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Facing Bigotry.

In 1943, Larry Doby was drafted into the segregated Navy. For a time, he was stationed at Camp Robert Smalls in Great Lakes, IL where he was a physical education instructor. Doby spent the last year of World War II on a coral reef in the Pacific unloading ships and organizing recreational activities for other servicemen.

After Larry Doby was discharged by the Navy in 1946, he returned to professional baseball. He spent the winter playing in Puerto Rico and then went back to the Newark Eagles to play second base. In 1946, while playing for the Eagles, Doby batted a sparkling .348, and the Eagles won the Negro League World Series. Doby batted a league leading .458 In the first half of the 1947 season.

At the time of Doby's introduction into Major League Baseball segregation was still prominent and attitude towards blacks hadn't changed much as the result of Jackie Robinson's debut with the Brooklyn Dodger's, just 11 weeks earlier. Some of his first teammates simply refused even to even shake his hand. On July 6, the Indians were scheduled to play a doubleheader against the White Sox, and the Indians' manager Lou Boudreau penciled Doby in at first base in the second game. First basemen, play the position with a mitt, rather that a glove, which Doby did not have. The regular first baseman, Eddie Robinson, refused to give Doby his glove. After some persuading by Traveling secretary Spud Goldstein, Robinson conceded to the request. This was a clear representation of the bias and bigotry that was pervasive in the nation and in the game that Doby played. There were a few Indian teammates, Joe Gordon, Bob Lemon, Jim Hegan, and Steve Gromek that extended their friendship across this racial division. Gromek would later be seen in a highly distributed newspaper photograph, cheek-to-cheek, with Doby in celebration of their victorious season.

Cleveland Press sportswriter Franklin Lewis described Doby as a "six hour ball player per day" on the field and "an 18-hour Jim Crow personality the rest of the time." At Lubbock, Texas, for example, gate attendants refused to admit him because he was not wearing his uniform. Doby went from gate to gate, trying to explain his predicament, before Indians traveling secretary Spud Goldstein arrived and confirmed that he was a member of the team. In Texarkana, a city straddling the Texas– Arkansas border, Doby put on his uniform in a black family’s home and attempted to catch a ride to the ballpark. When Doby found out that both Jim Crow taxis were out of service, he started to walk the streets in his baseball uniform. Upon his arrival to the ballpark, Doby was, once again, banned from entry. He stood outside the ballpark, humiliated, until Cleveland manager Lou Boudreau rescued his angry young outfielder from a hostile white crowd that had gathered. In the game, Doby left his position in centerfield when a salvo of bottles and other objects came down around him in the fourth or fifth inning. Boudreau replaced Doby to protect him from the Texarkana fans.