Larry Doby
From Hoopedia
Lawrence Eugene "Larry" Doby (December 13, 1923 – June 18, 2003) was an American professional baseball and basketball player.
A native of Camden, South Carolina, he is most famous for being the second African American player to play in the modern major leagues and the first to do so in the American League. He was an excellent athlete, however, and also played collegiate and professional basketball.
A local star athlete from Paterson, New Jersey, Doby joined the Newark Eagles in the Negro Leagues at the age of 17, in 1942, starring as a second baseman. At that time he played under the name Larry Walker to protect his amateur status.
Doby received a basketball scholarship to attend Long Island University in 1941. He attended LIU when the New York City area was a hotbed of college basketball, and LIU was a national power. Things did not work out, however, and in 1942 he transferred to Virginia Union College. After a stint in the Navy during World War II, Doby returned to Paterson.
He rejoined the Eagles in 1946. Along with his partner, fellow baseball Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, Doby led the team to the Negro League Championship.
Doby was signed by the Cleveland Indians by their owner Bill Veeck in 1947, eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the National League.
Some sources state that Doby was the first African American to play in the American Basketball League. For the 1947-48 season Doby played in eight games for the ABL Paterson Crescents, scoring 15 points. That year the Crescents finished the season in second place. They made it to the championship series in the playoffs, but lost two games to one to the Wilkes-Barre Barons, the regular-season champs.
After his baseball career ended, Doby served as Director of Community Affairs for the New Jersey Nets from 1983 to 1990.
In 1996 Doby received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Long Island University.
Larry Doby died on June 18, 2003, in Montclair, New Jersey, at age 79.
