Sam Lacy, a Baltimore sportswriter whose crusade for integration rattled the cage of big-league baseball and helped erase the game’s color line more than a half-century ago, died Thursday of heart and kidney failure at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington. He was 99.
In a professional career that spanned eight decades and 13 presidencies, Lacy always kept his edge. His columns in the (Baltimore) Afro-American agitated for change, championed the underdog and chronicled the rise of black athletes, especially early, when minorities were largely ignored by the mainstream press.
Lacy’s likeness is in the writers wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., where he was installed in 1998. Other accolades include the Red Smith Award, presented to Lacy in 1998 by the Associated Press Sports Editors, and the Frederick Douglass Award, bestowed that same year by the University System of Maryland. Lacy was to be honored May 21 during ceremonies for the 2003 Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame inductees.
The Douglass Award “was the essence of satisfaction,” Lacy said. “Douglass had the same philosophy I have–advancing humanity, and not just race.”
From 1946-49, Lacy shadowed Jackie Robinson, recording in vivid detail his ascent to the majors as baseball’s first black player. The racism that Robinson experienced touched Lacy as well. He was barred from the press box in several ballparks and had a cross burned on the lawn of his rooming house during a Southern road trip.
But Lacy endured, one of a handful of black reporters who reported Robinson’s every move to an African-American readership that hung on every word.
“Mr. Lacy proved, by his life’s work, that we all have the responsibility of advancing the cause of justice in this world,” Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley said. “He did it from his perch as writer, in such a powerful and persistent way, reporting segregation in various sports.”
Lacy’s pen cut a swath through sports’ golden era. Lacy covered baseball sluggers from Babe Ruth to Barry Bonds; golfers from Ben Hogan to Tiger Woods; football greats from Red Grange to Ray Lewis.
Lacy addressed his longevity with characteristic humility.
“God has been on my side, and I’ve found solace in my job,” he said two years ago. “If people remember me at all, I hope it’s because I tried to do right by everyone and make the world a better place from my small pond.”
To the end, Lacy spoke his mind. His final column appeared Thursday in the Afro, his podium for 59 years. The newspaper was only 12 years older than Lacy himself.
Born Oct. 23, 1903, in Mystic, Conn., Samuel Harold Lacy grew up in Washington.
After graduating from Howard University, he played semipro baseball for the Washington Black Sox for several years. In 1934, Lacy joined the Tribune, the first of three black weeklies for which he would write. He badgered big-league owners to integrate their clubs, carrying his campaign to the Chicago Defender and the Afro-American, where Lacy became sports editor in 1944.
Two years later, Brooklyn signed Jackie Robinson.
Several years ago, Robinson’s widow praised Lacy’s role in her late husband’s ascension.
“Sam was such a pioneer in fighting for social change, and in supporting Jack and the early [black] players, that he will be enshrined in our hearts forever,” she said.
Some remembered Lacy as a pioneer with a pen, a writer known for his relentless vigilance.
“Sam was the eyes of the black community, though he had to slip through loose boards in the outfield fence to get into some [white] ballparks,” said the late Joe Black, recalling Lacy’s resourcefulness in the 1940s.
That resolve made Lacy a role model for his race, said Black, who met Lacy while attending what was then Morgan State College.
“Sam proved you could endure hardships and still succeed,” said Black, who, as a Brooklyn pitcher in 1952, became the first African-American to win a World Series game.
Lacy displayed a genteel demeanor that belied a bulldog tenacity. From the start, he appeared unflappable–a wiry bantam of a man, wearing his trademark bow tie and straw hat, batting out bird’s-eye stories assailing the blatant segregation in sports. Three examples:
– Vero Beach, Fla.–An auto rental company demanded the return of a car leased to the Dodgers after it learned Jackie Robinson and the other tan players had been given its use.
– Beaumont, Texas–The public address man, known as “Tiny,” identifies Robinson and [catcher Roy] Campanella only as “them.”
– Haines City, Fla.–This reporter, looking for the colored rest room, was directed to a tree about 35 yards off from where the right-field foul line ended.
“Sam carried many crosses to do his job,” said Kurt Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore. “People today realize the humiliations he faced just to carry out the duties of his profession. Many would have retreated, but Sam just plugged away.”
“Sam was fearless,” said Larry Whiteside, national baseball writer for the Boston Globe. “Without guys like him, those stories would never have come out.”
During a 1949 spring-training swing through Georgia, where Robinson and the Dodgers drew huge crowds, Lacy contacted Samuel Green, grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, who had threatened to undermine the games. Why would a black reporter of the time seek out the head of the KKK, at his home?
“I wanted to know if he was going to start any [trouble] at the ballpark,” Lacy said.
“I know Sam faced death threats,” said Lenny Moore, Baltimore’s Hall of Fame running back. “His life was on the line just by being visible. Guys like Sam banged on doors and fought the fight that made it possible for guys like me to play for the Colts–and with each generation, that door cracked a little more.”
“Sam was committed to responsible, courageous reporting,” said Moses Newson, of Baltimore, a former Afro editor who co-authored Lacy’s autobiography, “Fighting For Fairness,” in 1998. “He bluntly challenged wrongdoings wherever he felt they existed, but he always remained a true gentleman, when dealing with people.”
Soft-spoken, courteous and an impeccable dresser, Lacy was the essence of a long-gone polite era. He stood up when a woman came to his desk or walked by. Who could have thought anyone who seemed so meek could be such a terror in print?
Every year, for almost two decades, Lacy counted and listed the number of blacks in spring baseball camps. In 1949, he took the Colts to task in his column, “A-to-Z,” saying he wouldn’t let readers forget “for one moment during the coming fall that every other club in the All-America Football Conference has at least one colored player on its roster.” In 1972, he chided Baltimore pro sports franchises for the lack of blacks in front offices.
Last week, Lacy was still working at a point when others would have long since retired. Until the summer of 2000, he drove himself to the Afro office on Charles Street from his Washington apartment, where he lived for 42 years. Then he suffered a stroke.
“He was driving to work, on a nasty, rainy morning on Interstate 95, in the left lane with tractor-trailers all around. He realized something was amiss,” said Samuel Howe Lacy, his son.
The columnist drove the rest of the way to the office, got out of the car and fell. In the hospital, he fell again and broke his left arm. But that didn’t stop him.
“He was pretty determined and got himself together,” his son said, noting Lacy missed only one column while sidelined.
Wiley Hall, executive editor of the Afro, praised Lacy’s steadfast pride in his craft. Hall also noted Lacy’s role as a black journalist in affecting change.
“Sam was our connection with a different period of time,” Hall said. “A lot of our kids, even the educated ones, complain that blacks have never done anything for ourselves–that what we have was given to us by whites. But it’s not true, and Sam was proof of that.”
Survivors include his son, Samuel; a daughter, Michaelyn Harris; four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
