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 AL JACKSON ...in his glory days |
Jackson's first Mets spring
a lesson in race prejudice
of TheColumnists.com
This was the spring
of 1962, just 47 years ago, at St. Petersburg, Florida where
the new New York Mets gathered in spring training for the first
time as an expansion team in the National League.
I was a new groom, a wide-eyed young sportswriter, a political
novice as I checked into the gawdy Colonial Beach Hotel on the
west coast of Florida against the Gulf of Mexico.
I grew up in Brooklyn, a mad Dodger fan, now ensconced among
the celebs of my chosen profession, Dick Young, Red Smith and
even website colleague Stan Isaacs.
I remembered when Jackie Robinson first played for Brooklyn in
1947, the barrier breaker, the figure that would make it easier
later for Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Barack Obama.
The Mets train in Port St. Lucie, Florida now, on the other side
of the state hard by the Atlantic Ocean, and I made my 50th spring
training recently with a little more difficulty than I made my
first a half century ago.
Most of my baseball pals are gone now, retired, forgotten, dead,
consigned to the game’s grand history. But a few old geezers
are still around, quick to recognize my existence, as much for
me as for the throwback to their own more youthful athletic days.
Alvin Jackson, a smallish African American lefthander when there
were so few, was pitching batting practice for the pitchers who
still hit in the NL, kidding about their attempts at bat, laughing
when their long ball hunt becomes a dribbler, still bouncy in
the Florida sun at the age of 73.
“I live down here now,” Jackson said, as he wiped some
sweat from his brow after some 30 minutes of throwing soft strikes.
“I just love it. The Mets let me come to spring training
every year and that’s enough for me.”
We talked about the differences when he and Sherman (Roadblock)
Jones were the only two blacks in that first Mets camp and the
segregation that still existed in Florida, throughout most of
the American south and subtly up north were a routine part of
life.
Jackie Robinson had integrated baseball on the field in 1947
but not much changed off the field even 15 years later when Jackson
came to the first Mets camp.
“The traveling secretary, Lou Niss, had given the hotel
manager the rooming list but he never said anything about black
players. I went to the front desk for my room key and the manager
almost fainted when he saw me. He finally gave me the key and
asked me to stay in my room,” Jackson said. “He made
me promise I wouldn’t go to the pool or the bar.”
Soon Niss had negotiated a compromise. The entire Mets team would
be fed in a second floor restaurant and the drinks could be purchased
in a second floor mini-bar.
“I was the first black to arrive and that threw him off.
The Yankees had trained in that town when Elson Howard (a black
Yankees catcher) was there but he stayed with friends away from
the hotel. When my wife Nadine arrived a few days later she just
sat around the pool with the wives of the other players and some
of the sportswriters and nobody said anything,” Jackson
said.
The following spring Jackson would rent an apartment in the black
part of town to avoid any embarrassment. He still couldn’t
attend a local movie, eat in most restaurants, shop in most stores
or take cabs with the other players to the ball park. He was
only comfortable as part of the team in the clubhouse, on the
team bus or in the town’s black businesses.
Jackson was a steady pitcher for the early Mets and even shut
out Hall of Famer Bob Gibson on the final Friday night of the
1964 season as the Cards marched to a close pennant win.
He would record a 67-99 mark in 10 big league seasons, work many
years as a coach and instructor, become the first black coach
for the Boston Red Sox (he sent Mike Torrez to the mound against
the Yankees in the 1978 playoff game made famous by Bucky Dent’s
surprising home run) and keep his left hand in the game for more
than 50 years.
The percentage of blacks is decreasing in baseball in 2009 and
some suggest prejudice of the 1940s and 1950s is back.
Probably not so. The reason there are fewer blacks in the game
now is because there are more black doctors, lawyers, engineers,
teachers and businessmen percentage-wise. Oh, by the way, there
happens to be an African American United States President.
Al Jackson took some sharp blows half a century ago. It all seems
worth it now.
©2009 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The photo is courtesy of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. This column first posted March 30, 2009.
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