Editing Baseball color line (section)

==MLB influencers==

===Bill Veeck===

The only serious attempt to break the color line during Landis's tenure came in {{baseball year|1942}}, when [[Bill Veeck]] tried to buy the then-moribund [[Philadelphia Phillies]] and stock them with Negro league stars.  However, when Landis got wind of his plans,<ref name="Moore">{{cite book|last=Moore|first=Joseph Thomas|title=Pride and Prejudice: The Biography of Larry Doby|location=New York|publisher=Praeger Publishers|year=1988|isbn=0275929841|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LjfGgiauBfcC&q=larry+doby+joe+gordon&pg=PA51|page=40}}</ref> he and National League president [[Ford Frick]] scuttled it in favor of another bid by [[William D. Cox]]. In his 1962 autobiography, ''Veeck, as in Wreck'', in which he discussed his abortive attempt to buy the Phillies, Veeck also stated that he wanted to hire black players for the simple reason that in his opinion the best black athletes "can run faster and jump higher" than the best white athletes.<ref name=Veeck>''Veeck &mdash; as in Wreck'', p. 171, by Bill Veeck with Ed Linn, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962.</ref> The authors of an article in the 1998 issue of SABR's ''The National Pastime'' argued that Veeck invented the story of buying the Phillies, claiming Philadelphia's black press made no mention of a prospective sale to Veeck.<ref>{{cite web | title = A Baseball Myth Exploded | first1 = David M | last1 = Jordan | first2 = Larry R | last2 = Gerlach | first3 = John P | last3 = Rossi | url = http://www.sabr.org/cmsFiles/Files/Bill_Veeck_and_the_1943_sale_of_the_Phillies.pdf#search=%22veeck%20phillies%22 | access-date = June 27, 2008 | archive-date = March 29, 2005 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050329183858/http://www.sabr.org/cmsFiles/Files/Bill_Veeck_and_the_1943_sale_of_the_Phillies.pdf#search=%22veeck%20phillies%22 | url-status = dead }}</ref>  The article was strongly challenged by the historian Jules Tygiel, who refuted it point-by-point in an article in the 2006 issue of SABR's ''The Baseball Research Journal'',<ref>[http://research.sabr.org/journals/files/SABR-Baseball_Research_Journal-35.pdf Revisiting Bill Veeck and the 1943 Phillies], {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100713170611/http://research.sabr.org/journals/files/SABR-Baseball_Research_Journal-35.pdf |date=July 13, 2010 }}, ''The National Pastime'', 2006, p. 109. Retrieved May 12, 2012.</ref> and in an appendix, entitled "Did Bill Veeck Lie About His Plan to Purchase the '43 Phillies?", published in Paul Dickson's 2012 biography, ''Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Dickson|first=Paul|title=Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick|year=2012|publisher=Walker & Company|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8027-1778-8}}</ref> Joseph Thomas Moore wrote in his 1988 biography of Doby, "Bill Veeck planned to buy the Philadelphia Phillies with the as yet unannounced intention of breaking that color line."<ref>{{cite book|title=Pride Against Prejudice: The Biography of Larry Doby|publisher=Praeger Publishers|location=New York|page=19|year=1988|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LjfGgiauBfcC&q=larry+doby+world+war+ii&pg=PA132|first=Joseph Thomas|last=Moore|isbn=0275929841}}</ref>

The Phillies ended up being the last National League team, and third-last team in the majors, to integrate, with [[John Kennedy (shortstop)|John Kennedy]] debuting for the Phillies in 1957, 15 years after Veeck's attempted purchase.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.si.com/mlb/phillies/news/the-sad-story-of-philadelphia-phillies-first-black-ballplayer-john-kennedy|title=The Sad Story of the Phillies' First Black Ballplayer|last=Amour|first=Lauren|magazine=Sports Illustrated|date=February 2, 2022|accessdate=June 2, 2024}}</ref>

===Branch Rickey===

In 1945, [[Branch Rickey]], general manager of the [[Brooklyn Dodgers]], was anticipating the integration of black players into Major League Baseball.  Rickey, along with [[Gus Greenlee]] who was the owner of the original [[Pittsburgh Crawfords]], created the [[United States League]] (USL) as a method to scout black players specifically to break the color line.  It is unclear if the league actually played the 1945 season or if it was only used as a pretense for integration.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | title=Branch Rickey | url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Branch-Rickey | encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica | access-date=November 17, 2019}}</ref>

=== Sam Nahem ===
During the Second World War, President Roosevelt had the American military establish a formal baseball organization for the soldiers in order to boost morale and eventually in order to help reintroduce the soldiers back into regular civilian life.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Dreier |first=Peter |date=2017 |title=Sam Nahem: The Right-Handed Lefty Who Integrated Military Baseball in World War II |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/758617 |journal=NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture |language=en |volume=26 |issue=1–2 |pages=184–215 |doi=10.1353/nin.2017.0025 |issn=1534-1844|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Rebels |first1=Baseball |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2bfhhv0 |title=Baseball Rebels: The Players, People, and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America |last2=Dreier |first2=Peter |last3=Elias |first3=Robert |date=2022-04-01 |publisher=Nebraska |isbn=978-1-4962-3177-2 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv2bfhhv0|jstor=j.ctv2bfhhv0 }}</ref> After the unconditional surrender of the Germans to the Allied Powers in May 1945, the American military expanded their baseball organization to the European Theater of Operations (ETO) with over 200,000 American soldiers participating; among the soldiers who participated were former and current [[Major League Baseball]] and [[Negro league baseball teams|Negro league baseball]] players.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Until 1945, black soldiers were forced to play on all-black teams.<ref name=":1" />

While stationed overseas in Rheims, France, [[Sam Nahem]], who had MLB experience, was assigned to oversee and manage two baseball leagues in France as well as player-manage his own team: the Overseas Invasion Service Expedition All-Stars (OISE All-Stars).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> In a shocking decision–by the discriminatory social standards of the time–Nahem insisted on integrating black ballplayers into the All-Stars, recruiting [[Willard Brown]] and [[Leon Day]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> When Nahem was later asked about this decision and it potentially causing issues for his team he insisted, “[t]here was no problem. I made sure there would be nothing of that sort on my team.”<ref>Jason Scheller, “The National Pastime Enlists: How Baseball Fought the Second World War,” (Texas Tech University, 2002) <nowiki>https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/efc078b2-354d-4465-b12f-d9c0ee667845/content</nowiki></ref> Nahem, who had been heavily discriminated against for his Jewish ancestry and faith, was heavily sympathetic towards black individuals who were experiencing similar treatment.<ref name=":0" /> One of the many origins of the [[Civil rights movement]] and other efforts at integration in America stemmed from the treatment black veterans received at home versus overseas as well as the juxtaposition of fighting for democracy in Europe while segregation still existed in the United States.<ref>Salmond, John, "The Long Civil Rights Movement," ''Agora'', Vol. 44, Issue 4 (2009)</ref>