PRESS BOX RED: THE STORY OF LESTER RODNEY, THE COMMUNIST WHO HELPED BREAK THE COLOR LINE IN AMERICAN SPORTS

Silber, Irwin; Foreword by Jules Tygiel

ISBN 10: 1566399742 / ISBN 13: 9781566399746

Published by Temple University Press, 2003

About this Item

[xx], 236p. 1st printing. Signed by author and Rodney on half title page. People's Weekly World book review, November 22-28, 2003, laid in. Biography recounting the Daily Worker sportswriter's career and campaign to end segregation in American sports. Lester Rodney, sports journalist for the Communist newspaper The Daily Worker, has often been overlooked when recounting the story of Jackie Robinson's signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team in 1945, thereby integrating the sport. However, Rodney had been working since 1936 to overturn the injustice of segregated ball teams. The timing was right when Rodney wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Worker "pointing out some ways they could improve their sports stuff" because in the 1930s, the Communist Party aimed to appeal to the masses through popular culture, adding among other features two full pages of sports coverage. Rodney covered the sports as any sports journalist would, but with an eye on social conscience while showing "the fun side of sports and the beauty, too." His column for The Daily Worker was one of the paper's most popular. Silber combines thorough research with 30 hours of interviews conducted with Rodney to ensure that much of the book is in Rodney's voice a critically well-received biography of a hidden hero. Includes bibliography. B&w plates. (8-7/8"x6").

Seller Inventory # P8430

Bibliographic Details

• Title: PRESS BOX RED: THE STORY OF LESTER RODNEY, THE COMMUNIST WHO HELPED BREAK THE COLOR LINE IN AMERICAN SPORTS
• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1566399742
• ISBN 13: 9781566399746
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • BASEBALL

About this title

Synopsis

Long before Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to a Brooklyn Dodger contract in 1945, Lester Rodney, the newly hired and first sports editor of the Communist Daily Worker, launched the campaign that proved decisive in eventually breaking baseball's color line. But in the hostile anti-Communist climate of those years and for many years after, Rodney's story remained largely unknown. It therefore came as a surprise to many when Arnold Rampersad, in his authoritative 1997 biography of Jackie Robinson, wrote: "In the campaign to end Jim Crow in baseball, the most vigorous efforts came from the Communist press, most notably from Lester Rodney." Now Press Box Red tells the story of that remarkable 11-year campaign and of Rodney's unique career covering sports for the Daily Worker until he left the Communist Party in 1958. Press Box Red is packed with first-hand accounts of Rodney's challenges to the high muck-a-mucks of professional and collegiate sports, and contains frank and frequently humorous encounters with owners, managers, and coaches like Branch Rickey, Larry MacPhail, Bill Veeck, Leo Durocher, Casey Stengel, Nat Holman, Clair Bee and numerous athletes including Robinson, Roy Campanella, Joe DiMaggio, Satchel Paige, Peewee Reese, Joe Louis, Henry Armstrong, and many others. It's a story every fan will love.

About the Author

Irwin Silber is a self-employed writer who lives in the Bay Area of northern California. He is the author or editor of eight previous books, including (with Barbara Dane) The Vietnam Song Book.