On This Special Day, Doby Knows He’s Second to None

Larry Doby, who integrated the American League only 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson broke major league baseball’s color barrier, was inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday--36 years after his fellow pioneer.

It was long overdue, but Doby talked only about the honor of his selection, the pride of his accomplishments and the unlimited possibilities when people work together. He expressed no bitterness that Robinson’s debut 81 days before his was the difference between immortality and comparative anonymity.

“Mr. Robinson and Mr. Rickey made it possible for me to play major league baseball,” Doby said, referring to then Brooklyn Dodger owner Branch Rickey, who signed Robinson.

“Why should I dwell and focus on being second,” he said in a news conference after the induction ceremony. “A lot of people are second. Second ain’t all the bad. I’ve raised a family, put my kids through college. My wife is healthy and I’m healthy. Second ain’t all that bad.”

At 73 and employed by the American League, Doby’s enshrinement came 39 years after he retired as a player and 51 years after he became the AL’s first African American player, signed by Bill Veeck to play for the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947.

Robinson was elected to the Hall by voting members of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America in 1962, his first year of eligibility.

Doby was elected by the veterans committee in March.

In his induction speech, he paid homage to Robinson, Rickey, Veeck (whose widow, Mary Francis, attended the ceremony and was introduced by Doby) and then commissioner Happy Chandler, who paved the way for Robinson by standing up to the opposition of many owners.

“It’s a tough thing to look back and think about things that were probably negative,” he said, referring to the tribulations he and Robinson faced. “You put those things on a back burner. I’m proud and happy to have been part of the integration of baseball and to have helped show that people can live together, work together, play together and be successful together. If you had told me 50 years ago that I would be standing here today, I wouldn’t have believed it. This is one of the greatest moments in my life.”

Doby was one of seven inducted Sunday, including former Dodger and Angel pitcher Don Sutton, who apologized to Lou Gehrig and said, “I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have everything in life I ever wanted.”

Sutton referred to the Hall as Valhalla and said his induction filled the only hole in his career. There was no one representing the Angels, but the Dodger contingent included Chairman Peter O’Malley, President Bob Graziano and interim General Manager Tom Lasorda, who shared the stage as a Hall of Famer and who, at a Hall party Saturday night, widely guaranteed that the Dodgers would qualify for the playoffs. Also on the stage Sunday was Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, whose 1966 contract holdout with Don Drysdale paved the way for Sutton, then 20 and just up from double A, to open the season in the Dodger rotation.

Sutton, who spent the next 23 years in the majors, said he was saddened that the late Drysdale couldn’t be present and said he hoped he had remembered to thank Drysdale--as he has thanked Koufax and Claude Osteen, the other returning starter in ‘66--for his help over the years. He credited his father, Howard, for providing the work ethic that was his blueprint, and said without Red Adams, his first pitching coach with the Dodgers and a spectator Sunday, “I wouldn’t be here today. Red is the standard by which all pitching coaches should be judged.”

Jaime Jarrin, the Dodgers’ Spanish language broadcaster, was also inducted Sunday and talked about the long road from Ecuador and his great pride “to have witnessed the ascent of Latin players.”

Also inducted: Negro League star Bullet Joe Rogan; turn of the century player-manager George Davis; longtime executive Lee MacPhail, who joins his father, Larry, in the Hall, and African American journalist Sam Lacy, still active at a spry 94 and a persistent voice in the 30s and 40s for baseball’s integration.

Near the conclusion of an always special day, it was pointed out to Doby in the news conference that his plaque makes note of his integration role, but that Robinson’s doesn’t.

“I’m just happy to have a plaque,” Doby said. “I don’t care what’s on it.”