Service for Doby Draws About 300

Friends, family and fellow Hall of Famers gathered Monday to remember Larry Doby, 56 years after he became the American League’s first black player.

Doby died Wednesday at 79 in his home at Montclair, N.J., after a long illness. He broke the AL’s color barrier when he joined the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League.

Doby, who played 13 seasons in the major leagues and was selected to seven All-Star games, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998.

During an afternoon memorial service in Trinity Presbyterian Church at Montclair, Doby was remembered as a man of quiet dignity who never said an unkind word, even about those hostile to his joining the Indians.

Hall of Famers Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra and Joe Morgan, and Gov. James E. McGreevey were among more than 300 mourners at the service.

Rizzuto, who played for the New York Yankees, said after the service that Doby had “nerves of steel,” and noted that he was never envious of the much greater attention Robinson received.

Morgan, a two-time NL most valuable player with the Cincinnati Reds in the 1970s, met Doby in 1976, and the two became golf buddies.

“I’m a frat brother of Larry’s in the greatest fraternity on Earth, the Hall of Fame,” Morgan said during the ceremony.

“He never, ever told me who would not shake his hand, because some of those folks were in the Hall of Fame.”

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Cleveland designated hitter Ellis Burks underwent season-ending surgery to correct a nerve problem in his right elbow.

Burks, 38, had experienced numbness and tingling in the arm for months, and some of the muscles in his right hand had atrophied.

He finished the season batting .258 with six home runs and 28 runs batted in.

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Five-time All-Star and four-time gold glove-winning center fielder Bernie Williams started an on-field running program as part of his rehabilitation following knee surgery and could rejoin the Yankees by the All-Star break.

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The injury-riddled Arizona Diamondbacks put reliever Mike Koplove on the 15-day disabled list because of shoulder pain and recalled reliever Ricky Bottalico from triple-A Tucson.