Giants Say They Will Scout Negro Players Next Year
Article taken from The Ames Daily Tribune, October 24, 1945
NEW YORK (UP)--Baseball men were cautious today
in their comment on the siging of Negro Jackie Robinson by the Brooklyn
Dodgers' Montreal farm team, and only the New York Giants said they would
scout Negro teams in 1946.
Robinson, 26-year-old former all-American half-back at the university of
California at Los Angeles, was the Negro signed to a contract by a team
in organized baseball---Negro teams are not a part of organized baseball---and
Branch Rickey, Jr., who announced the siging at Montreal yesterday, said
that some ball players might quit the Brooklyn organization in protest.
"If they come from certain sections in the south, they may steeraway from a team with solored players," he said. "But they will be back in baseball after a year or two in a cotton mill."
Hector Racine, president of the Montreal team, which won the International league's regular-season championship, said he expected no oppostion either from the league or from fans."Negros fought alongside whites and shared the foxhole dangers," he said,"and they should get a fair trial in baseball,"
The Dodgers signed Robinson after Brooklyn scouts had watched Negro teams for several seasons. Dodger Secertary Harold Partott said the former army lieutenant, who batted .340 in 100 games as shortstop for the Kansas City Monarchs after his service release last summer, was the best of 25 prospects.
Horace Stoneham, president of the Giants, said his club would scout Negro teams next season.
"We will look over the young Negro players," he said, "but we have hudnreds of returning servicemen and only if they fail to make the grade will we have room for new players."
Connie Mack, the patriarch manager of the Philidelphia Athletics, said he wasn't familiar with the move and didn't want to comment.
President William Benswanger of the Pittsburgh Pirates said that the whole thing was "the business of the Brooklyn and Montreal teams, whether it's a white man or a Negro." Pirate Manager Frank Frisch also declined comment.
Ray Dumont, president of the National Baseball Congress, guiding body of the semi-pros, said he believed the large number of Negro players on service teams had paved the way for admission of a Negro to organized baseball.
Commissioner A. B. Chandler was not available for comment.
Robinson, who was present yesterday at Montreal when young Rickey and Racine announced the signing, said he was "Zproud of being the frist of his race to be in organized ball and I'll do my best to come through." He was born in Cairo, Ga., and his family moved to Pasadena, Calif., when he was one year old. He starred in high school and junior college athletics before goin to UCLA, where he won letters in football, baseball, basketball, and track.