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I
t's a pipe dream, Mr. Rickey.” Durocher and his boss were eating at the Tivoli Hotel in Panama City. At least, Durocher was eating. Rickey had barely touched his food. It was March 18, 1947. Spring training was just about to start, and they were talking about the most distinctive and controversial player in their organization. Sometimes Rickey thought Jackie was all he ever talked about anymore.

Right now he was staring at his top coach. “Is that your attitude toward Jackie Robinson?”

Durocher groaned. “I don't got an attitude toward him. I'll play an elephant if he can help us win. To make room for him, I'll send my own brother home if he's not as good. We're playing for money, Mr. Rickey,” Durocher said. “Winning's the only thing that matters. Is he a nice guy?”

Rickey chuckled. “If by ‘nice' you mean soft, no, not particularly.”

Durocher nodded. “Good. He can't afford to be. Nice guys finish last.”

“So, you have no objections to him?” Rickey asked.

“None whatsoever,” Durocher managed to reply.

“So, why do you think this is a pipe dream?” Rickey liked Durocher, even if he had an eye for the ladies. He admired the man's willingness to stand up and speak his mind, but sometimes that forthrightness got on his nerves.

“I mean it ain't gonna happen,” Durocher explained. “The Dodgers are never gonna demand Robinson be brought up from Montreal. Ballplayers are conservative.”

Rickey shook his head. “A team full of tough war veterans? Immigrants' sons? Boys from impoverished corners of the country?” If any team was likely to accept a black player among them, it would be his Dodgers!

But Durocher just shrugged. “It. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.”

“You really believe they won't accept him?” Rickey asked. “Once they see how he plays, how he can help them win?”

The coach laughed. “I'm not saying they won't accept him: I'm saying they won't ask for him. I'm saying Robinson's good medicine, but they're not gonna like the taste.” He shoved another forkful of food into his mouth. “Boy, this is good fish.”

Rickey just sat and watched him eat. He had a sinking suspicion Durocher might be right.

In another room at the hotel, a few of Durocher's Dodgers were gathered around a small desk. One of them, Higbe, was writing something on a piece of hotel stationery while his teammates Bragan, Walker, and Hugh Casey looked on. All of them were veterans of the team, and what's more, all of them originally hailed from the South.

“Why do you think Rickey's got us playing spring games in Panama?” Alabama-born Bragan asked the others. “He wants to get us used to Negro crowds. He wants more of them than us. He's hoping it'll get us more comfortable being around Robinson.”

Higbe, who was from South Carolina, cleared his throat. The others stopped their chatter, and then he read them what he'd written: “We, the undersigned Brooklyn Dodgers, will not play ball on the same field as Jackie Robinson.”

He signed it and handed the pen to Bragan, who added his name. Georgia boy Casey signed it next, with a flourish. He offered the pen to Walker, who, like Bragan, was from Alabama, but Walker didn't take it right away.

The others looked at one another. They knew the more names they had, the more power their petition would hold. And Walker was one of the mainstays of the team. His name carried weight.

Casey waved the pen. “If you wanna make your mark, Dixie,” he joked, “we can witness it.”

They all laughed, including Walker — and he took the pen and signed the paper.

Next, the quartet knocked on Eddie Stanky's door.

“C'mon in!” he shouted.

They stepped inside and found their teammate soaking his right elbow in a bucket of ice. “What's going on?” he asked.

Higbe answered. “Got a petition goin' on, Stank.”

“To keep Robinson up in Montreal where he belongs,” Bragan added.

“Oh.” Stanky pondered that. “Did Pee Wee sign it?” he asked finally. Pee Wee Reese was the team captain.

Higbe shook his head. “Ain't asked him yet. What difference does it make?”

Stanky shrugged. “None, just wonderin'.” He studied his teammates. Walker couldn't quite meet his eyes. Finally, Stanky indicated his arm. “Can't sign now. I'm indisposed. Could I catch up with you later?”

After him, they went to Pee Wee's room, but he cut them off before they could get beyond the word
petition
.

“Look, it's like this,” he told them bluntly. “I got a wife, a baby, and I got no money. I don't want to step in anything.” He directed his next words straight at Walker, as the senior member of the foursome. “Skip me, Dix, I'm not interested.”

“What if they put him at shortstop?” Walker demanded.

But Pee Wee just shrugged. “If he's man enough to take my job, I suppose he deserves it.”

Higbe snorted. “Not a chance!”

“He does not have the ice water in his veins for big league baseball,” Walker argued.

But Reese wouldn't budge. “So let him show what he's got,” he answered. “Robinson can play or he can't. It'll all take care of itself.”

They had better luck with Pennsylvania-bred Carl Furillo. Despite being the son of immigrants himself, Furillo had no qualms at all. “Give me the pen,” he said at once, and signed the second he had it in hand. Higbe grinned. One more to their roster.

Later that night, Durocher's phone rang. He sighed and answered it.

“Yes, Mr. Rickey?” He didn't even have to ask who it was. Who else would call him at this hour?

“Have our friends in the press gone to sleep yet?” Rickey asked.

Durocher peered at the clock. “We are the only people awake on this entire isthmus, Mr. Rickey.”

Rickey's voice took on a sharper tone. “A deliberate violation of the law needs a little show of force. I leave it to you. Good night, Leo.”

“Yes, Mr. Rickey.” Durocher didn't have to ask what his boss was talking about. They'd both heard the chatter earlier today. He knew what some of his players had been up to. And, as he levered himself up out of bed, he vowed that it would stop right now.

Twenty minutes later, Durocher stood in the hotel kitchen in his bathrobe, arms crossed, glaring as his players and coaches filed in. All of them were bleary-eyed, in various states of dress, wondering why he'd gotten them up so early and why he'd gathered them here, of all places.

But Durocher had picked the kitchen for four reasons: It was big, it was deserted, it was away from prying eyes, and it had things like the soup pot he grabbed now and heaved across the room.
Wham!
That got their attention!

“Wake up, ladies!” he bellowed at them. “Wake up!” He stared down any attempt to talk back. “It's come to my attention that some of you fellas don't want to play with Robinson. That you even got a petition drawn up that you're all gonna sign. Well, boys, you know what you can do with your petition? You can eat it, for all I care!”

It was Walker who found his voice first. “C'mon, Leo . . .” he started.

Durocher hit him with the full force of his glare. “ ‘Come on' what?”

“Ballplayers gotta live together, shower together,” Walker argued. “It's not right to force him on us. Besides, I own a hardware store back home, and I —”

“No one cares about your hardware store, Dix!” Durocher cut him off. “And if you don't like it, leave! Mr. Rickey'll be happy to make other arrangements for you.”

Studying them all, Durocher suddenly stalked toward Higbe. He'd heard that the pitcher had been the one to start all this. Higbe gulped as the coach approached, but Durocher didn't flatten him, much as he wanted to. Instead, he turned so he could bellow at his whole team, Higbe most of all.

“I don't care if he's yellow or black or has stripes like a zebra,” he shouted, his words echoing off the sinks and shelves and stoves. “If Robinson can help us win — and everything I've seen says he can — then he's gonna play for this ball club. Like it, lump it, make your mind up to it, because he's coming! And think about this when your heads hit the pillow — he's only the first, boys, only the first. More are coming right behind him. They have talent and they wanna play!” He let that sink in for a moment. “Yes, sir, they're gonna come diving and scratching. So I'd forget your petition and worry about the field. Because unless you fellas pay a little more attention to your work, they are going to run you right out of the ballpark! A petition?” He glared at them. “Are you ballplayers or lawyers?”

Then he turned and marched past them through the kitchen doors. Behind him, his team muttered and grumbled, but Durocher knew he'd put the fear of God into them. And the fear of Leo Durocher and Branch Rickey. He hoped that would be enough.

Jackie didn't have any trouble getting to practice this year, and when he stepped out onto the field in Panama in his Montreal uniform, he felt confident, in control. But that ended the second he saw Sukeforth heading toward him, decked out in a Dodgers uniform.