Best All-Time Center Fielders #15: Larry Doby
“It was 11 weeks between the time Jackie Robinson and I came into the majors. I can’t see how things were any different for me than they were for him.”—Larry Doby
When Jackie Robinson Day rolls around every year in Major League Baseball, it sometimes gets forgotten that Larry Doby made his big league debut with Cleveland less than three months after Robinson’s debut. Doby was the first African-American to play in the American League and, as such, faced the same abuse that Robinson faced.
When he first joined the team in the summer of 1947, Doby was not welcomed by his new teammates. They didn’t look at him or speak to him in the clubhouse. According to Bill White, Doby had to get a first baseman’s glove from the opposing team because none of his Cleveland teammates offered him one.
Robinson, of course, was an immediate starter with the Dodgers, so he had the opportunity to silence his critics with his play on the field. Doby spent most of his first season on the bench. He only had 33 plate appearances in 1947 and did not impress. He hit .156/.182/.188 that year.
Things were better for Doby and Cleveland in 1948. He bumped his rate stats up to .301/.384/.490 and scored 83 runs in 121 games. In the 1948 World Series, Doby became the first African American player to hit a World Series home run as Cleveland won the series in six games. That season solidified Doby’s spot in the Cleveland outfield, where he would be a perennial all-star for the next seven seasons.
In his prime, Doby twice led the league in home runs and twice finished in the top 10 in MVP voting. Along with 25-30 HR power, he also walked 90-plus times on a regular basis. Among the 20 center fielders on this list, Doby ranks ninth offensively, with a 137 wRC+.
After nine seasons in Cleveland, Doby was traded to the Chicago White Sox after the 1955 season. He spent two seasons with the White Sox, then came back to Cleveland before finishing out his career with the Tigers and White Sox (again) in 1959.
Doby has never received the recognition by casual fans that Jackie Robinson gets as a pioneer for African-American ballplayers, but passionate baseball fans know about Doby. The Indians inducted him into their franchise Hall of Fame in 1966. He’s also a member of the South Carolina Hall of Fame and the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
In 1998, the Veterans Committee selected Doby for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Nine years later, the Indians honored him by having every player where his number 14 on Larry Doby Day (August 10, 2007). In 2012, the field next to the team’s ballpark was renamed “Larry Doby Way.” More recently, on July 25, 2015, a statue of Larry Doby was dedicated at Progressive Field.