Foreign News 1945: War Crimes: The Fallen Eagles

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Branch Breaks the Ice

The management palmed him off as an Indian. But Charley Grant, who played second base for the oldtime Baltimore Orioles, was a lightskinned, straight-haired Negro. A few Mexicans, Cubans and strongly suntanned whites who have played for other big-league clubs have been widely believed (but never proved) to be Negroes. Last week, after three years and $25,000 worth of scouting the Negro leagues, Branch ("The Brain") Rickey called in reporters—not to make a confession but to tell the world that Brooklyn had signed Jack Roosevelt Robinson, a Negro shortstop.

Minor League Commissioner Bill Bramham exploded: "Father Divine will have to look to his laurels, for we can expect Rickey Temple to be in the course of construction in Harlem soon." Ex-Star Rogers Hornsby put his finger on a sore spot: "Ball players on the road live [close] together. It won't work." Most baseball men, after an initial blush, realized that it could and perhaps would work (it had worked pretty well in college sports).

With the ice broken, the New York Giants' President Horace Stoneham planned to give Negro leagues a looking over. His Polo Grounds park is located on the edge of Harlem, and a Jack Robinson would step up his already substantial Negro trade. The clubs least likely to cross the racial bridge were the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns, who until recently did not even allow Negroes in the grandstand.