Word: bramham
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Minor League Commissioner Bill Bramham exploded: "Father Divine will have to look to his laurels, for we can expect Rickey Temple to be in the course of construction in Harlem soon." Ex-Star Rogers Hornsby put his finger on a sore spot: "Ball players on the road live [close] together. It won't work." Most baseball men, after an initial blush, realized that it could and perhaps would work (it had worked pretty well in college sports...
When Rickey startled the sports world in 1945 by announcing that Robinson would join the Dodgers farm team in Montreal, Minor League Commissioner W.G. Bramham called Rickey a "carpetbagger" and scoffed: "Father Divine will have to look to his laurels, for we can expect Rickey Temple to be in the course of construction in Harlem soon." From retirement, Slugger Rogers Hornsby warned, "Ballplayers on the road live close together. It won't work." Bob Feller, the fireballing Cleveland Indians pitcher, thought he had a more reasonable reservation: "I can't foresee any future for Robinson in big league...
...ugliest comments were spoken in ripe, raucous Brooklynese. Even some owners in the low-paying Negro leagues protested against "raiding" their men. There had been Negroes in big-league ball before, but they had been careful to identify themselves as Indians or "Cubans." The late Minor League President Bill Bramham cried: "Father Divine will have to look to his laurels, for we can expect Rickey Temple to be in the course of construction in Harlem soon." Rickey, ignoring the uproar, treated Jackie "white," giving him a year's seasoning in the minors. The four other Negroes who followed Robinson...
Answering a telegram from Warden Lawes, Judge Bramham amplified his decision: "It is not a question of the individual, but his case presents a question: 'Shall the ranks of organized baseball be open to ex-convicts?'. . . If my judgment is erroneous, I am glad the executive committee and the commissioner have the power to reverse...
...group of reporters. In Syracuse, where he joined the Albany Senators pending an executive committee hearing to decide whether he could play, a crowd of 300 met Baseballer Pitts at the station. He reached his hotel with a motorcycle police escort. Four days later the executive committee upheld Judge Bramham's ruling. Albany executives planned to refer the case to baseball's Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Said Alabama Pitts: "You know it's funny, all this fuss being made about me, when they don't really know whether I can play ball...