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Oscar Charleston: Life and Legend

Oscar Charleston: Life and Legend

Tag Archives: Brooklyn Dodgers

The New York Daily News

25 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by Jeremy Beer in Brown Dodgers

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baseball integration, Branch Rickey, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Daily News, Oscar Charleston, United States League

ran an excerpt from Oscar Charleston yesterday, in which I discuss Oscar’s role scouting for Branch Rickey and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Presumably the article provided readers with a welcome interlude between stories about headless corpses and dogs driving cars.

By spring 1945 two years had passed as Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, deliberately searched, to no avail, for the first black man to sign for his team.

Part of the problem, he believed, was that it was hard for his white scouts to show up at Negro League games without arousing suspicion. It was even harder for them to get accurate inside knowledge about the character and background of any given player. Oscar Charleston and a new black baseball circuit called the United States League (USL) provided Rickey with a solution to this twofold dilemma.

More here . . .

Monte Irvin, R.I.P.

12 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by Jeremy Beer in Brown Dodgers

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Branch Rickey, Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson, Monte Irvin, Oscar Charleston

Nearly a year ago, I began to try to get in touch with former Giants great Monte Irvin. I was, of course, interested in talking to him about his memories of Oscar Charleston. Unfortunately, his health was already in serious decline. Today comes the sad news that he has died. May he rest in peace.

In his memoir, Nice Guys Finish First, Irvin wrote about Charleston and his role in helping Branch Rickey’s Dodgers scout black players–including, perhaps, himself:

“I had already gone to Puerto Rico when I heard that Jackie had signed with the Dodgers. I had gone down there to get back into shape shortly after I was discharged from the Army on September 1, 1945. Branch Rickey announced that he had signed Jackie on October 23rd of the same year. I was very happy for him. I wasn’t jealous of Jackie’s success, but I was envious. I thought, Gee whiz, why couldn’t that be me?

“Most people don’t know that Oscar Charleston was involved in the process of finding a player for Rickey to sign. Oscar was very smart and an astute baseball person. When they had their meetings, he was telling them who was out there, who was signable, and who would probably be able to make it. Oscar was probably working directly under Clyde Sukeforth. Clyde couldn’t have picked a better man to help him than Oscar, and Rickey couldn’t have picked a better man than Jackie Robinson.”

Carl Erskine and the Clowns

11 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by Jeremy Beer in Managing Career

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Brooklyn Dodgers, Carl Erskine, Indiana baseball, Indianapolis Clowns, Oscar Charleston

I had the privilege of interviewing former Brooklyn Dodgers star Carl Erskine this fall. Mr. Erskine was generous with his time and had many fascinating stories about Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and others.

I contacted Mr. Erskine because I wanted to know whether he had ever run across Oscar Charleston in person. Mr. Erskine was signed by the Dodgers in 1946, when Oscar may still have been working as a scout for Branch Rickey, and debuted for them in 1948. In addition, Mr. Erskine is from Indiana, having been born in Anderson in 1926, so I thought perhaps he might somehow, some way have crossed paths with Oscar locally.

Alas, he never met Charleston. But he had played against some all-black teams before he was signed by the Dodgers.

“I saw some really good black baseball teams,” he told me, referring to his semipro days in Indiana. “The Indianapolis Clowns had some terrific players, great athletes.” Mr. Erskine couldn’t recall whether he had played against them, but he had seen the Clowns when he was in high school. “I was pitching at 15 or 16 for a local semipro team. They’d give us $10 gas money and we’d drive and go play in Kokomo or Muncie or whatever.” This would have been in the early 1940s, well before Charleston was managing the team (which didn’t happen until 1954).

What was the quality of play in the Negro Leagues? Mr. Erskine estimated that it was “better than AAA. They would have fared very well against AAA, but not so well against the majors. It’s an awful hard thing to guess.” I would say that that, in fact, is probably the consensus judgment of former Negro Leagues players themselves.

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