Jackie and Campy (9 page)

Roy had mixed feelings about accepting the offer. On one hand, he felt a sense of loyalty to Tom Dixon and the Bacharachs for giving him a shot at Negro League ball. On the other hand, he realized that Mackey was giving him the chance of a lifetime.
33
“To me, and to any Negro kid,” he recalled, “the Elite Giants were like the New York Yankees. If a colored boy had dreams of making it to the big leagues, the Elite Giants, the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Newark Eagles were the big time. Those teams packed ’em in wherever they played. So I almost swallowed my guts when Biz Mackey asked me to join his team.”
34

Dixon didn’t stand in the youngster’s way. In fact he encouraged Roy to “aim for the big time.” “Remember,” he said, “success ain’t gonna chase you. You got to go after it. You’re still a kid, but you got a good head on your shoulders and you got a way with you behind the plate. You can make it if you keep your nose clean, a sharp eye out, and keep your tongue in your mouth.”
35
Self-reliance, hard work, and self-discipline were the keys to success for Negro Leaguers like Dixon, who did not challenge the discriminatory behavior of white society. He belonged to an earlier generation of blacks who adjusted to the realities of white racism without allowing the abuse to affect their self-esteem. They led by example, personally and professionally.
36
Accordingly Dixon’s advice to “keep your nose clean” meant staying out of trouble with the law. His admonition to “keep a sharp eye out” was synonymous with recognizing and staying clear of white racism wherever and whenever it surfaced. The encouragement to “keep your tongue in your mouth” was code for “Don’t provoke racial injustice by speaking out against it.”

By contemporary standards, Dixon’s advice seems to promote cowardice, but not in the first part of the twentieth century, when blacks were
struggling to secure a position of respect in American society. Such an accommodationist philosophy was based on the belief that African Americans could achieve their professional goals on their own merit by proving to the white establishment that they had the talent, the work ethic, and the ambition to be as successful as any white person. Actions spoke louder than words for this generation of blacks. Congress and the courts would have to take care of larger civil rights issues; it wasn’t their responsibility. What’s more, Dixon’s advice resonated with the young Campanella. It was the same message his parents had delivered.

Campanella caught for the Elite Giants in an exhibition against a local team at Norristown, Pennsylvania, the following day and again that night against the Philadelphia Stars. Baltimore won both games, and Roy collected his first hit in the Negro Leagues. But he returned home to Kerbaugh Street so late that night that his mother gave him a good spanking with a leather strap. Campanella finished out the last two months of the season with the Elite Giants. He received $60 per month, which was paid directly to his mother. But he didn’t mind. Playing for one of the top teams in the Negro League was a dream come true. “I loved the life,” he admitted. “Rarely were we ever in the same city two days in a row. Mostly we played by day and traveled by night; sometimes we played both day and night and usually in two different cities. We’d pile into the bus after a game, break open boxes of sandwiches and finish the meal with some hot coffee as we headed for our next game. The bus was our home, dressing room, dining room and hotel.”
37

When Campy returned to school in the fall, he couldn’t concentrate on his studies. His two months with the Elite Giants convinced him that his future lay in baseball. He pleaded with his parents to let him quit school to play full time. Tom Wilson, the owner of the Elite Giants, made it difficult for the Campanellas to refuse by offering to pay $90 per month for their son’s services. But the offer was contingent on Roy’s being able to start training with the team in early spring. John Campanella didn’t like the idea, not so much because his son would have to quit high school as because the color of his skin would prevent him from being as successful as his ability merited. Ida listened quietly as her husband expressed his concern. When he was finished, she replied, “Roy is a smart boy. Maybe the Negro league isn’t the best there is, but it sure isn’t the worst there is
either. They pay our boy good, real good. In time, he can earn more money than he could in any other line of work. And to love what you’re doing, that’s important, too.” John relented.

At the end of the fall term, fifteen-year-old Roy Campanella left Simon Gratz High School for good. Four months later, on March 17, 1938, he left home to join the Baltimore Elite Giants for spring training. Handing her son a Bible, Ida encouraged him to “turn to any page and start reading whenever your heart is troubled and pretty quick you’ll feel much better.” Roy thanked his mother, gave her a kiss, and said good-bye to his father and siblings.
38
He would spend the next decade in the Negro Leagues refining his skills with one of the premier black clubs.

Established in 1918 as a semiprofessional team in Nashville, the Elite Giants quickly became one of the strongest black baseball clubs in the South. Owner Thomas T. Wilson, a real estate agent who was one of the wealthiest black men in America, made several attempts to gain entry into the Negro National League but did not succeed until the early 1930s. Because of the declining economy, Wilson was forced to relocate the team first to Columbus, Ohio (1935), then to Washington
DC
(1936–37), and finally to Baltimore.
39

Campanella joined the team in 1938, their first season in Baltimore. He shared catching duties with Manager Biz Mackey. Under Mackey’s tutelage, Campy learned how to handle the spitball, how to block pitches in the dirt, and how to release the ball quickly on a throw to second base. He also learned to cut down on his swing in order to make contact more frequently instead of trying to smash the ball over the fence with each and every cut.
40
Just as important, Mackey reinforced the very same lessons that the youngster’s parents and Tom Dixon of the Bacharach Giants emphasized: “Don’t get involved in politics, just go out and play and everything else will take care of itself.”
41

At the end of the season, Wilson traded Mackey to the Newark Eagles and made Campanella the full-time catcher. After placing third in the first half of the 1939 campaign, the Elite Giants compiled the best second-half record. An elimination tournament was held between the top four teams to determine the Negro National League Champion. In the first round the Elites beat the Newark Eagles and the Homestead Grays defeated the Philadelphia Stars. When Baltimore prevailed over the Grays in the final
round they were declared the champions. In the four-game series Campy collected five hits and seven
RBI
s.
42
Wilson rewarded him by raising his salary to $120 per month. It provided Roy with the financial security to marry Bernice Ray, his high school girlfriend. Within the next two years the couple would have two children, Joyce and Beverly.
43

With a family to support, Campanella needed to make as much money as possible. “The trick,” he explained, “was to stay in the line-up at any cost. So when I didn’t catch, I played the outfield and even pitched sometimes. I kept playing as long as I could stand up. I had to. I got paid only if I played.”
44
He not only made sure he played every day during the season, but he also played year-round. From March through October he played for the Elite Giants, and when the Negro League season ended he played winter ball in the Caribbean. Between the two seasons, Campy made almost double the white Major League salary of $5,000 a year.
45

Campanella helped the Elite Giants to a second-place finish in 1940. The next two seasons were interrupted by World War II. In March 1941, while training in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with the Elite Giants, Campanella was contacted by the U.S. Draft Board to report for a physical examination. The United States was mobilizing for war and needed to increase the size of its armed forces. Although he passed the physical, Campy was not drafted. Instead he was assigned a job in the war industry. He returned home to Philadelphia, where he was hired as a janitor at the Bendix Aviation plant. The monotony of the $40-per-week job left him feeling not only frustrated that he couldn’t make a more meaningful contribution to the war effort but restless for baseball. After two weeks he returned to the Draft Board to plead his case. They agreed to let him return to the Elite Giants on the condition that he stay in constant contact with them in the event that the country went to war.
46
By the end of April Campy was back in uniform with the Elite Giants and enjoyed one of his finest seasons. Named the starting catcher for the Negro National League in the annual East-West All-Star Game played at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, he collected his first All-Star Game hit, threw out three base runners, and picked off a third. His excellent fielding earned him the Most Valuable Player Award in the East’s 8–3 victory. Unfortunately the Elite Giants finished in third place that season.
47

In the spring of 1942, shortly after Campanella returned from winter ball in Puerto Rico, the Draft Board contacted him again. This time they classified him 3
A
but gave him a deferment because he was the married father of two children. He took a legitimate defense job at North Philadelphia’s Disston Steel Mill, which was producing armor plating for tanks. He worked on an assembly line for one month before the Draft Board allowed him to return to baseball.
48
That summer Campanella asked the Elites’ owner, Tom Wilson, if he could play in an All-Negro League exhibition game in Cleveland to benefit the war effort. To be sure, Campy was also interested in the $200 he was being offered to supplement his income. Angered, Wilson not only denied the request but fined his All-Star catcher $250 for making the request. Feeling exploited, Campanella mulled over his future. A few days later he jumped to the Mexican League when Lazaro Salazar, the owner, manager, and star pitcher for the Monterrey Sultans, offered to double his salary.
49
Monte Irvin, who also jumped the Newark Eagles to play in the Mexican League that season, recalls that both he and Campanella “were worth four times what the Negro Leagues were paying us.” “In the Mexican League there was always money to be made,” he added.
50

During the winter months Campanella played in Puerto Rico, where he was revered by the fans. Once, after he hit a pair of home runs, they expressed their appreciation for him by passing the hat. He returned their kindness by using some of the money to purchase a hundred-pound sack of potatoes, which he distributed in the slums.
51

Campanella returned to Monterrey the following summer. He enjoyed playing there so much that he seriously considered playing year-round in Latin America. There wasn’t much reason to return to the United States; his marriage had ended in divorce because of the long periods he spent away from home, and he could make considerably more money playing south of the border. But in the spring of 1944 Wilson lured him back to the Elites with an offer of $3,000 for a six-month season.
52

Campanella played the next two seasons for Baltimore, posting batting averages of .366 and .349.
53
Once he caught a “double-double,” or two double-headers in one day. Two of the games were played at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field in the afternoon, and the other two were played that night in Middletown, Ohio. When later asked about the demands of playing
four games in one day, Campy, true to his easygoing nature, replied, “It wasn’t so bad. I grabbed a few sandwiches on the bus after the first double-header and I was ready for the next one.”
54

On April 30, 1945, Campanella remarried. His new bride was Ruthe Willis, a secretary and divorcee with a young son, David. Campy met the young woman a few years earlier during a night out in Harlem. Unlike his first family, Ruthe and David traveled to the Caribbean with him during the winter months so the family could be together. The couple would eventually have three of their own children.
55
Campanella was happier than he’d been in years, though the dream of playing in the white Major Leagues was never far from his mind.

On a rare day when the Elites weren’t playing, he attended a Phillies game at Shibe Park. Afterward he approached the Phils’ manager, Hans Lobert, and asked for a tryout. Lobert admitted he could use a good catcher and hitter like Campy and suggested that he contact the club’s owner, Gerry Nugent. Wasting no time, Campanella went to the nearest pay phone and called the Phillies’ owner, who told him that there was an “unwritten rule about Negroes in organized ball and that he was powerless to do anything about it.”
56
Mahlon Duckett, who grew up with Campanella and later played in the Negro Leagues with the Philadelphia Stars, remembers how disappointed his friend was after the conversation: “The
Tribune
[Philadelphia’s black newspaper] had been trying to talk the Phillies into giving Campy a tryout for some months. Supposedly they sent a scout to take a look at him and he said that Campy wasn’t even good enough to play in the minor leagues. Of course, that was a lot of trash. He was a heckuva player and we all knew it. When Campy heard that, he went to the Phillies and asked for a tryout himself, but they refused to take a look at him. He just kind of laughed it off, saying, ‘They didn’t give me much of a tryout.’ But I knew that he felt real bad. He wanted to play in the majors in the worst way.”
57
John Campanella’s biggest fear had come true: despite the fact that his son’s talent warranted a shot at the big leagues, he was deprived of the opportunity because of the color of his skin.