Baseball pioneer Larry Doby remembered during memorial service in New Jersey

Jet, July 14, 2003

Friends, family and fellow Hall of Famers recently gathered to remember Larry Doby, 56 years after he became the American League's first Black player.

Doby died June 18 at his home in Montclair, NJ, after a bout with cancer at the age of 78 (JET, July 7). He broke the AL's color barrier when he joined the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson played his first game in the National League.

During an afternoon memorial service at the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Montclair, Doby was remembered as a man of quiet dignity who never said an unkind word, even about those hostile to his joining the Indians.

Hall of Famers Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra and Joe Morgan as well as Gov. James E. McGreevey, U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg and Rep. William J. Pascrell Jr. were among more than 300 mourners at the service.

Morgan, a two-time NL MVP with the Cincinnati Reds in the 1970s, met Doby in 1976, and the two became golf buddies.

"I'm a frat brother of Larry's in the greatest fraternity on earth, the Hall of Fame," Morgan said during the ceremony. "He never, ever told me who would not shake his hand, because some of those folks were in the Hall of Fame."

"When we celebrate Larry, we celebrate what it means to be an American," the governor said.

Lawrence Eugene Doby Sr. was born in Camden, SC, but he grew up in Paterson, NJ, then moved to Montclair 40 years ago. A seven-time All-Star in his 13 seasons in the major leagues, Doby was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998.

Larry Doby Jr., one of Doby's five children, read his father's obituary, noting he attended Long Island University and Virginia Union University before he was drafted by the Navy in 1943.

In addition to Larry Jr., Doby's surviving children are Leslie Feggan, Kimberly Martin, Susan Robinson and Christina Fearrington. Doby's wife died of cancer in 2001.

"We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day, and all my daddy's friends were there from all over," Fearrington, 53, of Edison, NJ, told the Associated Press.