{"id":22490,"date":"2020-10-19T20:53:35","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T20:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=22490"},"modified":"2020-10-20T05:47:12","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T05:47:12","slug":"how-baseballs-first-commissioner-led-a-conspiracy-of-silence-to-preserve-baseballs-color-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-baseballs-first-commissioner-led-a-conspiracy-of-silence-to-preserve-baseballs-color-line\/","title":{"rendered":"How baseball’s first commissioner led a conspiracy of silence to preserve baseball’s color line"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Lamb<\/a>, IUPUI<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Baseball Writers\u2019 Association of America recently announced that it would remove former Major League Baseball<\/a> Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis\u2019 name from the plaques awarded to the American and National League MVPs.<\/p>\n

The decision came after a number of former MVPs, including Black award winners Barry Larkin and Terry Pendleton<\/a>, voiced their displeasure with their plaques being named for Landis, who kept the game segregated during the 24 years he served as commissioner from 1920 until his death in 1944<\/a>. The Brooklyn Dodgers ended the color line when they signed Jackie Robinson to a contract in October 1945, less than a year after Landis\u2019 death.<\/p>\n

\"Awarded<\/a>
Moving forward, the award \u2013 and plaque \u2013 will no longer feature Landis\u2019 name.<\/span>
\nMLB Photos via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Landis has had his defenders over the years. In the past, essayist David Kaiser<\/a>, baseball historian Norman Macht<\/a>, Landis biographer David Pietrusza<\/a> and the commissioner\u2019s nephew, Lincoln Landis<\/a>, have claimed that there is no evidence that Landis said or did anything racist.<\/p>\n

But in my view, it\u2019s what he didn\u2019t say and didn\u2019t do that made him a racist.<\/p>\n

In my book \u201cConspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball<\/a>,\u201d I argue that baseball\u2019s color line existed as long as it did because the nation\u2019s white mainstream sportswriters remained silent about it, even as Black and progressive activists campaigned for integration.<\/p>\n

However those who ran the league possessed far more power than sportswriters. Landis, along with the owners, knew that there were Black players good enough to play in the big leagues. If he wanted to integrate Major League Baseball, he could have.<\/p>\n

Instead, he did all he could to prevent the rest of America from knowing just how talented Black baseball players were.<\/p>\n

Petitions go ignored<\/h2>\n

By the time Landis became commissioner in 1920, baseball had been segregated ever since a so-called \u201cgentlemen\u2019s agreement<\/a>\u201d took place among team owners in the 1880s.<\/p>\n

However, it was common practice in the 1920s for Major League teams to earn extra money in the off-season by playing Black teams in exhibition games. Landis put a halt<\/a> to these games because he wanted to end the embarrassment of the Black teams\u2019 winning so often.<\/p>\n

\"African
Sam Lacy pushed Kenesaw Mountain Landis to advocate for the signing of Black players.<\/span>
\nAfro American Newspapers\/Gado via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is worth noting that Black athletes competed with white ones in other sports in the 1920s and 1930s, including boxing, college tennis, college football and, for several years, the National Football League. Black athletes also represented the United States in the Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the 1930s, Black sportswriters like Wendell Smith and Sam Lacy, along with white sportswriters for the Communist newspaper The Daily Worker, intensely campaigned for the integration of baseball<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In their editorials and articles<\/a>, Worker sportswriters chronicled the accomplishments of Negro League stars and told readers that struggling Major League teams could improve their chances by signing Black players. Meanwhile, Communist activists organized protests and circulated petition drives outside the ballparks of New York\u2019s three Major League teams \u2013 the Yankees, Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers \u2013 demanding that teams sign Black players.<\/p>\n

The petitions, which had, according to one estimate, a million signatures<\/a>, were then sent off to the commissioner\u2019s office. They were ignored. The Daily Worker regularly focused on Landis as the person responsible for the color line, while the Black press derisively called him<\/a> \u201cthe Great White Father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell<\/h2>\n

Landis\u2019 defenders say that he could not possibly have been a bigot<\/a> because he suspended Yankees outfielder Jake Powell<\/a> for making a racist comment during a 1938 radio interview.<\/p>\n

Landis suspended Powell not because the ballplayer used a slur, but because it was heard by fans, and Black activists pressured the commissioner to do something. While Landis ended up punishing a racist player, he did nothing<\/a> to end racial discrimination against Black players.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Landis refused to allow players and managers to speak on the issue. When Brooklyn manager Leo Durocher was quoted in a 1942 Daily Worker article saying he would sign Black players if he were allowed to, Landis ordered Durocher<\/a> to deny that he made the statement.<\/p>\n

The following year, Landis again subverted the campaign to end segregation in the sport.<\/p>\n

[Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

Sam Lacy, who was then working for the Chicago Defender, repeatedly asked Landis for a meeting to talk about the color line. When Landis finally agreed, Lacy asked the commissioner if he could make the case for integration at baseball\u2019s annual meeting.<\/p>\n

Landis, without telling Lacy, invited the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association. Also invited to speak was Paul Robeson, the onetime college football star who had become an actor, singer, writer \u2013 and avowed Communist. Lacy was incensed<\/a> that Robeson would be asked to address the conservative white owners about the sensitive issue of integration.<\/p>\n

To Lacy, the presence of Robeson meant that Landis could plant seeds of suspicion with white owners and sportswriters that the campaign to integrate baseball was a Communist front<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lacy wrote in a column that Landis reminded him of a cartoon<\/a> he had seen of a man extending his right hand in a gesture of friendship while clenching a long knife that was hidden in his left hand.<\/p>\n

Landis died in December 1944, and Lacy finally got a chance to address team executives in March of the following year. Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey ended up signing Jackie Robinson<\/a> to a contract several months later, thus ending segregation in baseball.<\/p>\n

Lee Lowenfish, Rickey\u2019s biographer, was convinced that Landis would have tried to stop the Brooklyn executive from signing Robinson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I believe it is no coincidence that baseball remained segregated during Landis\u2019 reign as commissioner \u2013 or that it became integrated only after he died.\"The<\/p>\n

Chris Lamb<\/a>, Professor of Journalism, IUPUI<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Lamb, IUPUI The Baseball Writers\u2019 Association of America recently announced that it would remove former Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis\u2019 name from the plaques awarded to the American and National League MVPs. The decision came after a number of former MVPs, including Black award winners Barry Larkin and Terry Pendleton, voiced their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":22491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[501,8835,179,785,5819,1538,2496,6774],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22490"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22497,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22490\/revisions\/22497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}