Great photo Markus!
After the 1946 season, Jethroe joined the Satchel Paige All-Stars and barnstormed through 17 games, playing against a team of major leaguers headed by the entrepreneurial Bob Feller. Paige’s team won seven of them. Jethroe gave Feller credit for helping black players into the majors. “He gave us a chance to show what we could do against major leaguers.”
Jethroe was courted by Mexican League head honcho Jorge Pasquel to play ball in the Mexican League, but declined. He did go to Venezuela for a while and was there when the news broke that Jackie Robinson had been signed. Jethroe played in the Cuban Winter League in 1947-48 and again in 1948-49. Playing center field for Almendares, Jethroe hit a team-leading .308 and led the league with 53 runs scored and 22 stolen bases. He again led the league in stolen bases (with 32) for the 1948-49 Almendares team, though his 37 strikeouts also led the league. He hit .320 in that year’s Caribbean Series.
In his quest for a better Brooklyn team and to desegregate the majors, Dodgers GM Branch Rickey reportedly interviewed Jethroe as well as Robinson. But Jethroe acknowledged that he smoked and drank, and Rickey felt he needed to go with a more clean-cut pioneer. He selected Robinson. “He had everything Mr. Rickey wanted,” Jethroe said, “He was a college man who had experienced the white world, and I wasn’t.”
But Fresco Thompson scouted Jethroe and the Dodgers did purchase Jethroe’s contract from the Buckeyes for a reported $5,000, and in July 1948 assigned him to Montreal. He had the two exceptional years noted above, and there were those who called him “the man who made Montreal forget about Jackie Robinson.” For instance, in the first 11 games he played against the Buffalo Bisons, Jethroe put together a different sort of streak – he stole at least one base in each game. Buffalo manager Paul Richards, Bob Dolgan wrote, “was so fearful of leadoff man Jethroe’s speed, he would intentionally walk the pitcher in front of him, blocking Jethroe’s running.” When they did pitch to Jethroe in the Negro Leagues, Buck O’Neil recalled, “the infield would have to come in a few steps or you’d never throw him out.”
During spring training in 1949, Jethroe was clocked in a 60-yard sprint at 5.9 seconds—two -tenths of a second faster than the world’s record at the time. Stunned as to what his stopwatch showed, the Dodgers’ Arthur Mann later helped arrange an exhibition 75-yard dash against Olympian Bunny Ewell. Jethroe beat Ewell by a few yards. Another race that spring clocked Jethroe at 6.1 seconds, tying the world record. He could run fast in games, too, of course. Arthur Daley of the New York Times noted the time Jethroe had scored from second – standing up – on an infield dribbler.
Rickey had Duke Snider in center field and really had no place in the big leagues for Jethroe. He may also have decided that Jethroe lacked power in his bat; Jethroe had hit just the one home run for the Royals. During a phone call with Boston Braves GM John Quinn on September 30, Rickey sold Jethroe’s contract to the Braves. It was a big deal, said to have been for at least $100,000. New York sportswriter Dan Daniel said the Jethroe sale – one of several Rickey made in a flurry that netted the Dodgers well over half a million dollars – brought Brooklyn $125,000 and Clint Conatser and Don Thompson. The caption for the AP wirephoto that ran in the October 12, 1949 Boston Herald said Jethroe was “regarded as the greatest base runner since Ty Cobb was in his prime.”
As Harliduck showed, the 1951 Bowman is a great card. Note the odd righthanded pose, with hands reversed:
https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1683882600
https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1683882606