Jackie's Time With The Monarchs Ends As He Heads To Brooklyn To Meet With Branch Rickey

The Monarchs were in Chicago for a four game set with the American Giants over August 24-27th. The Monarchs had a series to forget on the field, dropping all four contests while being outscored 29 to nine. Booker McDaniels had a particularly rough game on the 26th, allowing 15 runs and 21 hits in eight innings. The Monarchs managed no runs and just one hit in the game.

Jackie Robinson and Clyde Sukeforth (source)

Off the field, however, it was a monumental series, even if no one knew it at the time. The Brooklyn Dodgers, in the person of scout/coach Clyde Sukeforth, made their first contact with Jackie at the game on Friday the 24th. According to Arnold Rampersad's Jackie Robinson: A Biography:

On August 24, at Comiskey Park, Jack was out on the field, but nursing a sore shoulder, when a white man called out his name and beckoned. Jack went over. The man introduced himself as Clyde Sukeforth, which meant nothing to Robinson. The he said he was there on behalf of Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Now he had Jack's attention. Mr. Rickey was starting a team, the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers. He wondered about Jackie's arm strength; could Jack throw a few balls for Sukeforth? The Dodger  scout would remember Jack listening "carefully, and when I was through he spoke right up--Jackie was never shy, you know."

"Why is Mr. Rickey interested in my arm?" Jack asked. "Why is he interested in me?"

Sukeforth convinced Robinson to meet him after the game at the Stevens Hotel, where the scout was staying, and where he bribed a bellman two dollars to allow Jack to use the passenger elevator, from which blacks were normally barred. Eventually Jack arrived and began to pepper Sukeforth with questions. One thing above all intrigued both men. Mr. Rickey had made it clear, as Sukeforth informed Jack, that if Robinson would not come to him, he would come to Robinson. Both Jack and Sukeforth now suspected that something more than a place on the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers might be at stake.

The men arranged to meet in Toledo, where Sukeforth had to observe another player,then take the train to New York. Sukeforth then sent a wire to Rickey telling of Jack's injury ("Player fell on shoulder last Tuesday [21st]. Will be out of game a few more days"). On Sunday night [26th], after the white scout convinced a ticket seller that, yes, he intended to share quarters with the black man, they left Toledo.

After a day of travel on the 27th, Robinson had his legendary meeting with Rickey on the 28th.

Robinson did go to the ballpark with his Monarchs teammates one last time on the 26th, but didn't play due to his injury. Chicago Defender sportswriter Fay Young had somehow gotten wind that Jackie might be heading east to meet with Rickey, and he questioned Jackie about it at Comiskey on the 26th. Young wrote in a September 1 column:

Between the doubleheader [on the 26th], your columnist flagged Robinson and asked him what there was to the rumors.

"Just rumors," answered Jackie.

Pressed for an answer to a simple question as to whether he had been invited, approached on the subject or not, Robinson evaded a direct answer.

Told that if it was such a secret , somebody had been doing some talking as too many, even to his club owner, knew about it, Robinson came back with a grin, "Well, it's a rumor. If you don't see me here tomorrow, then there's something to it."

September 1 Chicago Defender

Robinson, Williams, McDaniels & Duncan In Chicago For East-West Game; Monarchs Take On American Giants In KC

Jackie goes 0-5 at East-West all-star game, Satchel pitches a masterpiece in Kansas City.

August 4 Chicago Defender

August 3 Kansas City Call

Satchel Makes First '45 Appearance & Jackie Is Perfect At The Plate

The Monarchs and American Giants returned to Chicago for a Memorial Day double header. Satchel Paige was on the mound for the Monarchs in game one. This marks the first time Satchel joined the 1945 squad. He was primarily a Monarch from 1940-1947, but he never really belonged to just one team. He was the ultimate free agent, making one-off appearances with any team willing to part with a big enough cut of the gate. Satch may have been traveling the country making such appearances, or perhaps he just got a late start on the season.

Satchel pitched six frames for KC, allowing two runs on just three hits and one walk. Satch struck out six. The Monarchs only managed one off familiar foe Gentry Jessup in the first six innings, so the Monarchs trailed 1-2 when Booker McDaniels took over for KC in the seventh. McDaniels shut the Giants out for his three innings, and the Monarchs managed to get three more off Jessup to claim game one 4-2.

In the second game, Hilton Smith went all seven innings and allowed just two runs but suffered a loss as Walter McCoy hurled a shutout for Chicago. The Monarchs managed just four hits off McCoy, and three of them belonged to Jackie. From the June 1 Kansas City Call: "Jackie Robinson had a perfect day at the bat in both games. He doubled, singled and tripled in the second. In the first, he walked three times and on his fourth trip to the plate singled." Not a bad day's work.

Satchel illustration by Steve Willaredt

A Losing Effort In Chicago's Home Opener

May 27 was the fourth Sunday of the 1945 Negro American League season, but it was the first home game for the Chicago American Giants. Chicago fans were ready, as 18,000 came out to Comiskey Park to see the Giants take on the Monarchs. The two clubs were already quite familiar with each other; this was the third Sunday they'd met in the young season, and had squared off in many mid-week and preseason barnstorming contests. In all the '45 Giants vs. Monarchs games played before May 27 for which I've found results, Kansas City had won six of eight.

Booker McDaniels & Gentry Jessup

Pitchers Booker McDaniels and Gentry Jessup faced off for the third time of the year. Both  went the distance. McDaniels allowed eight Giants hits and Jessup allowed seven Monarchs safeties. Both struck out two and walked two. Sounds like an even match-up, but Chicago apparently did a better job of bunching baserunners in managing a 6-2 win. Monarchs manager Frank Duncan had Jackie Robinson in the the sixth spot of the batting order after batting him third in every game I've seen a box for before this one. Jackie had a 1-for-3 day with a double. (The three at-bats suggest he may have drawn a walk.) Rain fell through the final two innings, and the scheduled second game was called off.

From the June 2 Chicago Defender summary:

The Giants, all dolled up in their new uniforms, looked and played like a big league club. This of course does not detract from the performance of the Monarchs, especially Jackie Robinson, the Pacific Coast star who the Boston Red Sox owner said was of big league calibre. Jackie, who was recently discharged from the army where he served as lieutenant, handled nine chances in short perfectly. He contributed a double in the fourth with Moody on first but the Monarchs couldn't score as (Dave) Harper, who played stellar football at Clark college in Atlanta, looked at the third strike float by.

June 2 Pittsburgh Courier summary and box

Fay Young's "Through The Years" column, June 2 Chicago Defender