Johnny Ritchey, A Hometown Ball Player
Baseball is one of the nation’s greatest pastimes, with roots dating back all the way back to 1869 in Cincinnati Ohio. The National League was the originator with the American League following suit, both leagues eventually joined forces to become Major League Baseball. Now, the MLB is a monstrosity, attracting players and fans from across the world. The league itself is regarded as one of the greatest baseball leagues worldwide.
To amass a league of its size, there are countless forms of feeder programs and other competing leagues, most notably the Minor League. Players are drafted or signed from high school, college, other leagues, or even directly from home wherever that may be. Players and teams are filled with hopes and dreams to become and develop into a prominent professional major leaguer.
The roots of the league, and baseball itself were rough at first. Racism and discrimination was at an all time high, and this caused the sport to become extremely exclusive to the white race. Ball clubs at the start only signed and trained white players for decades until one of the greatest pioneers of the sport signed for a Major League Baseball team on April 15, 1947. His name was Jackie Robinson, and he opened the doors for thousands of players in the future. One of which, was Johnny Ritchey.
Johnny Ritchey was born in San Diego, California on January 5, 1923. From a young age, Ritchey had an itch for baseball, and was a young star from the start. Ritchey was one of the crucial factors that got his American Legion team to reach the national semifinals in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1938. Even though he had played and was an outstanding ball player, he and another black teammate were prohibited from playing in the games in South Carolina. Two years later, the exact same thing happened once again. None of this discouraged Ritchey, and like he did with most things, Ritchey kept a positive outlook. Soon thereafter, Ritchey enrolled at San Diego State, but was drafted into the military only after one year, in 1943. Once he got back, he re-enrolled, and his baseball career took off. Ritchey had the best batting average on the team (.356), yet he received no interest from the big leagues. Walter McCoy, who was Ritchey’s friend and also a pitcher on the Chicago American Giants offered Ritchey an opportunity to tryout with his team. Not only did he make the team, he was a standout and won the Negro American League batting title (batting .369, .378, .381 and .386 depending on the source) in his inaugural season playing professional baseball. Shortly after, the big leagues came calling. The Cubs offered him a tryout and after initial interest, things fell through and Ritchey headed back to California. He took up an offer to play in the Pacific Coast League in his hometown for the San Diego Padres. At the time, the Pacific Coast League was considered to be just just slightly below the big leagues and depending on who you ask it was like another Major League. This was a monumental moment for the league and the sport, Ritchey was the first ever person of another race to play in the Pacific Coast league. He continued a strong Minor League career, where he had a batting average of .300 over nine seasons. By the end of his career, Ritchey had won two batting crowns and came in second by a slight margin once. His career slowly dwindled off after his years in the Pacific Coast League, but his message remained the same.
Johnny Ritchey was a dedicated baseball player, but baseball was not the only thing he focused on. Ritchey also had a side to him that was progressive in the civil rights movement. One of the greatest features of Ritchey was that he had a great personality, even from the start, “I remembered the way white people treated him so bad in the South, and he comes back and didn’t have any bitterness toward us … That gives you the idea of the character he had, even back then when he was a kid.1”. With the experiences that Ritchie had as a kid with racism, it could have turned him to hate and discriminate against the whites, but he did the opposite. Ritchie was dedicated to the game and he knew that people were going to discriminate and holler at him, but he just wanted to play. As baseball historian Bill Swank said, “He just wanted to play baseball and be judged on his ability and not the color of his skin”2, this spirit continued on throughout his entire career, especially when he returned from his service in the military. Organizations like the San Diego Urban League, the NAACP, and the San Diego Race Relations Society were constantly working to fight fight for change in San Diego. After the war efforts brought an influx of a couple hundred thousand people to San Diego, there was a new sample of people, that stemmed from the relatively diverse population had before. Right after the war, Ritchie had signed a contract with the San Diego Padres and the PCL, and his presence as the first ever man of color to join the league, he was a huge deal. Because of his personality where he did not put himself in front of others and was also not an envious person essentially caused change across the league and nation. Numerous colored and latino players were signed in the coming years after Ritchie, and in my mind, Johnny Ritchey played one of the principal roles for universal integration across the nation.
To commemorate what he did, On March 30, 2005 the Padres put in a bronze statue of himself that stands proud in the PCL Bar & Grill (currently The Draft) located right by the first base line at Petco Park.
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1 Josh Jackson, The year after Jackie, Ritchey integrated PCL, (San Diego: MiLB.com), Article, 1
2 Josh Jackson, The year after Jackie, Ritchey integrated PCL, (San Diego: MiLB.com), Article, 1
Works Cited
Broussard, Albert S. “Percy H. Steele, Jr., and the Urban League: Race Relations and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Post-World War II San Diego.” California History83, no. 4 (2006): 7-23. Accessed April 15, 2019.
Essington, Amy. “John Franklin Ritchey (1923-2003) • BlackPast.” BlackPast. February 21, 2019. Accessed April 16, 2019. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/ritchey-john-franklin-1923-2003/.
Jackson, Josh. “The Year after Jackie, Ritchey Integrated PCL.” MiLB.com. February 18, 2018. Accessed April 16, 2019. https://www.milb.com/milb/news/john-ritchey-broke-pcl-color-barrier-with-hometown-san-diego-padres/c-265897724.
Saunders, Mark. “San Diego History Center Honors Local Black Baseball Players.” KGTV. February 12, 2019. Accessed April 16, 2019. https://www.10news.com/lifestyle/exploring-san-diego/san-diego-history-center-honors-citys-black-baseball-players.
Scott, Dave. “Dave’s World of Wonder: Legacy of Johnny Ritchey -.” McKinnon Broadcasting. April 02, 2018. Accessed April 16, 2019. https://www.kusi.com/daves-world-wonder-legacy-johnny-ritchey/.
Tygiel, Jules. “The Negro League.” OAH Magazine of History7, no. 1 (1992): 24-27. Accessed April 15, 2019.