Don Newcombe is pictured on the cover of Sport magazine. (Image courtesy of Negro Leagues Baseball Museum)

Don Newcombe was pictured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1955. (Image courtesy of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum)

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Pictured from left to right: Jackie Robinson, Dan Bankhead, Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella. (Photo courtesy of Negro Leagues Baseball Museum)

Former Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe participates in the first pitch ceremony before a game against the the Cleveland Indians in 2014. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)



Nearly all the men who broke baseball’s color barrier in the 1940s — Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Larry Doby — are no longer with us.

One who remains is former pitcher Don Newcombe, who joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949 and is still a member of the team’s management. Newcombe, who turns 91 on Wednesday June 14, was present at the start of the game’s integration, signing with the Dodgers’ minor-league organization in 1946 after two years in the Negro Leagues.

Every year, baseball honors Robinson, who became the first African-American to play in the major leagues in the 20th Century when he joined the Dodgers in 1947, the start of a career that ended with his selection to the Hall of Fame.

Even casual fans know that Robinson endured racial taunts from fans and opponents, and even hostility from some teammates. Less well known are the accounts of the indignities that younger players trying to break the color line endured on their journey to the majors.

Newcombe remembers those days well, and in a 95-minute video interview at Dodger Stadium in 2005 that was arranged by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., he recounted his early days in the game with “Sweet” Lou Johnson, a major league outfielder in the 1960s who is also a member of the Dodger front office. Seated in leather armchairs in an executive meeting room, the two spoke comfortably about Newcombe’s recollections.

While the interview was conducted by the NLBM and intended to be part of a series made available to researchers, it has never been transcribed or shown to a public audience.

Raymond Doswell, vice president and curator of the NLBM, is the longtime caretaker of the interview that is essentially a video time capsule, being seen and written about here for the first time.

Of the interview, Doswell said “ … our plan all along (was) to make these accessible to the public for research purposes. They have not yet been transcribed, but we are working on that … to allow some access to these materials.”

Breaking the barrier

Newcombe spoke fondly of former Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who signed him, Campanella and Robinson to their first contracts, and of other teammates, both black and white.

But he also told the story of one league president who — at the start of Newcombe’s and Campanella’s careers — refused to let them join a Dodger farm team, saying he’d shut down the league rather than open it to black players.

“When Jackie was signed to play in Montreal (Brooklyn’s top minor-league team) in 1946,” Newcombe said in the interview, “Roy Campanella and I signed to play for the Danville Dodgers in the Three-I (Illinois-Indiana-Iowa) League. When the president of the league heard about that, he called Branch Rickey and said ‘I’ll close the league down. They’ll never play here.’ There was only one club left in the Dodger farm system where we could go, and that was in Nashua, N.H., in the New England League. Buzzie Bavasi was the general manager and Walter Alston was the field manager.

“What would have happened if the president of the New England League had said the same thing as the president of the Three-I League? You might never have seen Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe play baseball and set the records that we set. Roy and I talked a lot about Nashua and how the people received us and opened up their homes to us.”

While Newcombe places the blame with Tom Fairweather, the Three-I League president, Neil Lanctot, author of “Campy: The Two Lives of Roy Campanella,” believes another factor in the scenario may have been Kish Bookwalter, president of the Danville team. Danville was a small coal-mining town on the Illinois-Indiana border, and Bookwalter may have been reluctant to risk losing blue-collar fans by integrating his team.

Another man who slowed the arrival of African-American players to the major leagues was Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s first commissioner. “He always made the statement when the issue came about — and he used the “N” word openly — and said they will never play as long as I am commissioner,” Newcombe said. Landis died in 1944, and Albert “Happy” Chandler became commissioner.

“That allowed things to happen,” Newcombe said. “Branch Rickey was about the business of making things happen. … There were 16 teams in major league ball at that time, and Branch Rickey was one man by himself. “Branch Rickey made the statement many times that ‘I’m going to meet my God at some time, and I can’t meet my God as long as this (desegregation) is going on. Black men are precluded from playing baseball.’

“Rickey went to Chandler and said ‘Happy, I need your help,’ and Chandler said to him, ‘Is it the right thing to do?’ and Rickey said, ‘Yes, that’s why I’m here.’ Chandler said, ‘OK, Branch, I’m with you,’ and things began to change.”

Newcombe also said that at one time he, not Robinson, was being considered as the first black player to join the Dodgers.

“People need to know this,” he said. Buzzie (Bavasi) said in a book that they were thinking about me as the first. But I was 19, brash and uneducated. Buzzie said in his book that they needed a man with more experience, and that’s why they went with Jackie. “I could throw, but I didn’t always know where the ball was going to go. I might have started a riot.

“When Branch Rickey went with Jackie, believe me, he made the right decision. He wasn’t the fastest man in the game and he didn’t have the most power — that would have been Larry Doby — but, man, could he play baseball. He could beat you so many ways. … One time he was between third base and home plate and he had nine baseball players chasing him down the line, trying to catch him, and they never did catch him.”

Newcombe spoke of societal conditions that eventually led to the signing of black players. “It’s a long history and you have to have a start somewhere,” he said. “It’s not finished yet, and there’s a long way to go, but you have to have a start.

“I’m proud to say I was there in the beginning, back in 1946. People were wondering why a black man could go and fight and die in the war, pay taxes, get a job, but they came back home … and they couldn’t play baseball. This game was closed to them as far as the major leagues were concerned. All we had were the Negro Leagues. Thank God for the Negro Leagues. That’s what we came back to. I was one of the first black men signed along with Roy (Campanella) and Jackie (Robinson), all because of the Negro Leagues. … Somebody had to tear down that barrier, and we finally tore it down in 1946.”

On the move growing up

Newcombe was born in Madison, N.J., on June 14, 1926. His family moved frequently because his father was a chauffeur, and the family he worked for also moved regularly. When he entered high school in Elizabeth, N.J., he learned there was no baseball team. “As a result,” he said, “I had to get what baseball I learned on the sandlots.

“I was very fortunate in that the man who lived next door, Johnny Greer, had been a great amateur player. He saw me throwing stones one day and said ‘I’m going to teach you how to play baseball. If you can throw stones that hard, you can throw a baseball that hard. I’m going to teach you how to pitch,’ and he did.

“He taught me how to throw it, how to control it, and he taught me a lot about life. He was like a father pro tem to me. He was about 14 years older than I, and my father wasn’t home a lot because of his work.”

Eventually, through Greer, Newcombe was introduced to Effa Manley, co-owner with her husband of the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League. “I was 17,” he recalls, and I was already about 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds.” He grew to 6-4 and weighed about 220 pounds during his playing career.

“I’ll never forget Effa Manley,” Newcombe said. “She was an outstanding woman. She offered me $175 a month to play for the Eagles in 1944. We trained on a college campus in Richmond, Va. When I got to training camp, I put on my uniform, and Willie Wells, the manager, said, ‘You’re not going to throw for 10 days. All I want you to do is run. You’re only 17 but you’re going to be a big man. If your legs are in shape, you’ll be in shape.’ Ten days. No throwing. Just running. I never hurt my arm, all because of Willie Wells.”

Newcombe was 1-3 that season in Newark, and 3-4 the following year. Then, in 1946, he and Campanella were signed by Rickey and went to Nashua. “I was 14-4 that first year in Nashua,” Newcombe said in the interview. “If I had been white, I would have moved up to a higher-level league, but remember, there was nowhere else to go. So I came back to Nashua in 1947 and went 19-6.”

In 1948, still only 22, Newcombe was assigned to the Dodgers’ top farm team, Montreal, then in the International League, which had been Robinson’s springboard to the majors. He was 17-6, but still didn’t earn a place on the Brooklyn roster in 1949. “I didn’t know what I had to do to make the Dodgers,” Newcombe told Johnson. “I had to go back to Montreal. I started a spring training game against the Dodgers and beat them, 4-1, but I still had to go back to Montreal.”

Called up with the Dodgers

In May 1949, Newcombe got the news he had been waiting for. Two Dodger pitchers had developed arm trouble and Newcombe got a call in Montreal, telling him to meet the club in Chicago. “I couldn’t believe it when I walked into the clubhouse,” he said, “and there were Jackie and Roy and Gil (Hodges) and Duke (Snider).”

Even though he had missed the first month of the season, Newcombe was named to the National League All-Star team, went 17-8 with five shutouts and was chosen Rookie of the Year.

He became one of the most successful pitchers of the 1950s, was a 20-game winner three times and the Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner in 1956, the year that honor was created. He was 27-7 that season.

Still, Newcombe seemed disheartened when Johnson, now 82, asked him, “Have you reaped the accolades of all your awards?” “No,” Newcombe responded without hesitation. “The year I was 27-7, I didn’t make the All-Star team. And I’m not even talked about for the Hall of Fame. I’m not even mentioned.

“I don’t care about the Hall of Fame. I’d rather see Gil Hodges or Maury Wills (also former Dodgers) get it. I don’t need it. I’ve got everything else. … This game gave me the chance to be somebody, and I gave it my all. … I’m proud of my time in baseball. We went about the business of doing our jobs and winning championships. I’m kind of sorry that I have these feelings about the Hall of Fame.”

Johnson pointed out to Newcombe that he missed two years (1952 and 1953) while in the military, when he was at the top of his game, and asked him, “Do you think those two years…cost you?” “No doubt about it,” Newcombe answered. “It probably cost me at least 35 or 40 games. I gained weight, I was out of shape for the 1954 season and only won nine games. The Dodgers won the National League pennant both years I was gone, and I would have been part of that. But I don’t regret being in the military. I don’t know any country better than this country.”

If Newcombe was disappointed by what he perceives as a Hall of Fame snub, he was elated when he told Johnson the story of a later encounter.

“Fast forward a few years to 1968 when a famous man, a famous black man, sat at my table one night at a dinner. His name was Martin Luther King. He said, ‘Don, you and Jackie and Roy will never know how much easier you made it for me to do my job. On the baseball field, you opened things up — where people could stay, where they could eat.’ This was 24 days before Martin died in Memphis.”

Newcombe related one other recollection to Johnson.

“In St. Louis, we used to pull into Union Station and all the white players would get onto an air-conditioned bus,” Newcombe said. “Jackie and Roy and I would stand at the curb and wait for a taxi. We’d go to the Adams Hotel, a black hotel in a room next to a club where there was music until 3 in the morning. Imagine having to endure that. The Adams Hotel wasn’t air-conditioned. Many nights, we had to soak our sheets in a bucket of ice and sleep with the windows open, mosquitoes biting us, while our teammates stayed at the air-conditioned Chase Hotel.

“One day in 1955, I had had enough. I told Jackie, ‘I’m going over to the Chase and find out why we can’t stay there. Jackie said, ‘I’ll go with you.’ We talked to the manager, and Jackie said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ And the manager said, ‘Yes, sir. I do.’ Jackie said, ‘Then you know why we’re here. Can you tell us why we can’t stay here?’ And the manager said, ‘Gentlemen, all I can think of is that they probably don’t want you using the swimming pool.’ So I said I didn’t swim because I didn’t want to hurt my arm, and Jackie said he didn’t know how to swim, although Jackie could do anything, and the man said, ‘Well, come on in.’

“We went back to the Adams Hotel and told Roy Campanella ‘we’re going to the Chase Hotel.’ We opened up the Chase Hotel. We told Henry Aaron of the Braves and Willie Mays of the Giants so black players could live in comfort rather than misery. We changed that.”

Lanctot, in his Campanella biography, has a slightly different take on the story. He writes that the New York Giants’ black players had been staying at the Chase since 1953, but with the understanding that they would not use the bar, dining room or pool.

A principled stand

Newcombe recalled another incident from St. Louis in the mid-‘50s. “The Dodgers had more black players than any other team,” he said, “and thousands of black folks were out in the street, wanting to see us play, but Sportsman’s Park, where the Cardinals played, was segregated. There were only 3,000 seats for black people. Jackie got up on a stool after batting practice and said, ‘Roy and Don and I aren’t going to play today unless everyone is allowed to attend.’ The traveling secretary told Cardinals management, and they opened the gates. We could not be men unless we did something about righting these wrongs, and we changed them. We made a contribution … a stepping stone to make it better for somebody else.”

“We’ve been bitter because of the treatment we received … but one day, things are going to get better. Jackie always said it was a matter of changing one letter to turn ‘bitter’ to ‘better.’ We made a radical change in racism in this country from what we did on the baseball field. I want the kids of today to know about how our life once was and what they enjoy now because of what we did. I wish the kids knew more. In 1975, they asked 25 young major league players who Jackie Robinson was, and 16 didn’t know.”

Newcombe stayed with the Dodgers until 1958, when he was traded to Cincinnati. In 1960, he was purchased by Cleveland, and was released following the season. He finished his major league career with 149 wins and 90 losses and an earned run average of 3.56.

Even then, he wasn’t through. He spent 1961 with Spokane of the Pacific Coast League, going 9-8. Then, on May 28, 1962, he signed a contract with the Chunichi Dragons in Nagoya, Japan. He lured old friend Larry Doby out of retirement and both traveled halfway around the world. They became the first former major league stars to play in Japan, but what set Newcombe apart is that he went there not to resurrect his pitching career, but as a hitter.

In Nagoya, he divided his time between the outfield and first base. Always a good hitter with the Dodgers, he had 12 home runs and 43 RBIs in just 81 games while hitting .262. Then he returned home and retired as a player.

As the interview was wrapping up, and Johnson was thanking the NLBM for sponsoring it, Newcombe said, in closing: “Jackie said life is only as good as what you do to help somebody else. You have to ask yourself — what are you going to be proud of?”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to accurately reflect Raymond Doswell being the caretaker of the video interview.