A trio less famous, but deserving of more credit than history has given them for their role in desegregating baseball, were riding the pine in the home dugout, writes TPCarney.
The Chicago Cubs, improbably, were riding a nine-game winning streak on Sept. 14, 1953, facing the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers for the second game of a two-game set. The home-field Cubs would beat the Dodgers again that day to make it 10.
There was a third shortstop on the Cubs’ bench that day, who was not nearly as young as Banks or Baker: the 36-year-old son of an Italian immigrant, Bob Ramazzotti. That wasn’t great news for Baker, who had to shift to second base to be Banks’s supporting player. And Ramazzotti? He spent the second half of September 1953 teaching Baker how to play second.Altoona’s finest
“Ramy’s work to date can hardly fail to impress Brooklyn Dodger scouts and it would not be surprising if the former Millville and Columbia Park shortstop winds up the season in a league of a higher class.” He made the Penn State Association’s all-star team as the shortstop in 1940, and that September, the Dodgers summoned him to Brooklyn — to the big leagues.
When peace came, Ramy finally got his crack at the bigs. With third baseman Cookie Lavagetto injured, and creaky shortstop Eddie Stanky showing his age, “Dodgers president Branch Rickey announced that the team, needing infield insurance, had purchased Ramazzotti from Montreal,” biographer James Forr wrote.But there was another infielder climbing up through the ranks with a chance to land on the big league club that year: a fellow by the name Jackie Robinson.
Sure enough, Jackie Robinson spent the historic 1947 season in the Dodgers infield, winning Rookie of the Year. Bob Ramazzotti spent the entire season back down at St. Paul, where a minor league pitcher plunked him in the temple with a fastball, putting Ramy on death’s door. Baker was supposed to be first. At one point, he was supposed to be the Cubs’ starting shortstop. But both of those honors went to Banks, and Baker had to cede shortstop to Banks and learn second base. If “Mr. Cub” sounds like a comic strip hero name, old Gene Baker was the trusty sidekick.
Being the best shortstop in the Pacific Coast League is quite a thrill. But being the best shortstop in the Pacific Coast League for four straight years has a different salience. It was an indignity. It was obvious that Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley was dragging his feet on integration. Finally, come fall, the Cubs announced Baker would join the major league roster after the minor league season ended. In one of his last at-bats in the minors, Baker tweaked his back on a swing-and-miss. The Tribune reported on Sept. 1, “The Cubs yesterday announced the purchase for an undisclosed sum of Shortstop Ernest Banks from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League.”
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