Herb Pennock
One of baseball’s historical mysteries is why the story of Herb Pennock the New York Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher has remained divorced from the far less noble story of Herb Pennock the racist General Manager of the Philadelphia Phillies — even though they were the same person.
History seems to have forgotten Pennock’s role as one of the men behind what Jackie Robinson would call his single worst moment in baseball.
In April of 1947, just before the Dodgers were to play in Philadelphia for the first time with Robinson on their team, Pennock reportedly had a telephone conversation with Dodger GM Branch Rickey during which he told Rickey, “You just can’t bring the n****r in here.” Further, Pennock told Rickey, the Phillies would not walk on the field if Robinson was on it.
(Rickey’s response was that the Dodgers would be content to win all their games in Philadelphia that summer by forfeit.)
The following day — after the Dodgers were refused entry to their usual Philadelphia Hotel — Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers took the field, where Robinson was soon subjected to a torrent of epithets and vitriol from the Phillies dugout.
According to Frank Vacarro, the author of Herb Pennock’s SABR Biogrphy: “It was so bad that at one point, Dodgers infielder Eddie Stanky, an Alabama-born member of the Brooklyn team, challenged the entire Phillies dugout within earshot of Pennock and Carpenter [the Phillies owner]. Robinson called it his darkest day. Moreover, it would be ten more years before the Phillies integrated.”
As Jackie Robinson would later write, “This day, of all the unpleasant days of my life brought me nearer to cracking up than I have ever been… For one wild and rage-crazed minute I thought ‘To hell with Mr. Rickey’s noble experiment.’”
History has done its job recording the role that Phillies manager, Ben Chapman — a well known racist and anti-semite — played in this dark moment, but somehow Herb Pennock, the former 1927 Yankee, has been removed from the narrative of that awful day.
In April of 2016, on the eve of the release of Ken Burns’ documentary on Jackie Robinson, the city of Philadelphia issued a public apology to Jackie Robinson for the incident. Neither in their apology nor in Burns’s documentary was there any mention of Herb Pennock.
Once again, Herb Pennock the Hall of Fame Yankee pitcher was allowed to stand apart on the sands of history from Herb Pennock the racist.
Entries in “1927: The Diary of Myles Thomas”
Lou, What Do You Think? (April 28, 1927)Hooded Baseball (June 2, 1927)“Last August,” says Schoolboy, “about a month before the Klan’s big Washington parade, we’re in D.C. to play the Senators. Before one of our games, after we finish our running, Pennock and I are in the visitor’s bullpen at Griffith Stadium when I see the letters ‘KKK’ carved into the side of the wall. So, Pennock and I start talking about the Klan rally that’s about to happen, and the Squire says, ‘Some of what they say makes sense to me. There are too many people coming into this country that aren’t American. Doesn’t that worry you?’”Relief (June 7, 1927)Saving Shocker's Game (June 29, 1927)Terror in New York — Sacco and Vanzetti (August 10, 1927)Back in the 1600s, Pennock’s family shared a boat over from England with William Penn, and now our millionaire on the mound from Pennsylvania — or the Squire of Kennett Square, as the press calls Pennock — seems to think that ship his family sailed on should have been the last one allowed to dock on this side of the Atlantic ocean.
