LARRY DOBY'S CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL

PREV ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE FULL ISSUE PREV FULL ISSUE

V27 2024 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 27, Number 10, March 10 2024, Article 23

Here's a long excerpt from a great article about a heartwarming sports moment and its enshrinement in a Congressional Gold Medal. -Editor

The United States Mint was unaccustomed to requests like the one made by Larry Doby Jr.

For centuries, the bureau of the Department of the Treasury has been responsible for designing and casting the Congressional Gold Medal — the highest civilian honor in the country. And as part of that process, the Mint's team of artists will typically consult with recipients or their surviving family members to determine the proper way to present the individual's achievements and contributions.

But after Congress voted to posthumously award Larry Doby — a World War II veteran, Negro Leagues star and the first Black player in the American League — with a Congressional Gold Medal back in 2018, this process hit a snag.

I was told [by the Mint] right away, Doby Jr. said, that that's not what they do.

The Mint is not in the habit of emblazoning images of people who aren't being saluted on these precious medals. Yet Doby Jr. was adamant that the image he requested for the back of the medal was too important to be denied.

If you watch Stronger Together, MLB Network's new feature on Doby's Congressional Gold Medal, you'll see that he was right.

The feature tells the story of a photo taken in the home clubhouse at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium on Oct. 9, 1948.

That afternoon, in front of more than 80,000 fans, Larry Doby hit the go-ahead home run and a right-hander named Steve Gromek threw a complete game in a 2-1 victory that gave the Indians a commanding lead in a World Series they would go on to win.

In the aftermath, Doby and Gromek embraced, cheek-to-cheek, in front of Gromek's locker. A Cleveland Plain Dealer photographer snapped the image of the two triumphant teammates, and the Associated Press transmitted it to newspapers across the country. Americans saw a Black man and a white man brandishing big smiles, blissfully unbound by the widespread racial discrimination and segregation of the time.

When Gromek returned home to Hamtramck, Mich., that offseason, he was given the cold shoulder by supposed friends who were angry with him for taking such a photo with a Black man.

He said that people were put off by it, so they would not engage him in conversation if they bumped into him, Gromek's son Carl said of his dad, who passed away in 2002. But I think my dad looked at it like, ‘They've got a problem, I don't have a problem.' He cherished that picture.

That is the first time that I can recall — or many people can recall — that a Black and a white embraced each other in that fashion, [and it] went all over the world, said Doby, who passed away in 2003. That picture just showed to me the feelings that you have. You don't think about it in terms of color. It's a feeling you have for a person.

Though the Mint's pushback was an early complication, it was not a lasting one. Doby Jr. was persistent and insistent, even enlisting the help of Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), who had sponsored the bill that awarded the medal to Doby.

The bureau eventually relented to create what Mint Director Ventris C. Gibson called a unique design on the back of Doby's medal.

It's a beautiful image, a milestone image, said Mint medallic artist John McGraw, the designer of the medal. It's also a celebration of Larry Doby being the first Black man to hit a homer in the World Series. To me, as a big baseball fan, I think it's one of the most important milestones we have in baseball.

After long delays due to the design complications, the pandemic and Congressional distractions, the Doby family was finally presented with the finished product in a touching ceremony in the Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 13, 2023 — on what would have been Larry Doby's 100th birthday.

That ceremony was meaningful not just to the Doby family but also to the Gromeks. Carl and his brother, Greg, drove to D.C. with their 98-year-old mother, Jeanette.

We drove 12 hours, because she couldn't fly, Carl said that day. So we made a big trip. She wasn't going to miss this.

No smile, however, was bigger than that of Jeanette when she got to hold the medal after the ceremony in D.C. She had lost her vision with age, but she was able to feel the texture of her late husband's image next to that of Larry Doby.

She'll take that to the grave, Carl said through tears. So special, so special. … My mother hasn't smiled like that in a long time. Probably the last time was when we had Larry over for dinner.

That moment took on greater poignancy this week, when Jeanette Gromek passed away, shortly after celebrating her 99th birthday. Losing her just two months after the ceremony made her family even more grateful for the medal.