AKRON, Ohio – On July 3, 1947, Bill Veeck walked into the office of Lou Boudreau.

The Indians’ manager/shortstop wondered what the team owner wanted, and Boudreau knew Veeck had seriously considered trading him only a few months earlier.

Veeck and Boudreau were not best buddies.

Now, Veeck had a plan.

“Lou, we’ve signed a new player,” he said.

“Who?” asked the manager.

“Larry Doby,” said Veeck. “He’s a Negro.”

With those words, Doby became a Cleveland Indian, the first black player in the American League, the second player to break major league baseball’s color barrier.

Talk about bad planning.

The Brooklyn Dodgers had carefully broken the color line earlier that year with Jackie Robinson. They signed him in 1945, allowing Robinson to grow used to playing with and against all white men in baseball’s Class AAA level.

In the spring of 1947, Robinson trained with the Dodgers, where his new teammates could see his obvious talent and get to know him slowly.

Doby was different.

No spring training. No minor-league seasoning. No warning for his new manager or teammates.

He came straight from the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League to Cleveland.

“What position does he play?” asked Boudreau.

“Second base,” said Veeck.

The Indians had an All-Star at second named Joe Gordon, who also was a close friend to Boudreau.

“Where else?” asked Boudreau.

“Short,” said Veeck.

Wait a minute, Boudreau was the shortstop!

Boudreau was being handed the first black player in team history, a stranger as a person and athlete – and the manager had no idea where he should even put this 23-year-old on the field.

Veeck called a team meeting. He told the players about signing Doby. He said anyone who used a racial slur “can leave this room right now, because Larry Doby is going to be bigger than any of you.”

The players wondered if this was just another gimmick by Veeck to hype the attendance for a team that was out of contention. They were very suspicious of Doby not just because of his race, but also because he seemed to be the owner’s favorite being shoved down the throat of the manager and likely to take the job of one of their friends.

This is the part of the Larry Doby story that most people don’t know. Veeck’s good intentions were nearly overshadowed by his bad planning. Doby received far less preparation than Jackie Robinson – yet he faced the same racial barriers.

As Doby said years later: “I signed 11 weeks after Jackie went to the Brooklyn Dodgers. What would have been different? We still have racial problems now, why would it have been any different in 1947?”

It wasn’t.

And that makes what Doby accomplished all the more remarkable.

In the shadows

Doby died late Wednesday night at 79 after a long battle with cancer.

His career was spent in the shadows: The second black player after Jackie Robinson, the second black major-league manager after the Tribe’s Frank Robinson.

He was always very good, but very underrated. He was a seven-time All-Star, and a man of few words who hated drawing attention to himself.

When Robinson came into the big leagues, he was a physically mature 27.

Doby was 6 feet, 170 pounds of arms and legs, looking like a high school kid. Not a single member of the organization – other than Veeck – believed he was ready for the majors.

And he wasn’t.

In the final three months of the 1947 season, Doby batted only 32 times. He had five hits, 11 strikeouts and a .156 average. To him, every at-bat felt like his last, the pressure squeezing the natural life out of his swing.

Veeck told Doby not to get in any fights, don’t talk to any umpires, don’t acknowledge any insults, don’t even sign an autograph for a single white woman. In some cities, Doby wouldn’t be able to stay in the same hotel with the rest of the team. Veeck had even more rules, cautioning Doby to be careful.

Doby took that to mean: Don’t say a word.

And he didn’t.

Change of position

After the 1947 season, the Indians had no idea what the future held for Doby. They knew he had to learn the outfield, and they handed him a book by Tommy Henrich, the Yankee outfielder who explained how to play the position.

Veeck also brought former Tribe All-Star Tris Speaker to spring training in 1948, to tutor Doby in center field.

Six weeks in Tucson helped Doby to feel comfortable, and it showed his teammates that the young man from Newark belonged. Doby batted .301 with 14 homers in 1948 as the Indians became World Series champions. Doby won Game 4 of the World Series with a homer, and a picture of him being hugged by Tribe pitcher Steve Gromek appeared all over the country.

Both men received racist hate mail.

But Doby persevered.

He loved the support of Veeck, who called him, “Lawrence.” Veeck insisted Doby call him “Bill.” He and his wife took Doby and his bride to some of Cleveland’s finest restaurants.

When Doby was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998, he thanked Veeck. He said the people of Cleveland “treated me with nothing but respect.” He said he never expected to be a racial pioneer, to be a Hall of Famer.

He thought of Joe Gordon, the star Tribe second baseman. In his first at-bat with the Indians, Doby struck out. Then he sat down at the end of the bench, by himself.

Gordon slowly walked over, sitting next to Doby an inning later. “Hey,” he said. “I just struck out, too.”

Some teammates were like that, good men willing to be friends.

Others were not, acting as if Doby had the plague, barely tolerating being in the same room with him. The newspapers in the late 1940s called him “a mild-mannered, coppery-colored boy.”

That stuff hurt.

In 1999, Doby told reporters: “The Bible says to forgive and forget. You might forgive, but it’s tough to forget.”

After he signed Doby, Veeck told him, “Lawrence, you are becoming a part of history.”

A part that no baseball fan should forget.