroe had been married since November 11, 1942 to Elsie Allen, whom he had met that year at a dance in Erie, Pennsylvania.

There was no indication that Jethroe received any razzing at Braves Field. In early 2015, there remained a few fans who had seen Jethroe break in with the Braves more than 60 years earlier. None recall racial slurs or even muttering at Braves Field. In fact, the opposite seemed to be true. A young Braves fan named Mort Bloomberg remembered, “A wave of excitement rose from the stands when he stepped to the plate (even noticeable when attendance fell sharply) because he was our hometown answer to Jackie Robinson–a self-assured threat to steal one or more bases each time he reached first…Boos when he came to bat? Never. We just wanted to see Sammy run.”

A story in July 1950 showed that the Boston press was picking up on Braves fans’ affection for Jethroe. “Fans of Wigwam Sing Sam’s Song” was the headline on George C. Carens’ article in the Traveler. It was his base-stealing ability that captured the imagination. Yes, it was fine that Gordon, Torgeson, and Bob Elliott already had a combined 40 homers, “but the faithful followers are not happy until Sam Jethroe gets aboard. The hum when he comes up to the plate is based on the hope that he will become a base-runner…when the subject changes to the Negro center fielder’s fancy footwork on the basepaths, everyone switches to superlatives. Thousands breathe the hope that Sam can show his stuff…the sensational sorties of Jethroe have Boston all a-quiver.”

Jack Barnes worked briefly as a vendor at Braves Field, but went to many more games as a teenage fan. He recalled more than 60 years later, “We never had too many full houses at Braves Field – maybe there’d be 10 or 12,000 of us there – but the racial question, I’m gonna tell you, there was never anybody booing or hissing Sam. We loved him. Everybody would chant, ‘Go, Sam, go.’ Sam the Jet at Braves Field was a hero. Everybody loved to see Sam run. He brought some life to the ball team. We weren’t a very fast team and he was a breath of fresh air to us. I went to a lot of games when Sam was playing and I never heard anybody…I never heard any racial slurs, or anything but admiration for Sam the Jet . Everybody loved Sam the Jet. I sat in those stands many times. I was a teenager and I was listening, and boy there was nobody booing Sam the Jet. The drunks were there at all the ballgames and they’d be raising their beer and toasting Sam as he was stealing second base. ‘Hey, Sam!!!’”

Frank McNulty worked as the visiting team’s batboy at Braves Field from 1945 through 1949, with his first year as home batboy being 1950. Had he recalled hearing any negativity from the stands? “I don’t remember anything from the general public, anything close to discrimination.”

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[GeoPoto]

“I loved the Boston fans,” Jethroe said nearly 50 years later. “They used to chant, `go, go, go,’ every time I got on base. Never had a problem in Boston.”

McNulty noted perceptively that “As far as the clubhouse was concerned, I didn’t detect anything. No group of guys that was ostracizing him or anything like that. I didn’t notice anything like that. . . the Braves in those years were somewhat divided into different groups. A number of them had come with Billy Southworth from the Cardinals. So there was that group. Bob Elliott and two or three others had come from Pittsburgh, and there was that group. And then there was Sibbi Sisti and Tommy Holmes and I think Connie Ryan, who had come though the Braves chain, through Hartford, Connecticut, and there was that group.” As to Jethroe, “He wasn’t part of any of those groups, just because he wasn’t part of those, but I don’t think that had anything to do with race at all. Jethroe was sort of a loner anyway. He was very quiet.”

Future major-leaguer Bill Monbouquette never went to Fenway as a kid; he always went to Braves Field. He was a Knotholer. Monbo, who grew up in the black section of West Medford, never recalls any negative reactions in the stands to Jethroe. He joked, mimicking protecting his head against a foul ball, mocking Jethroe’s defensive shortcomings, but said every time he got on first, “the fans would say, ‘Go, Sam! Go, Sam!’ He could fly. He was an exciting guy.”

And what about opposing ballplayers? Whatever they might have done to make Jethroe’s rookie year in the majors difficult, he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Later in Gerry Hern’s lengthy article in the Post, Jethroe was asked if he was angry at some pitchers who had thrown at his head as he’d made his way north. Jethroe “chuckled” and said, “Oh no. they’re just trying me out. They got to make a living, too. If they can drive me away from the plate, or frighten me, they’re going to do it. I don’t think there was anything else to it.”

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[GeoPoto]

On September 15, 1950 the Braves staged a Sam Jethroe Night for him. He’d hurt his foot the night before and had to be helped off the field, but he made it for his night. When it was first announced, he expressed embarrassment. Knowing that gifts were typically presented to those honored with a “day,” he asked instead that any money be put into a college scholarship for Negro youths. “That’s how the arrangement stands,” wrote Arthur Siegel, “and that’s why…Jethroe well rates the accolades of Boston sports enthusiasts” Mayor John B. Hynes did present him with a check but also a television, radio, easy chair, matched luggage set, and a week’s hunting trip to the Rangeley Lakes in Maine. The Chronicle referred to “the overwhelming kindness expressed by many fans” – hardly the sort of fan reaction that would have discouraged the Red Sox from signing a black ballplayer. Jethroe himself was said by the paper to have been “filled with immense gratitude,” and – wanting to express his appreciation with a special performance, – to have tried too hard in the game. He committed two errors and struck out twice in a 1-for-5 night, although he did pull off a double play late in a tight game. His speech was a short one: “Thank you. I appreciate this very much.”

Sam Jethroe’s rookie season was a clear success. He was named National League Rookie of the Year for 1950. He’d hit for a .273 batting average (.338 on-base percentage), with a league-leading 35 stolen bases. (Jethroe’s fleet work on the base paths helped to bring base-stealing back into the game. It had not truly been in fashion at the time. That same season Dom DiMaggio led the American League with 15.) Was he stealing on the pitcher, or stealing on the catcher? “I just runs,” he told Bob Holbrook. His steals included an exciting first-inning steal of home on June 6 in Cincinnati. He’d scored an even 100 runs, and driven in 58. He’d hit 18 home runs. He’d committed 12 errors in 384 chances (.969). Jethroe, “weak” arm or not, led the National League in assists as a center fielder both in 1950 and 1951 and ranked second in outfield assists in 1950 and third in 1951. He received more than twice as many points in the Rookie of the Year voting as the second-place finisher, Phillies pitcher Bob Miller.

In January 1951, Jethroe attended the Boston Baseball Writers annual dinner. Howard Bryant reports that Jethroe was seated next to Eddie Collins of the Red Sox, who told the ballplayer that he was pleased to see Sam’s success. “Jethroe thanked him and without bitterness replied, ‘You had your chance, Mr. Collins. You had your chance.’”

For the 1951 season, Jethroe recorded nearly identical stats: he again led the league in stolen bases, with the same number (35); he hit the same number of homers (18); he scored one more run (101 total); he drove in seven more runs (65); and his batting average was a few points higher (.280 with a .356 on-base percentage).

However, errors were a problem for him; he led league outfielders in errors in 1950, 1951, and 1952. “I’m ashamed I didn’t get to the eye-doctor before I did,” he told writer John Gillooly in spring training 1952; Gillooly had written that Jethroe “was almost laughed out of the league the early part of last season.” Joe Giuliotti is one reporter who said that Jethroe had once been hit on the head by a fly ball. He’d begun wearing eyeglasses in early June 1951.

In 1952, after undergoing intestinal surgery early in the year, Jethroe’s performance fell off significantly, pretty much across the board. He struck out quite a bit more and saw his batting average drop to .232 (OBP .318). The Braves finished in seventh place.

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