Joe Black

More than a Dodger

Martha Jo Black, Martha Jo Black, Chuck Schoffner, Chuck Schoffner

• Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers
• eBook ISBN:
  9780897337557
• Year: 2015

He was told that the color of his skin would keep him out of the big leagues, but Joe Black worked his way up through the Negro Leagues and the Cuban Winter League. He burst into the Majors in 1952 when he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In the face of segregation, verbal harassment, and even death threats, Joe Black rose to the top of his game; he earned National League Rookie of the Year and became the first African American pitcher to win a World Series game. With the same tenacity he showed in his baseball career, Black became the first African American vice president of a transportation corporation when he went to work for Greyhound. In this first-ever biography of Joe Black, his daughter Martha Jo Black tells the story not only of a baseball great who broke through the color line, but also of the father she knew and loved.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Peter O’malley
• Introduction
• 1 Historic Win
• 2 A Shattered Dream
• 3 A Second Newcombe?
• 4 Joe College
• 5 A Dodger at Last
• 6 A Dream Reawakened
• 7 Dizzy Dean Speaks up
• 8 GI Joe
• 9 Joe to the Rescue
• 10 Throwing Heat in Havana
• 11 Dominating in the Dog Days
• 12 From a Royal to a Saint
• 13 First a Threat, Then a Pennant
• 14 Career Change
• 15 Dodger Disappointment—again
• 16 Mr. Greyhound
• 17 A Question of Value
• 18 A Single Parent
• 19 A Star Fades
• 20 Going to BAT for Others
• 21 Playing on a Rep
• 22 The Final Inning
• Bibliography