When I first started paying attention to sports, we were living in a suburb of Akron that had two African American families out of a population of about three thousand. There was one black child in my class, Phillip Sales, but I didn’t know where his family lived or have any interaction with him unless we ended up at the same table at lunch. When we went shopping in downtown Akron my mother would steer me away from blacks if they approached, but she did that with hippies and anyone else who looked improper, so it never seemed like a big deal.
Cleveland Indians’ Larry Doby More Than Just AL’s First African-American Player
