He Offers Insight on Situation

Approaching his 70th birthday, paralyzed in an auto accident at 36, Roy Campanella gives deep and profound thought to Bill Shoemaker.

Now 59 and paralyzed, Shoe is receiving treatment in a Colorado hospital. Odds against him walking again are large.

“Stretched out for three months in the hospital following my accident, I thought for certain I would be back on my feet,” recalls Campanella, who even wrote a story for the Saturday Evening Post entitled, “I’ll Walk Again.”

“What happened when your chances vanished?” he is asked.

“I had to decide whether I wanted to live. Shoemaker may have to make the same decision. I had a wonderful life up until the time of the accident. Did it have to end? Or would I keep going? Life would end only if I wanted it to.”

“Did you receive encouragement?” he is asked.

“A lot of it,” he answers. “But pep talks from outsiders are little help. You must do it yourself. You pray to yourself. You fight depression by yourself. You promise yourself you are going to make it, even though you don’t walk.”

Campanella rose from the old Negro Leagues of baseball, where he began playing for 50 cents a game, to a position of eminence in the majors, a Dodger never to be forgotten.

The road outside Glen Cove, Long Island, was wet that winter night in 1958. Campy’s car skidded off, striking a telephone pole. He remembers that the engine was still running. He tried to turn it off but couldn’t. He realized for the first time he was paralyzed.

A favorite of Walter O’Malley, late owner of the Dodgers, Campanella was assured: “Campy, I don’t care whether you ever play ball for me again. All I’m interested in is for you to walk. If you can, you will be a Dodger coach. If you can’t, you will work for the organization the rest of your life in a front-office capacity. That’s a promise I make to you.”

It is a promise that has been kept.

At 4 feet 11 and 100 pounds, Bill Shoemaker grew up a perfectly proportioned athlete, merely scaled down by Earth standards.

Shoe played excellent golf and tennis. He played touch football. You put a croquet mallet in his hands and he played the game well first out.

And, of course, astride a race horse, he was matchless. From ages 18 through 58, he rode upward of 40,000 times. His winners: a record 8,833.

He had left school at 16 to rake stalls. Campanella left at 16, too. School wasn’t fun. Born of an African-American mother and an Italian-American father, Campy found school uncomfortable in the inner city of Philadelphia where the kids taunted him, calling him a half-breed.

In the Negro Leagues, Campy performed with such distinguished artists as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston. Signed by the Dodgers, assigned to Montreal where Jackie Robinson had played, Roy was told by Branch Rickey that he would be sent to St. Paul.

“Think of it son,” said Rickey, with an eye to history, “you will be the first black in the American Assn.”

Campy responded: “Mr. Rickey, I’m no pioneer. I’m a ballplayer. I want to play for the Dodgers.”

Eventually he did--for 10 years, or up until the night of Jan. 28, 1958, when his life changed dramatically and hardly for the better.

He is asked: “After a certain period of time, does one adjust to that wheelchair?”

“You never really adjust to it,” he answers. “But you say to yourself, ‘OK, I am never going to walk, but I must retain a desire to keep going.’ If you don’t push yourself to make it, you won’t.”

“And you have hope that Shoemaker will push himself?”

“He has had a great life, as I had a great life. He has a wonderful family, as I have a wonderful family. In our predicaments, frame of mind means everything.”

An interesting parallel can be drawn in the personalities of Campanella and Shoemaker, both renowned as admirably relaxed.

Fresco Thompson, late vice president of the Dodgers, once observed: “Campy is the most relaxed baseball player I ever have seen.”

Relaxation is a gift belonging to Shoe, too. Countless times, he rode the Friday card at Hollywood Park, flew overnight to New York and won the Saturday feature at Belmont. Shoemaker’s secret? Whereas most people sitting up aren’t able to sleep on a plane, Shoe slept the sleep of an angel.

His even disposition could help in the years ahead. Campanella’s compassion for him is immense.

“It’s a tough way to live,” he says. “But only you decide whether you want to.”