November 19, 1921, 100 years ago: Roy Campanella (no middle name) is born in Philadelphia. He was as close to a universally beloved figure as baseball has ever had. And that was true even before the event that ended his playing career.
His mother, Ida, was African-American. His father, John, was a son of Italian immigrants. They had a total of 4 children, raising them first in Germantown, in Northwest Philadelphia; then in Nicetown, in North Philadelphia. (Don't be fooled by the neighborhood's name: It's one of the most hardscrabble in the city.) The Campanella children attended racially integrated schools, but faced racist harassment.
Despite a chunky build, Roy was a spectacular athlete, although he later admitted that he wanted to be an architect -- as would an eventual Dodger teammate, Sandy Koufax. In every sport he played in at Simon Gratz High School, he was named team captain. Other notable Gratz graduates: 1970s Baltimore outfielder Pat Kelly, Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Leroy Kelly, basketball star Rasheed Wallace, Welterweight Champion Meldrick Taylor; Zack Clayton, who refereed the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" in 1974; and singer Eddie Fisher.
Baseball was his best sport, but being half-Italian didn't make him "white." And yet, in 1937, before his 16th birthday, he was already good enough as a catcher to be signed by the Washington Elite Giants of the Negro National League. (And that's pronounced "EE-lite," not "Eh-LEET.")
The Elite Giants moved to Baltimore the next season. Their manager, himself a great catcher, was James "Biz" Mackey. He had previously starred in Philadelphia for the Hilldale Daisies, ands would later manage the powerful Newark Eagles. He knew that Roy could only play for him on weekends and in the Summer, since he was still in high school. By 1940, though, Roy was the team's starting catcher.
Roy appears not to have served in World War II, playing professionally throughout it. In 1945, he led the NNL in batting average with .385, and slugging percentage with .479. In 1946, following their breaking of the color barrier to sign Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Roy to a contract.
He became the 1st black player in the New England League, playing for the Nashua Dodgers. Their manager was Walter Alston, who would end up managing the major league Dodgers from 1954 to 1976. In one game in that 1946 season, an umpire threw Alston out of the game. Alston made "Campy" the manager for the rest of the game, making him the 1st black manager in what had been called "organized baseball." The Dodgers were losing, but Campy played a hunch: He sent Don Newcombe, a pitcher and also black, up to bat as a pinch-hitter. "Newk" hit a home run, and that sparked a comeback that led to a Dodger win.
Campy began the next 2 seasons in Class AAA ball: 1947 with the Montreal Royals of the International League, and 1948 with the St. Paul Saints of the American Association. Clearly, at age 26, he was ready, and on April 20, 1948, he made his major league debut. Wearing Number 33, he entered the game as a defensive replacement in the 7th inning. He had one trip to the plate, in the 8th, and Ken Trinkle hit him with a pitch -- apparently, not intentionally. (Sal Maglie might have done it on purpose.) The Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 7-6 at the Polo Grounds.
The player Campy replaced as catcher was Gil Hodges. Soon, Hodges was the Dodgers' everyday 1st baseman, and Campy their catcher. He also soon switched to Number 39. In 1949, he helped the Dodgers win the Pennant, leading the National League with 17 intentional walks, and making the 1st of 8 straight appearances in the All-Star Game.
That All-Star Game was at Ebbets Field, and it featured the 1st 4 black players to be selected for it: Campanella, Robinson, Newcombe, and Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians, who had been the 2nd black player in the major leagues and the 1st one in the American League. (The AL won, 11-7.)
He helped the Dodgers win Pennants in 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956; and they just missed in 1950 and 1951. With his great strength, he was a great fit for a "bandbox" ballpark like Ebbets Field. In 3 seasons, he batted at least .300, peaking at .325 in 1951. In 4 seasons, he had at least 30 home runs, peaking with 41 in 1953. In 3 seasons, he had at least 100 RBIs, peaking with a League-leading 142, also in 1953.
In 1951, he became the 2nd black player, after Robinson in 1949, to be awarded a League's Most Valuable Player Award. In 1953, he became the 1st black player to win 2 of them. In 1955, he became the 1st black player to win 3 of them. And, that season, the Dodgers finally won a World Series, beating the Yankees in 7 games. Campy hit 2 home runs and had 4 RBIs in that Series.
He caught 3 no-hitters. Two were by Carl Erskine, against the Chicago Cubs on June 19, 1952; and against the hated Giants on May 12, 1956. The other was also by a master of the curveball, the aforementioned Sal Maglie, once the Giant most hated by Dodger fans, but by 1956, a Dodger himself. He no-hit the Philadelphia Phillies on September 25, saying, "I only shook Campy off once. He was doing the thinking, calling the pitches just right for every batter in every situation. And all I had to do was check the sign, to see if I agreed, and then throw."
Dodger fans, always comparing their players with the Yankees and Giants at their respective positions, knew he was better than the Giants' Wes Westrum, a good but hardly great player. The fairer comparison was with the Yankees' Yogi Berra: Similar build, lefthanded as opposed to Campy being righthanded, similar batting style, similar mastery of pitch selection and handling of pitchers, despite each having a constantly changing starting rotation and bullpen, and both won 3 MVP awards. (Yogi also won in 1951 and 1955, his 2nd coming in 1954 instead of 1953.) Whichever was better, the other wasn't far behind.
But Campy, nearly 4 years older than Yogi, began to slow down. After batting .318 in the title season of 1955, he dropped to .219 in 1956, and only played in 103 games in 1957, batting .242. There appears to be no explanation: He wasn't injured, and his expected replacement, John Roseboro, was not yet ready.
At the end of that 1957 season, Campy was about to turn 36. His lifetime batting average was .283, and his OPS+ a robust 126. In 10 seasons at the (white) major league level, he had 1,401 career hits, including 226 doubles, 30 triples and 260 home runs. Had he been allowed to play in white baseball from the beginning, he could have had over 2,500 hits, and perhaps 500 home runs.
Dodger owner Walter O'Malley announced that the Dodgers would move to Los Angeles for the 1958 season. Since the stadium O'Malley wanted to build for them wouldn't be ready until 1962, they would have to play 4 seasons at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Since seats at that football stadium couldn't be removed to fit in a regulation baseball field, the left field foul pole was only 251 feet from home plate, with the stands guarded by a high screen to discourage cheap home runs. Nevertheless, it looked like a great setup for a righthanded power hitter like Roy Campanella (or Gil Hodges, for that matter, who was still with the team; Jackie Robinson had retired). After 4 seasons, Campy would be 40, and his career power numbers could be significantly boosted.
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Campy would never get to play in the Coliseum, or any other stadium, ever again. He lived in Glen Cove, on New York's Long Island, and owned a liquor store in Harlem. On January 28, 1958, he drove home from the store in his 1957 Chevrolet sedan. He was less than a mile from home when, while driving only about 30 miles per hour, he hit a patch of ice on an S-curve, hit a telephone pole, and overturned.
He broke 2 vertebrae, and was paralyzed from the shoulders down. Eventually, he regained enough mobility to feed himself, but he required the use of a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
The accident also ended his 2nd marriage. His 1st marriage was to Bernice Ray, and they had 2 daughters before divorcing. In 1945, he married Ruthe Willis, who already had a son. Roy and Ruthe had 3 children, including Roy Campanella II, who became a television director (often credited as "Roy Campanella, Jr."). But she tired of taking care of him, and left him in 1960. Perhaps it took a toll on her own health: She was only 40 when she died of a heart attack in 1963. In 1964, Roy married Roxie Doles, and that marriage lasted for the rest of his life.
In 1959, O'Malley, usually known for being incredibly greedy and cheap, named Campy a scouting supervisor and a special coach at their "Dodgertown" Spring Training camp at Vero Beach, Florida, paying his travel expenses. It kept him involved in baseball.
On May 7, 1959, the Dodgers did something not often done in baseball, but common in soccer: They held a testimonial game to raise money for a good cause in a player's name. Roy Campanella Night was held at the Coliseum. The Yankees, in the middle of a Western roadtrip, agreed to be the opponents for this exhibition game.
On a Thursday night, 93,103 fans -- most of whom were West Coast residents, and thus had never seen him play, and didn't really have an emotional connection to him -- came out, the largest crowd in baseball history (until 2008). The lights were turned out, and all 93,103 fans held lit candles aloft. The Yankees won the game, 6-2, and the proceeds were used to pay down Campy's medical bills.
Campy, pushed by former teammate Pee Wee Reese,
surrounded by 93,000 candles
In 1969, Campy was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, becoming the 2nd black player so honored, after Jackie Robinson. In 1972, in a pregame ceremony at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers retired Campy's Number 39, Jackie's Number 42, and Sandy Koufax' Number 32.
Before Game 3 of the 1977 World Series at Dodger Stadium, Newcombe wheeled Campy onto the field, and, with Newk's help, threw out the ceremonial first ball. The fans' reaction inspired Peter O'Malley, now running the Dodgers for his father Walter, to offer Campy a new job: Assistant to the director of community relations -- at the time, Newcombe. Essentially, he would be what would later be known as a "club ambassador." Campy moved to the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, and held that post for the rest of his life, until heart failure claimed him on June 26, 1993. He was 71 years old.
While still active, he was mentioned in the songs "Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?" by Buddy Johnson ("Satchel Paige is mellow, and so is 'Campanello'") and "Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)" by The Treniers ("When he hits the ball, it's long gone, man. Hits it farther than Campy can.") In 1989, Billy Joel mentioned him in his song "We Didn't Start the Fire," sort-of rhyming "Campanella" with "Rockefeller."
Campy wrote a memoir, It's Good to Be Alive, published in 1959. In 1974, Paul Winfield played him in a TV-movie version, directed by Michael Landon.
In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him 50th on their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. In 2006, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp with his picture.
Campy once said, "Baseball is a man's game, but you've got to have a lot of little boy in you, too." A wise thought on this, his posthumous 100th Birthday.