A Day to Remember

Picture I took from 2007 Jackie Robinson Day

Today being the 62nd anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, I wanted to repost an article I wrote four years ago chronicling Lester Rodney, the first white journalist who called for the desegregation of baseball. Rodney, the former sports editor of the Daily Worker, called for this ten years prior to Jackie's debut with the Dodgers. The day after tomorrow is his 98th birthday. Happy Birthday Lester! And Happy Jackie Robinson Day to all.

By MIKE TAKEUCHI

Rodney led call to open major league baseball to blacks

With so much attention on the Hall of Fame inductions, a former journalist and athlete with local ties was enshrined in a ceremony of a different sort last weekend. Lester Rodney joined former USC coaching legend Rod Dedeaux and the late Jackie Robinson as the newest members of the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in the Donald R. Wright Auditorium of the Pasadena Central Library on July 24.

For the last seven years, the Baseball Reliquary, a nonprofit organization formed to foster education, art, and culture through the sport, has selected individuals not necessarily because of superlative statistics, but because of their overall contribution to the game. The enshrined include Hall of Fame players such as Roberto Clemente and Satchel Paige, union leaders (Marvin Miller), pioneers (first female umpire Pam Postema), and unique spirits (Bill Veeck Jr., Mark Fyderich and Bill "the Spaceman" Lee).

Seventy years ago, the Walnut Creek resident was making news in the sporting world in a different way. He was the first sports editor of the communist paper, the Daily Worker. In addition to covering games (where he later earned a lifetime membership in the Baseball Writer's of America ), the paper wrote about the social impact of sport.

During the Great Depression, the Daily Worker was one of the most read papers in the country. An unemployed college graduate at the time, Rodney's journalism career began after he wrote a letter of complaint about the paper's lack of sports coverage. Essentially told to put his typewriter where his mouth was, he was hired on the spot as the editor of a weekly sports section.

He tirelessly hustled by mixing coverage of boxing, basketball, college football and baseball with social commentary pieces on sport, later turning the section into a daily occurrence. Spearheaded by its newest editor, the Daily Worker began an earnest campaign to integrate baseball.

Interviewed in his Walnut Creek home earlier this year, Rodney recalled his conviction about the integration of baseball.

"Blacks were denied the right to compete with and against 'the best' major league players," Rodney said. "Here were these wonderful players like Josh 'Hoot' Gibson, Buck Leonard and later Satchel Paige. This was a terrible wrong that needed to be righted. "

Beginning in 1936, a decade long campaign, one that included getting players and managers to speak out against integration and calling out baseball commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, culminated with Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey signing Jackie Robinson to a contract in 1946.

Rickey, a staunch anticommunist, refused to credit the Daily Worker.

"It didn't matter (who got the credit) because we just wanted to end the ... ban," Rodney said.

When made aware of the atrocities of the Stalinist regime, Rodney and several staff members resigned their membership. In another twist, a few years later he became the religion writer for the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

After retirement, he played tennis where he became one of the top age-group players in the country.

At his induction, Rodney approached the microphone and once again deflected the credit.

"I am grateful to be honored because of the most extraordinary figure of human sports, Jackie Robinson," Rodney told the audience.