Boston’s African-American newspaper, the Boston Chronicle, reported Jethroe’s signing, but also with little fanfare. When he signed his Braves contract with GM John Quinn in New York, the Chronicle noted that “the speedy Negro outfielder had just played in the Little World Series in Indianapolis before coming to New York.” About all Jethroe himself had to say was, “I’ll let the records do the talking. I just played in the Little World Series, now I hope to get into the big one.”
Before the traditional preseason “City Series” games against the Red Sox, the Boston Post – never referring once to his race – wrote, “Jethroe received more press interviews yesterday than all of the other Braves players combined. Sam is easy and natural with all members of the fourth estate.”
After the first exhibition game against the Red Sox, Gerry Hern of the Post acknowledged race in a single clause. Braves fans, he wrote, “have waited a long time to make a personal appraisal of Sam Jethroe, the first colored player ever to wear a Boston uniform, and Dick Donovan, the 25-year-old Wollaston resident, who earned his letter yesterday. Sam was slightly terrific in his Boston debutante party. There were no flowers, but he slashed a couple of singles that took the strain off the Braves followers, who have not been accustomed to seeing a Braves outfielder who could hit, throw and run.” The novelty of Jethroe’s darker skin color was apparently on no more than a par with the novelty of a Brave from the nearby Wollaston neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts.
The Braves won that first game in the series, 4-1, and the Red Sox came back and won the second, 3-1, at Fenway. It was Jethroe’s first time playing in the park he’d tried out in five years earlier . Batting in the bottom of the eighth with the Braves ahead, 1-0, Ted Williams slammed a three-run homer into the right-field bullpen. Jethroe, unfamiliar with the park and anxious to catch the ball, slammed hard into the bullpen wall, in vain. The Herald noted he was “courageous and speedy” but didn’t see the need to remind readers of his darker hue. He was just another ballplayer – covered exactly the way one might wish. He was “Switching Sammy, getting plenty of encouragement from the 7,049 spectators.” But there was no mention of his race.
The Globe’s game story noted that Jethroe had singled in the first run. It commented on his speed at one point and observed that “Like many another big leaguer, Jethroe is superstitious…He kicks third base to and from the outfield.” His similarity to the other players was thus noted; there was nothing in the way of noting his difference.
The next day, in picking both the 1950 Braves and Red Sox to win the pennants in their respective leagues, the Globe‘s Harold Kaese noted race, in passing: “Sam Jethroe, Boston’s first Negro player, will display his phenomenal speed of foot by (1) scoring from first on a tap to the pitcher; (2) stealing more bases than the rest of the Braves and Birdie Tebbetts put together; and (3) dashing to the plate in time to catch his own throw from DEEP centerfield.”
There was no mention at all of Jethroe’s race in Clif Keane’s lengthy feature on Jethroe’s very first game, which ran the morning of that game in Boston.
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