Racism and baseball cards

[oldjudge]

Here is the back of the 1936 WWG DiMaggio

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Back in the day, set collecting was something a lot of the kids did. So, even if the racist ones pulled black players from the packs, they still had to keep them, right ?? Even the doubles of black players were probably kept (so they could be traded away for the players you needed to complete the set!)

Indeed. I'm actually prejudiced against players without caps but I still keep their cards in my collection with the others.

Originally Posted by Mungo Hungo

To my knowledge, in 1950, the word 'Negro' was not offensive in any sense whatsoever. That didn't come until much later.

While the word may be unfashionable these days, it's still very proper and must not therefore be considered offensive. Ask the distinguished gentlemen behind the United Negro College Fund.

[Bpm0014]

If you looked at the top 50 or so cards that are discussed ad infinituim on this board you would have a difficult time imagining that African-Americans have been in MLB since 1947 or that they are any good at the sport. Just sayin.

Stop it Karine Jean-Pierre. Fake news. Mays and Jackie are arguably as popular, to collect, now as Mantle and Ruth. Aaron and Jeter are up there as well.

[Republicaninmass]

1911 t9 Turkey red Boxers were ordered by the customer. Are there any lower pops among the players?

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Thanks.

Love the boxing items you show about your cousin.

As for Jack Johnson, I know he dated white women and flaunted it. I saw a documentary on him that insinuated his love preferences affected his boxing career. Would that affect card sales and manufacturing?

Sent from my SM-S926U using Tapatalk

[G1911]

Johnson is the only superprint in T218, his green card issued in two series, and I believe printed on its own sheet. He’s also the most common T9

[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by G1911

Johnson is the only superprint in T218, his green card issued in two series, and I believe printed on its own sheet. He’s also the most common T9

Exactly!

The argument can be made that he was the most popular boxer in the series...yet racism

SMH

[BioCRN]

Being popular at entertaining doesn't mean an absence of racism. It's constantly explored in media, books, and movies. "Do the Right Thing" has a rather straightforward examination of it.

When it comes to cards, especially given the eras being discussed when it comes to manufacturers and businesses, it is worth exploring the availability and distribution of cards of players of certain ethnicities. This is an era where even drilling down on whiteness was a thing, Jewish/Irish/Italian/etc.

The card industry has a hard enough time trying to figure out who actually put out sets, their history lost and only partially discovered by putting it's discussion out in the wild to try to piece together more clues about what was going on at the time.

It is absolutely on the table to discuss the availability, popularity, and distribution of cards during a racially weird era of being an American.

Ignoring discussing these things is a disservice to our history and how Americans decided to be a society during this era.

[Topnotchsy]

Originally Posted by perezfan

Fully agree....

Larry Doby debuted with the Indians a mere 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson did with Brooklyn. Just 11 weeks difference, and virtually nobody knows who he is!

Here's a video we did a while back that deals with vintage pennants, but same basic topic as is being discussed here. Perhaps some of you will find it interesting. Here's the link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US1RRRSWzNE

Something I know you know, but others seem to forget, is the way that the leagues were really separate entities back then. The AL and NL did not play each other, other than the World Series. And there were AL fans and NL fans.

Larry Doby was 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson, but that understates his reality. No teams that Doby had played against had played against Jackie Robinson or any other black player in an official game (they may have in Spring Training of interracial barnstorming game). In basically every situation he entered, Doby was the first, in the same way that Jackie was. The only difference I am aware of is the level of national coverage.

Additionally, Jackie's entrance into the game was far more orchestrated. In 1946 he played in Montreal which was specifically chosen for its general acceptance of black people. He also always had a black teammate while there, initially Johnny Wright and later Roy Partlow (I think I may be forgetting one other). He had a year in the Minors to prepare for the Major League experience. Doby, on the other hand was thrown in, all alone, with little prep and no teammate.

I've been looking for a Doby pre-MLB (edit: Type I) photo for a while (military or Negro Leagues). So far just have this...

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

Exactly!

The argument can be made that he was the most popular boxer in the series...yet racism

SMH

Jack Johnson definitely was the most popular subject in 1910-1911. They super-printed him when they got his contract signed (America Lithographic was the film distributor for the Johnson/Jeffries fight and I presume but have been unable to conclusively prove his contract rights were secured at or around the time of that contract - Johnson was not part of the first batch of image rights the lithographers secured, but another African-American, Joe Jeannette, was). They even redesigned the T3/T9 checklist late in the process just to squeeze Johnson in, and also added him late to T218-1, going to quite some effort to include him at all, and then even more to superprint him across 2 series.

It is also definitely true that T226 short-printed the black subjects to a very heavy degree, I would just say that is the exception to the rule rather than the rule. A black subject is the sole t218 superprint and black subjects are printed regularly in T9, T218, T219, C52, T118, T220-1, T220-2, T223, T225, T227, and probably others I'm not thinking of off the top. At the same C. 1910 time, black subjects are in E75, E76, E77, E78, E79 (Johnson is on 3 of the 21 cards) and E80, without any rarity or SP'ing either. T226 is the only example of T card short printing of black subjects. It's the odd one out, the exception to the pattern.

T226 is one of the sheets I would most like to discover or piece together because it's probably very unusual. Red Sun, despite what baseball collectors have said, was not a regional Louisiana brand (just as Mecca was not a New York regional brand because the factory was there), primary source documents make it clear and obvious it had broad distribution and availability. Regional brands really only existed in the ATC on a temporal basis, test markets for new launches - successful brands got distributed broadly. A lot of things could be the reason for the short-printing, but that the 46 white subjects are printed normally and the 4 blacks very abnormally are clear. Its a shame, because I realistically am only going to have a complete set of the white dudes for T226, would be great to uncover documents telling us or pointing to the answer for this sets SP'ing but my archival digging has not produced them.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by Topnotchsy

Something I know you know, but others seem to forget, is the way that the leagues were really separate entities back then. The AL and NL did not play each other, other than the World Series. And there were AL fans and NL fans.

Larry Doby was 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson, but that understates his reality. No teams that Doby had played against had played against Jackie Robinson or any other black player in an official game (they may have in Spring Training of interracial barnstorming game). In basically every situation he entered, Doby was the first, in the same way that Jackie was. The only difference I am aware of is the level of national coverage.

Additionally, Jackie's entrance into the game was far more orchestrated. In 1946 he played in Montreal which was specifically chosen for its general acceptance of black people. He also always had a black teammate while there, initially Johnny Wright and later Roy Partlow (I think I may be forgetting one other). He had a year in the Minors to prepare for the Major League experience. Doby, on the other hand was thrown in, all alone, with little prep and no teammate.

I've been looking for a Doby pre-MLB (edit: Type I) photo for a while (military or Negro Leagues). So far just have this...

Well said. I love Jackie Robinson, and not to diminish him and all he endured, I just never have understood why Larry Doby isn't revered as well. I know someone had to be the first, and that's Jackie Robinson. I just feel Larry Doby is somehow glossed over.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Topnotchsy

Something I know you know, but others seem to forget, is the way that the leagues were really separate entities back then. The AL and NL did not play each other, other than the World Series. And there were AL fans and NL fans.

Larry Doby was 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson, but that understates his reality. No teams that Doby had played against had played against Jackie Robinson or any other black player in an official game (they may have in Spring Training of interracial barnstorming game). In basically every situation he entered, Doby was the first, in the same way that Jackie was. The only difference I am aware of is the level of national coverage.

Additionally, Jackie's entrance into the game was far more orchestrated. In 1946 he played in Montreal which was specifically chosen for its general acceptance of black people. He also always had a black teammate while there, initially Johnny Wright and later Roy Partlow (I think I may be forgetting one other). He had a year in the Minors to prepare for the Major League experience. Doby, on the other hand was thrown in, all alone, with little prep and no teammate.

I've been looking for a Doby pre-MLB (edit: Type I) photo for a while (military or Negro Leagues). So far just have this...

+1

People think of Larry Doby as having had barriers broken down for him by Jackie Robinson, but as you point out, because the AL and NL were so separate, the players and fans in the in the AL basically treated Doby as the 1st to break the color barrier.

Doby was also overshaded by a different Robinson--Frank Robinson became the 1st black Manager in 1974, and four years later, Doby became the 2nd black Manager (for the White Sox).

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

If you looked at the top 50 or so cards that are discussed ad infinituim on this board you would have a difficult time imagining that African-Americans have been in MLB since 1947 or that they are any good at the sport. Just sayin.

Umm, that is because this is the prewar (i.e. pre-integration) card section. Postwar cards are found in the Postwar Card section and if you look at the pre-1980 section there you will see vibrant, ongoing, long-term threads on Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron and Jackie Robinson. In the post-1980 section there are ongoing threads about Ken Griffey Jr. and Barry Larkin. No shortage of discussion of cards of the great black players, just in the sections of the forum that cover the eras in which they played.

[Topnotchsy]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

+1

People think of Larry Doby as having had barriers broken down for him by Jackie Robinson, but as you point out, because the AL and NL were so separate, the players and fans in the in the AL basically treated Doby as the 1st to break the color barrier.

Doby was also overshaded by a different Robinson--Frank Robinson became the 1st black Manager in 1974, and four years later, Doby became the 2nd black Manager (for the White Sox).

I have a Facebook page called "Baseball History Through Lineup Cards" where I highlight lineup cards in my collection and tell some stories of baseball history. I recently posted about this:

Larry Doby had a habit of being second in a world that only has the attention span to really know about the first. And because of it, he remains one of the most underappreciated people in the story of baseball history.

On July 5, 1947 in the top of the 7th inning of a 5-1 game between the White Sox and Indians, and runners on 1st and 3rd, Larry Eugene Doby stepped up to the plate for the Indians. He was a military veteran, having spent time at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, Treasure Island Naval Base and time in the Pacific Theatre. He had attended college at Virginia Union University. The day before he had been playing with the Newark Eagles. On this day, he stepped up to the plate, and promptly struck out.

There are many aspect of Larry Doby's journey that mirrored Jackie Robinson's. Their university education. Their military experience. Their time spent in the Negro Leagues. They both played against teams who had never faced a black ballplayer in a professional game, as Robinson played in the NL while Doby played in the AL, at a time when there was no interleague play outside of the World Series.

There are differences of course. Jackie Robinson was signed a year earlier and played a season in the Minors, while Doby was playing in the Negro Leagues until immediately before. But maybe the biggest difference is that Jackie was first.

Jackie Robinson was signed to be a trailblazer. Branch Rickey planned every detail. He made sure that Jackie had black teammates while he was in the Minors in Montreal, signing John Wright, and later Roy Partlow.

In contrast, Doby was signed by Bill Veeck, the legendary showman who owned the Indians for just a few years. Who was known for his off-the-wall ideas. There was no preparation. Doby was thrown into a league who largely did not want him there. He was challenged to stand on his own two feet. To blaze a path similar to Jackie's but without the reknown and focus.
And like Jackie, and a shocking number of early integrators, Doby overcame the adversity and played at a Hall-of-Fame level, an honor bestowed in 1998, just 5 years before his passing.

28 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier as a Dodgers player, Frank Robinson became the first black manager. He was towards the end of his career when he had been traded to the Indians near the end of 1974, and in 1975, he became player-manager. Robinson would go on to manage for 17 years total, spread across the 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000's.

Doby meanwhile, had followed up his career becoming a scout for the Montreal Expos in their inaugural 1969 season. He was their minor league instructor in 1970 and their batting coach from 1971-1973. In 1976, Bill Veeck bought the White Sox (for the second time) and hired Doby. In 1978, after Veeck fired Doby's former teammate and fellow HOF Bob Lemon from the managerial position, Doby took his place. In doing so, on June 30, 1978, he became the second black manager in baseball.

The White Sox were playing sub-.500 ball for the 74 games before Doby became manager. In the remaining 87 games of the season, he was unable to turn the team around. And after the season, Veeck decided to hire Don Kessinger as manager for the 1979 season. Kessinger himself would only manage for little more than half the season, before resigning. His doing so made way for a 34-year former player with almost no MLB playing experience and no managerial experience to become manager. This manager, the fourth in two years, would finally stick and Tony LaRussa would manage for the next 35 straight seasons, (albeit not all with the White Sox) winning 3 World Series.

Doby would never manage again. He returned to the role of batting coach for a season before resigning, and this largely marked the end of his time in the game. One of the great heroes of baseball, but a man who seemed to always be overshadowed.

Those who knew him though, knew who he was. Bob Feller stated, "He was a great American, served the country in World War II, and he was a great ballplayer. He was kind of like Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, because he was the second African-American in the majors behind Jackie Robinson. He was just as good of a ballplayer, an exciting player, and a very good teammate."

This lineup card is the only one I have ever come across from Doby's time as manager. It was used on August 27, 1978 in a 6-0 win against the Cleveland Indians. This copy was the bottom copy on the lineup card pad, and because of how faded it was, Doby signed his name in pen and someone (presumably Doby) rewrote the lineup out.

On Martin Luther King Day of 2025, we remember one of the great black pioneers of baseball, a sport whose integration King recognized as paving the road for his work.

[jingram058]

Love what Bob Feller said about Larry Doby.

[brianp-beme]

Great points that I didn't realize about Larry Doby. Thanks for bringing them up.

Brian

Originally Posted by Topnotchsy

Something I know you know, but others seem to forget, is the way that the leagues were really separate entities back then. The AL and NL did not play each other, other than the World Series. And there were AL fans and NL fans.

Larry Doby was 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson, but that understates his reality. No teams that Doby had played against had played against Jackie Robinson or any other black player in an official game (they may have in Spring Training of interracial barnstorming game). In basically every situation he entered, Doby was the first, in the same way that Jackie was. The only difference I am aware of is the level of national coverage.

Additionally, Jackie's entrance into the game was far more orchestrated. In 1946 he played in Montreal which was specifically chosen for its general acceptance of black people. He also always had a black teammate while there, initially Johnny Wright and later Roy Partlow (I think I may be forgetting one other). He had a year in the Minors to prepare for the Major League experience. Doby, on the other hand was thrown in, all alone, with little prep and no teammate.

I've been looking for a Doby pre-MLB (edit: Type I) photo for a while (military or Negro Leagues). So far just have this...