Editing Baseball color line (section)

=== Lester Rodney ===
As a writer for the ''[[Daily Worker]]'', [[Lester Rodney]] utilized his role in the media to help integrate Major League Baseball by pressuring the establishment.<ref name=":2">Silber, Irwin (2003). ''Press Box Red: The Story of Lester Rodney, the Communist Who Helped Break the Color Line in American Sports''. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. {{ISBN|1-56639-974-2}}.</ref> By the late 1930s, MLB managers including [[Burleigh Grimes]] had already admitted to sportswriters at the ''Daily Worker'' that black ballplayers were of, "Big League Quality," but no one wanted to put their career in jeopardy by allowing that statement on an official record.<ref name=":2" /> Despite general support of this sentiment from many other managers and players like [[Bill McKechnie]], [[Doc Prothro]], [[Leo Durocher]], [[Ray Blades]], [[Casey Stengel]], [[Pie Traynor]], [[Gabby Hartnett]], [[Ernie Lombardi]], [[Mel Ott]], [[Carl Hubbell]], [[Johnny Vander Meer]], [[Bucky Walters]], [[Al Simmons]], Hans Wagner, [[Paul Waner]], [[Lloyd Waner]], [[Arky Vaughan]], [[Augie Galan]], [[Dizzy Dean]], [[Paul Dean (baseball)|Paul Dean]], and [[Pepper Martin]], all of them went along with the MLB’s official position that baseball would be integrated once the fans were ready.<ref name=":2" /> Rodney rejected this notion, explaining in a ''Daily Worker'' column from July 23, 1939 that the attempt to blame white players and fans was a preposterous excuse which is easily disproven by the large fan turnouts for exhibition games between major-league and Negro League all-star teams.<ref name=":2" />

Although his contributions to the breaking of the color line were downplayed at the time due to his communist ties, fellow sportswriting activists such as [[Wendell Smith (sportswriter)|Wendell Smith]] commended Rodney's efforts at integrating the sport, reportedly writing to Rodney: "I take this opportunity to congratulate you and the ''Daily Worker'' for the way you have joined with us on the current series concerning Negro players in the major leagues, as well as all your past great efforts in this respect...I wish you the best of luck and admire you and your liberal attitude."<ref name=":2" />