Editing Baseball color line (section)

===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>