Sport: Big Man from Nicetown

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One night in Caracas, Campy remembers with glee, Pitcher Saul Rogovin (now with the Philadelphia Phillies) decided that he was not in the mood to work. His manager thought otherwise and sent him to the mound. To prove his point, Rogovin promptly walked the first four batters. Furious at this insubordination, the manager called the cops and Pitcher Rogovin was marched off to the local jail.

Enter Mr. Rickey. In those days, the Negro leagues had a standard gag: a report that a scout from a major-league club was in the stands. It was a bitter joke, because Negro players had not yet been accepted by the majors. One cold October day in 1945, after a team of Negro All-Stars had been whipped by a collection of big-leaguers, Dodger Coach Chuck Dressen cornered Campy outside Newark's Ruppert Stadium. He told Campanella that Branch Rickey, then the Dodgers' president, wanted to see him. Campy went along with what he thought must surely be a gag. But next day in the Dodgers' Brooklyn office he was scowled at; whispered to, thundered at, gently praised, scathingly questioned. "Mr. Rickey had me buffaloed," he recalls with awe. Asked about his weight, he answered that he was pushing about 215. "Judas priest!" Rickey roared. "You can't weigh that much and play ball!" Said Campy: "All I know is I've been doin' it every day for years."

Finally Rickey waved his unlit cigar and came to the point: How would Mr. Campanella like to join the Brooklyn organization? There was a rumor going around that Rickey was forming a Negro league, and Campy, wanting no part of the prospective Brown Dodgers, turned Rickey down cold. A few days later, he found himself in a gin rummy game with another Negro ballplayer named Jackie Robinson, 1938-40 topflight halfback for U.C.L.A. Robby came out with big news: he, too, had an offer from Rickey and he had signed—not for the Brown Dodgers, but to play with the Montreal Royals of the International League. He was about to become the first Negro to break into organized baseball. "I could have kicked my butt," says Campy now. But his own chance was to come.

"I'll Beat You to a Pulp." In March 1946, in response to an urgent telegram from Rickey, Campy came home from the winter games in Venezuela and reported to Brooklyn.There were still a few Dodger farmclub managers who wanted no part of a Negro player. But that spring, while Jackie Robinson drew most of the attention and most of the attacks, Roy Campanella and a promising Negro pitcher named Don Newcombe quietly reported to the Dodgers' Class B ball club in Nashua, N.H. Their new manager: long-legged, schoolmasterish Walter Alston. They liked him on sight.

Before they left for Nashua, Campy and Newk got a long lecture from Rickey, filled with colorful descriptions of the insults they might get. As it turned out, there was little trouble: both Campy and Newk quickly became popular. The only ugly incident occurred when Manchester Catcher Sal Yvars* (who later made a tour in the big leagues with the St. Louis Cards and N.Y. Giants) came to bat and tossed a handful of dirt in Campy's face. The usually mild-mannered Campy whipped off his mask and snarled, "Try that again. 111 beat you to a pulp.'' Yvars never tried it again.