A Figure of Towering Greatness

Has there ever been a man who stood so little who stood for so much?

In sickness or in health, till death do us part, Roy Campanella was someone everyone looked up to, whether he be in a crouch or a chair.

With the strength of youth, he represented persistence, power, determination, tolerance and the willingness to make those around him feel at ease. With mangled limbs and age, he embodied dignity, spirit, patience, nobility and stout-hearted love of life.

Campy didn’t pass away Saturday. Only his flesh and blood did. His soul and spirit are eternal. Roy Campanella was everything the Lord ever wanted in a man of action, a man of introspection, a hero, a martyr, a man.

No pitcher could confound him; no wheelchair could confine him.

His was a disposition often called sunny, but Roy Campanella radiated far more warmth than that. He was a role model when athletes yearned to be role models. He set an example for his people and for all people. He had the heart of a lion and the tenderness of a kitten, once even describing himself as someone who, whether in the company of strangers or friends, approached them with “a piece of sugar in your hand.”

As a child, when he wasn’t traipsing through the streets of Philadelphia without a penny in his pockets, he would sit beside his Italian father on a vegetable cart, peddling their goods, mixing and mingling, joyful and tireless.

As a young adult, he heeded Branch Rickey’s advice, acted like a gentleman at all times and attacked a baseball with whatever anger another man might have reserved for a human. He spoke softly and carried a Louisville Slugger. The $3,000 a year he had been making playing for the Baltimore Elite Giants paid some bills, but because Campy was already 25 when he got Rickey’s call, it was important that he strike hard and fast to make up for lost time.

He also observed Jackie Robinson, with whom Campanella shared bonds of brotherhood and Dodgerhood but little else in terms of style or personality, overcoming the hardships and indignities, moving Campy to note: “The more they criticized Jackie or tried to hurt him, the better his performance was.”

So, when the crackers and rednecks stood waiting for him upon arriving in the old American Assn. of baseball’s minors, Campanella stilled their sticks and stones. He said: “When you stick a thorn in their side, it puts a stop to this racial hatred stuff. It makes people take notice that you’re not running to the hills just because they say: ‘Boo!’ They even start admiring you.”

And they never stopped.

If Roy Campanella lacked--or elected to repress--the public fire and brimstone of Robinson, all it proved was the very point that men had been attempting to prove for centuries--that while all were created equal, no two were alike. Confidantes of Robinson freely acknowledged that there were times he thought Campanella’s demeanor that of an Uncle Tom, but this was during an era in which the combative Jackie was shouldering the weight of the world, while Campy was simply trying to inhabit it.

Years later, in an interview for a book that Robinson co-authored, Campy would say: “It wasn’t that I was different from Jackie, or that I had a different philosophy. It was my position--catching. A catcher has to make people like him, no matter what. My God, if a catcher didn’t go to an infielder or outfielder and say, ‘Look, you’re playing a little out of position,’ what kind of catcher would he be?

“A catcher has to take charge. I had to go to everyone on the team. An outfielder can’t go to a pitcher and say he’s pitching a man wrong. The pitcher will say, ‘Who the heck does this outfielder think he is?’ But from a catcher he would accept that criticism. I thought of myself as a catcher first, not as Negro. I don’t think I acted that way because my father was white, or that I came from Philadelphia in the North or because I had a cheerful disposition. I based my attitude purely on that I was a catcher.

“I had to make everyone work with me. I had to have a sunny disposition. You can’t be demanding. You’ve got to have a piece of sugar in your hand. I thank the good Lord that I was made the way I am, and that I’ve never had a harsh remark back from anyone who said, ‘Who the hell are you?’ Any pitcher I’ve caught knew what I meant, that that was my job, to be the best catcher in baseball.”

That, he became.

For a time, no catcher anywhere was any better, unless maybe it was Josh Gibson, a man who never got the overdue break that came Campy’s way.

It was hardly a coincidence that the Dodgers won pennants in half of Campanella’s 10 seasons behind their plate, and his peers who remain from that golden age of baseball remember a courtly man who always stooped to retrieve an opponent’s helmet, a loquacious man who chatted up every batter from behind his mask, a decent man, a good man.

Life bent his legs.

Nothing kept him down.

* BOYS OF SUMMER: Roy Campanella’s Brooklyn Dodger teammates look back on a special career. C8