Equal to the Test
I’LL NEVER FORGET the day Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, asked me to join his baseball organization. I would be the first Black man to play in organized baseball—that is, if I were good enough to make the grade.
Mr. Rickey’s office was large and simply furnished. There were four framed pictures on the wall. One was a Kodachrome snapshot of Leo Durocher, the field manager of the Dodgers. Another was a portrait of the late Charlie Barrett, one of the greatest scouts in the game. A third was of General Chennault. And the fourth and largest smiled down on me with calm reassurance, the portrait of the sad, trusting Abraham Lincoln, who had pleaded for malice toward none….
