Clyde Sukeforth

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Clyde Leroy "Sukey" Sukeforth (November 30, 1901 - September 3, 2000) was a former Major League Baseball catcher, scout and manager who was best known for scouting and signing the major leagues' first black player in the modern era, Jackie Robinson.

Born in Washington, Maine, Sukeforth was the only other person in the room when Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey told Robinson of his plans to sign him to a contract to play in Montreal in 1946.

After two years at Georgetown University, followed by a year in the New England League with the Nashua Millionaires and the Manchester Blue Sox, he was signed by the Cincinnati Reds as a catcher in 1926. His best year was 1929 when he batted .354. Two years later he lost an eye from being hit by a shotgun pellet while bird hunting. He continued to play, but not as well, and in 1932 was traded to the Dodgers. He played for a number of more years, mostly in the minor leagues, before becoming a pitching coach. He also scouted for Dodgers president Branch Rickey, and through his work the Dodgers became an integrated franchise, signing Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, and Roy Campanella (among others) to contracts. In 1946, the new Nashua Dodgers of the New England League worked with Sukeforth to forge ties with the New Hampshire community, easing the racial integration of the New England League when Campanella and Newcombe were assigned to that club.

Sukeforth managed the Dodgers for two games in 1947, replacing Leo Durocher, who was suspended by the league. In the process, he managed Jackie Robinson's first major-league game. In 1951, when Dodger manager Chuck Dressen needed a reliever to face the San Francisco Giants' Bobby Thomson in the ninth inning of the decisive third game of the National League pennant playoff, Sukeforth passed over Carl Erskine and sent in Ralph Branca, who gave up Thomson's "shot heard 'round the world". In 1952 Sukeforth transferred to the Pirates, where he scouted and signed Roberto Clemente. He retired in 1957, but rejoined the Pirates organization as a manager of minor league teams in 1962.

Sukeforth died at age 98 in Waldoboro, Maine. By his request, no services were held.

[edit] External links

• Baseball-Reference.com - career statistics and analysis
• Charles Francis (2006). "Sixty Years on the Baseball Diamond: Washington's homegrown Clyde Sukeforth". Discover Maine: Maine's History Magazine 3: 18-21.
• The Deadball Era