Larry Doby, a Number 2 from Route One - Camden, SC

What is it about being number two?  Those who finish second are sometimes referred to as losers, even though they may have finished better than everyone else in the contest, except for the winner.  Number One, that’s the person most people remember.  If you don’t know Larry Doby’s name, you’re like most people.  He was number two behind Jackie Robinson.  Like Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, (born in Glen Ridge, NJ about 7 miles from Route One), Doby played in Robinson’s formidable shadow.

Lawrence Eugene Doby entered the American League with the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, a few months after Jackie Robinson became the first African-American player in the Major Leagues.  Because the Dodgers were a National League team, Doby was the first Black player in the American League, and the first to play in most of the American League stadiums.  He endured many of the same hardships as Robinson did in breaking the color barrier, but he was never the subject of a Hollywood film.

Most people in Camden, SC probably know who Doby is.  Doby grew up at 803 Lyttleton Street, less than 2 blocks from Route One.  He was three years old when Route 1 was organized in 1926. .  There’s a sign on Route One paying tribute to his connection to the town, a statue of him wearing his Indians uniform on Broad Street, and a Kershaw County sports complex named in his honor.

At age 14, Doby moved to Patterson, NJ to live with his mother and her family.  He had lived in Camden with his grandmother, Augusta Moore, for much of the time after his parents divorced and  his father, a horse trainer and one-time semi-pro ballplayer, drowned in a fishing accident when Larry was 8 years old.  He excelled in football, track, basketball and baseball at Patterson Eastside High School, receiving 11 varsity letters.  Before he graduated, he had joined the Newark Eagles in the Negro League and had an outstanding first summer.

While trying to attend college and continue playing baseball, he was drafted into the Navy at the end of the 1943 season.  He served as a physical education instructor at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, near Chicago, and then was transferred to serve in the Ulithi Atoll in the Pacific in 1945.  Following World War II, Doby rejoined the Newark Eagles and helped them to win the Negro Leagues title against Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Monarchs in 1946.  The next season, his contract was purchased by the Cleveland Indians, and Doby joined the team mid-season, about 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson’s debut in April of 1947.

Before long, Doby would be able to claim several “firsts”. He became the first African-American to lead either league in home runs (1952) and the first African-American to hit a home run in World Series play (Game 4, 1948).  He played 13 seasons with four different big league teams, having a career that most professional ballplayers would trade for their own.  In 1997, the Indians retired Doby’s number 14 on the 50th anniversary of his major-league debut.

Doby went on to become the second Black Manager in Major League Baseball when he took over the helm of the Chicago White Sox for Bob Lemon in 1978.  A seven time All-Star, he was the first South Carolinian inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998.  After introducing and thanking his family, Doby said during his induction speech: “I was born in a little, small town in South Carolina called Camden.”