4 We Will Win the Day
ball. But at that moment, they deemed democracy more important than
the death of a black institution and continued to fight for their rightful
place in professional ball.
In 1945, the fight for fairness finally moved off the editorial page, past
the protest phase, and directly into the direct-action stage when black
sportswriters forced teams to give black players tryouts. In April, Joe Bos-
tic of the People’s Voice forced the Dodgers to give pitcher Terris McDuffie
and outfielder David “Showboat” Thomas a tryout when Bostic brought
the players unannounced to the Dodgers’ spring training camp. For Bos-
tic this bold gesture came at the perfect time, as New York state politi-
cians had recently stated that they would pass a Federal Employment
Practice Committee (FEPC) bill—they signed the Quinn-Ives law in the
summer—that would forbid discrimination by employers with more than
six employees based on race, religion, color. After the law passed in Feb-
ruary, Bostic needled, “While it’s a pretty sad commentary on American
sport that fair play has to be legislated, it’s a good thing that the bigot-
minded people who run our national pastime be forced to quit desecrat-
ing the good name of sport by their actions.”9
Before taking McDuffie and
Thomas to training camp, however, Bostic searched for other ideas to end
segregation, including urging black players to take action for themselves.
In one column entitled, “Players Must Act Now to Erase the Baseball Ban,”
he closed by prompting, “C’mon fellows, the next move is up to you. If
necessary call this newspaper and we’ll advise you of the steps to take.
BUT GET MOV-IN. TIME’S A WASTIN!!!”10 But, in truth, Bostic had no
plans to wait for black players to make a move; he led the charge. On
April 7, he took McDuffie and Thomas with him to West Point, where the
Dodgers held their spring training that year, and according to Bostic, “The
turning point in a great battle was reached—the battle to open the doors
of the great American game of baseball to all American citizens—
including Negroes,”11 when McDuffie and Thomas, while wearing Dodg-
ers uniforms, received a tryout in front of an irritated Branch Rickey.
Rickey, as people would later learn, felt bombarded by Bostic because
Rickey wanted all the credit for integration.
While Bostic made the first move to strikeout Jim Crow, a number of
black writers felt he made the wrong move. They complained that he put
Rickey in a bad spot and added that because of the players’ advanced
ages, Rickey would have an easy way out from this stunt. Bostic, the fierce
fighter, countered his naysayers by writing, “The grandstand managers
always know how someone else should blaze a trail AFTER it has been
blazed,” and noted that Rickey had been reluctant to sign black talent and
needed to be pushed. Besides, why should black people have to worry
