WI Branch Rickie and Jackie Robinson . . .

WI in 1947 Branch Rickie and Jackie Robinson didn't break the color barrier in MLB; let's say neither existed. . . . How/when would MLB become integrated?
 
One way would to be having an owner looking to draw better attendances at their team's home games. The Dodgers were very popular among African American audiences. Another thought would be having the Pacific Coast League becoming a third major league and allow integration as a way to outdraw the AL/NL.
 
Probably about half a season later when Bill Veeck signs Larry Doby to play for the Indians.

Your post suggest you believe Branch Rickie and Jackie Robinson aren't as important as purported. You believe that without Robinson, the AL would have made the break through anyway? I have often heard that the AL was the tougher nut to crack when it came to segregated baseball.
 
Your post suggest you believe Branch Rickie and Jackie Robinson aren't as important as purported. You believe that without Robinson, the AL would have made the break through anyway? I have often heard that the AL was the tougher nut to crack when it came to segregated baseball.

I dunno...Bill Veeck seemed like the kind of owner who did whatever the hell he wanted, and if he wanted to sign Doby, he wasn’t about to let a bunch of sticks-in-the-mind stop him.

Robinson and Rickey were important, yes, but we would remember Veeck as fondly today if not for them. Maybe it would have taken some more time, but it would have happened.
 
Veeck was rumored to have had a plan in 1943 to buy the Philadelphia Phillies and stock the lineup with essentially a Negro League All-Star team. Although this plan is much disputed as to whether it existed or how far it progressed.

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis torpedoed the plan and made sure the Phillies were sold to somebody else. Veeck went in the Marines and was critically injured in WWII and then bought the Indians in 1946.

If Rickey and Robinson had not broken the barrier in late 1945, it is certainly reasonable to think Veeck would have tried shortly Thereafter.

However Veeck was very unpopular with other owners due to his rebellious nature. It is not unlikely to think the other owners might not have supported Veeck and even challenged integration if he was the point man for all of baseball.
 
However Veeck was very unpopular with other owners due to his rebellious nature. It is not unlikely to think the other owners might not have supported Veeck and even challenged integration if he was the point man for all of baseball.

That depends. Veeck was unpopular with owners because, as I mentioned, he did pretty much whatever the hell he wanted. But if he integrates before the rest of the AL and he wins, the other owners will take notice - and it will be next to impossible to close he barn door once the horse leaves if Veeck actually wins. And since the Indians won it all the year after Doby started OTL, it’s not far-fetched.
 
Well, if Rickey had not signed Jackie Robinson and Veeck, at least in theory, would have had the entire Negro Leagues talent base at his disposal, it's a good bet Veeck would have indeed signed an All-Star team and probably run roughshod over the AL (probably all of baseball) for several years (or maybe much longer, considering the influx of black stars who arrived after 1950 -- Aaron, Mays, Clemente, Banks, etc etc etc).

It's hard to imagine the other owners taking very kindly to that.

It's likely some would have adopted the battle cry that they were battling the "black menace" and set up their team as the "white hopes."

In OTL, of course, some teams kind of informally did that anyway -- the Yankees, Red Sox and Tigers dragged their feet for years, and added black players very slowly when they finally did integrate.
 
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If one team was designated as the "all-black team," and some kind of violence erupted at games, it's very easy to see MLB getting cold feet about the whole deal and calling for a "cooling off period" of several years in which blacks would "return" to the Negro Leagues until at some golden day the nation would be deemed "ready."

So in retrospect it's a very good thing one team was not designated as the "official black team," and in fact other teams did start signing players in 1947-48.
 
Another interesting angle to the whole idea of baseball integration: in 1903, John McGraw tried to sign Charlie Grant, a black second baseman. to the Baltimore Orioles (then a scrambling team in the upstart American League).

A few years later McGraw became manager of the NY Giants and one of the most powerful people in baseball. Supposedly McGraw several times talked about signing black players in the 1900s-1920s.

What if, for instance, in 1925, he's getting fed up with getting overshadowed by Babe Ruth and he says, "the hell with the unwritten rule, I am John McGraw of the NY Giants, I am gonna sign black players whether anybody else likes it or not."
 
Another interesting angle to the whole idea of baseball integration: in 1903, John McGraw tried to sign Charlie Grant, a black second baseman. to the Baltimore Orioles (then a scrambling team in the upstart American League).

A few years later McGraw became manager of the NY Giants and one of the most powerful people in baseball. Supposedly McGraw several times talked about signing black players in the 1900s-1920s.

What if, for instance, in 1925, he's getting fed up with getting overshadowed by Babe Ruth and he says, "the hell with the unwritten rule, I am John McGraw of the NY Giants, I am gonna sign black players whether anybody else likes it or not."

McGraw kept a list of black players he wanted for the Giants: IIRC, it was found among his personal effects when he died. I've mentioned the scenario you suggest elsewhere, by the way: i.e., McGraw goes to the Giants' upper management after the Yankees have beaten them in the World Series, and proposed signing a couple of black players in order to (a) return to/stay on top of the NL, and (b) regain primacy among the fans of New York. With players like Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson, he might just have done so.
 
McGraw kept a list of black players he wanted for the Giants: IIRC, it was found among his personal effects when he died. I've mentioned the scenario you suggest elsewhere, by the way: i.e., McGraw goes to the Giants' upper management after the Yankees have beaten them in the World Series, and proposed signing a couple of black players in order to (a) return to/stay on top of the NL, and (b) regain primacy among the fans of New York. With players like Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson, he might just have done so.

This has “NYC black player arms race” written all over it. If the Giants do it, you bet your ass the Dodgers will, and then the Yankees almost have to - especially if McGraw beats the Yankees with a guy like Gibson.
 
This has “NYC black player arms race” written all over it. If the Giants do it, you bet your ass the Dodgers will, and then the Yankees almost have to - especially if McGraw beats the Yankees with a guy like Gibson.

Well, maybe with respect to the Yankees: even in the '20s, the Yankees front office had a rather elevated / elitist opinion of the franchise, figuring they could go on winning with a lily-white roster. Now, if someone like often cash-strapped Connie Mack or perpetually cash strapped Clark Griffith had signed a couple of black stars relatively inexpensively, and either the A's and/or the Senators had started winning big time, that would definitely have forced the Yankees' hands.
 
Well, maybe with respect to the Yankees: even in the '20s, the Yankees front office had a rather elevated / elitist opinion of the franchise, figuring they could go on winning with a lily-white roster. Now, if someone like often cash-strapped Connie Mack or perpetually cash strapped Clark Griffith had signed a couple of black stars relatively inexpensively, and either the A's and/or the Senators had started winning big time, that would definitely have forced the Yankees' hands.

I was thinking the same thing from a different point of view. The Yankees could continue to dominate the AL with white players, assuming no one else in the AL got on board with integration, but if they kept losing the World Series to the likes of the Dodgers and Giants after they sign black players, the Yankees will likely follow suit.

I can’t imagine people would be that up in arms in NYC over the Yankees not integrating for purposes of equality and civil rights, but if the fans start agitating with “why aren’t they doing everything in their power to win?” then signing black players will be a near-certainty. It wouldn’t matter if the teams taking down the Yankees are the likes of the A’s, Senators and Indians (or maybe Comiskey decides black players are cheaper and signs them to save a buck, which would inevitably bring back the term “Black Sox” in a whole different light) or if it’s the crosstown rivals in the Series.

Another wrinkle - given that Landis was a hardcore segregationist (how much of this was Landis himself and how much was him pandering to ownership is debatable) the best that black players could hope for would be that Landis would allow owners to integrate but not demand or even ask that they do so. OTL the last holdout was the Red Sox (the Senators held out until 1954 and the Yankees until 1955, but in fairness, breaking in with the Yankees was a hell of a feat no matter what color you were, and it happened a year after the Yankees cracked 100 wins and still didn’t win the pennant, so based on that, the Yankees would probably be the last NYC team to have a black player and probably would do so between five and 10 years after their crosstown rivals did so. And it would probably happen after a tough loss.)
 
I was thinking the same thing from a different point of view. The Yankees could continue to dominate the AL with white players, assuming no one else in the AL got on board with integration, but if they kept losing the World Series to the likes of the Dodgers and Giants after they sign black players, the Yankees will likely follow suit.

I can’t imagine people would be that up in arms in NYC over the Yankees not integrating for purposes of equality and civil rights, but if the fans start agitating with “why aren’t they doing everything in their power to win?” then signing black players will be a near-certainty. It wouldn’t matter if the teams taking down the Yankees are the likes of the A’s, Senators and Indians (or maybe Comiskey decides black players are cheaper and signs them to save a buck, which would inevitably bring back the term “Black Sox” in a whole different light) or if it’s the crosstown rivals in the Series.

Another wrinkle - given that Landis was a hardcore segregationist (how much of this was Landis himself and how much was him pandering to ownership is debatable) the best that black players could hope for would be that Landis would allow owners to integrate but not demand or even ask that they do so. OTL the last holdout was the Red Sox (the Senators held out until 1954 and the Yankees until 1955, but in fairness, breaking in with the Yankees was a hell of a feat no matter what color you were, and it happened a year after the Yankees cracked 100 wins and still didn’t win the pennant, so based on that, the Yankees would probably be the last NYC team to have a black player and probably would do so between five and 10 years after their crosstown rivals did so. And it would probably happen after a tough loss.)

Rickey had to wait for Landis to die and "Happy" Chandler to move into position before he could move on Jackie Robinson. -- Some reports claim that 15 of the 16 owners voted against Rickey but Chandler ignored the vote and gave Rickey the go ahead anyway.

Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe, "Chandler had cared for black players in baseball when it wasn't fashionable.”

The claim that 15 of the 16 owners voted against Robinson's inclusion is a popular claim but I now wonder. --- After several posters brought up Bill Veeck (you in particular) I went looking into his history. I came away believing what the other posters believed, that Veeck was likely to make the integration move himself if Rickey hadn't acted first. This makes me now question that 15 out of 16 number. I have a hard time believing Veeck would have voted "no." -- (That is assuming the one yes vote was the Dodger's owners; I hesitate to say O'Malley because he doesn't actually gain undisputed control of the franchise until 1950.)

Either way I think Happy Chandler deserves more credit than he usually gets.

Dodger ownership in 1947 looked like this [Wikipedia]: O'Malley was appointed the attorney for the Dodgers, (Brooklyn Trust Company) and he obtained a minority ownership interest on November 1, 1944. He purchased 25% as did Branch Rickey and John L. Smith (president of Pfizer Chemical),while the heirs of Stephen McKeever retained the final quarter.
 
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