Review of "Jackie & Campy: The Untold Story of Their Rocky Relationship and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Line," by William C. Kashatus

 Review of

Jackie & Campy: The Untold Story of Their Rocky Relationship and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Line, by William C. Kashatus ISBN 9780803246331

Five out of five stars

History of two key figures in the civil rights movement

 Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella were the first and second black players on the Brooklyn Dodgers, with Jackie of course the first black player in the major leagues after the color line was established. It would seem that they would naturally be friends off the field, but that was not the case. At first, they were friends, but major personality differences turned them away from each other.

 Once the vow of silence was lifted from Jackie, he became very combative, even to the point of extremism. Jackie did not hesitate to bait and antagonize opposing players, managers and umpires. It reached the point where he began to lose the off-field support of his teammates, Dodger management and sportswriters. Jackie believed that the movement towards civil rights should be a militant one, where the activists must always be aggressive.

 Conversely, Roy Campanella was much more relaxed and was not inclined to engage in activism. His low-key approach won him the respect of all around him, to the detriment of his relationship with Jackie. To the credit of both men, neither let their feelings for the other affect the Brooklyn Dodgers team chemistry. They kept everything between them professional on the field and in the clubhouse. The animosity was partially fueled by the fact that Jackie went to college while Campy was a high school dropout.

 This personal animosity is very well laid out in this book. In many ways the two men reflected the two main approaches within the civil rights movement. Jackie represented the side where whites would be forced to accept black rights while Campy followed the plan of showing his skills and letting the whites reach positive conclusions about the rights of blacks.

 Three very significant points were made that cannot be overstated. The first is that when Branch Rickey announced his plan to have Jackie Robinson play for the Dodgers there was a secret vote among the 16 team owners. The vote was 15 to 1 against allowing Robinson to play with Rickey’s being the only dissenting vote. Baseball commissioner Happy Chandler overruled the owners and allowed Robinson to play. Chandler was removed shortly afterward, and he was adamant that the removal was retaliation for going against the owners.

 The second is that had Campanella not been in an auto accident that led to his paralysis, it is very possible that he would have been the first black manager in the major leagues. Since he would likely have done so in the middle sixties, the first black manager would have been appointed ten years before it happened when Frank Robinson was named the player/manager of the Cleveland Indians. The third is that when the Jewish Sandy Koufax joined the Dodgers in the late fifties, he faced ferocious antisemitism from the Dodger players.

 This is an important book in the history of baseball and the civil rights movement. There is no question that the integration of baseball by Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson was a game changing event for race relations in the country. It paved the way for the lifting of many other aspects of segregation. Learning some of the unpleasant details of the major players is an eye opening experience.

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