Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson's First Spring Training

8. Lights Out in Deland and Locked Gates in Jacksonville

133 Lights Out in Deland and Locked Gates in Jacksonville 12345678910 135 ranch Rickey achieved success in baseball because he was willing to take chances. He also succeeded because he left as little as possible to chance. He now found himself somewhere between the two, staking his organization’s future on two black men – Jackie Robinson and Johnny Wright – in the racially divided Deep South. To win his gamble, Rickey needed luck. “Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best,” he often said.“Luck is the residue of design.” Rickey and his two Montreal rookies had thus far been relatively lucky; they had survived racial threats in Sanford, and nothing bad had happened in Daytona Beach. But Montreal could not stay in Daytona Beach the rest of the spring. It had 11 road games on its spring schedule. Rickey said he would not force Jackie Robinson or Johnny Wright on any city or town. If a city insisted on enforcing its segregation ordinances, he would abide by its wishes. New York Post columnist Leonard Cohen wondered if Rickey really knew what he had gotten himself into. “Branch Rickey knew he was handling a hot potato when he signed Jackie Robinson and Johnny Wright,” Cohen wrote before Montreal’s scheduled game in Jacksonville . “But the potato is really getting hot now and fans all over the country are waiting to see how far Rickey will go to defend the presence of his colored performers.”1 On Wednesday, March 20, the Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville reported that Robinson would likely be in the lineup that Sunday afternoon when the Montreal Royals played the Jersey City Giants, the New York Giants’ aaa team. If Robinson played, the article said, it would be the first time a black had taken the field with whites at the city-owned Durkee Field. When a Times-Union sportswriter asked Montreal general manager Mel Jones if Robinson would make the trip, Jones replied, “I don’t know of any reason why Robinson won’t accompany our squad to Jacksonville.”2 Noting that Robinson’s first game in Daytona Beach had drawn a crowd of four thousand, the Times-Union indicated that a good crowd was expected for Sunday’s game – although the four hundred seats in the park’s segregated section probably would be inadequate. “One of the largest crowds ever to see an exhibition game in Jacksonville unB Lights Out in Deland and Locked Gates in Jacksonville 136 doubtedly will turn out,” the newspaper said.3 In Friday’s newspaper, however, a cryptic three-paragraph story stated that the game had been canceled because Durkee Field was “not available.”4 It turned out that on Thursday George Robinson, director of Jacksonville ’s Parks and Public Property, had notified the Jersey City team that local laws prohibited games between blacks and whites.5 He did not contact either Brooklyn or Montreal.6 When New York Giants general manager Charley Stoneham was asked to confirm the game’s cancellation, he did not answer. Instead, he said he would discuss the matter with Montreal.7 Jones told the Associated Press that neither he, his manager Clay Hopper, nor Brooklyn president Branch Rickey had received word from Jacksonville. “Jersey City is a member of our league and this game will be a good test of our team’s strength.For that reason particularly, I think Clay would like to use Robinson,” Jones said.“However, if Jacksonville will not allow Robinson to play, I don’t think Hopper will take him along.”8 Rickey told the New York Daily News that he was unaware of any laws that would prohibit either Jackie Robinson or Johnny Wright from playing.“If there is,”he said,“we will certainly obey the law, but I have not been notified of it as yet.” The newspaper quoted unnamed sportswriters who covered the Giants as saying that even if Robinson made the trip, he would not be allowed on the field because of Jim Crow laws.9 A more detailed account of the cancellation was widely distributed in Saturday’s newspapers. George Robinson explained that there was a Jacksonville ordinance forbidding competition between blacks and whites. “Rules, regulations, and policies of the Jacksonville Playground and Recreation Board,”he said,“prohibit mixed contestants in athletic events.”10 The Daily News reported that Jersey City’s...