Roy Campanella
| Roy Campanella | |||
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| Catcher | |||
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Born: November 19, 1921 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
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Died: June 26, 1993 (aged 71) Woodland Hills, California |
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| MLB debut | |||
| April 20, 1948, for the Brooklyn Dodgers | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| September 29, 1957, for the Brooklyn Dodgers | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Batting average | .276 | ||
| Home runs | 242 | ||
| Runs batted in | 856 | ||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
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| Member of the National | |||
 Baseball Hall of Fame
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| Inducted | 1969 | ||
| Vote | 79.41% | ||
 It's Good to Be Alive, speech by Roy Campanella at time 4:00-20:00, 1959, WNYC Archive
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Roy Campanella (November 19, 1921 – June 26, 1993), nicknamed "Campy", was an American baseball player, primarily as a catcher. The Philadelphia native played for the Negro leagues and Mexican League for several seasons before entering the minor leagues in 1946. He made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut in 1948. His playing career ended in 1958 when he was paralyzed by an automobile accident.
Widely considered to be one of the greatest catchers in the history of the game, Campanella played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s and 1950s. After he retired as a player, Campanella held positions in scouting and community relations with the Dodgers. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.
Campanella's father John was the son of Sicilian immigrants. His mother Ida was African American. Therefore, he was effectively prohibited from MLB play before 1947, the season that black players were admitted to the major leagues for the first time since the 19th century. Campanella began playing Negro league baseball for the Washington Elite Giants in 1937 after dropping out of school on his sixteenth birthday. The Elite Giants moved to Baltimore the following year, and Campanella became a star player with the team.
In 1942 and 1943, Campanella played in the Mexican League with the Monterrey Sultans. Lázaro Salazar, the team's manager, told Campanella that one day he would play at the major league level.
Campanella moved into the Brooklyn Dodgers' minor league system in 1946 as the Dodger organization began preparations to break the MLB color barrier with Jackie Robinson. For the 1946 season, Robinson was assigned to the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' affiliate in the Class AAA International League. Meanwhile, the team looked to assign Campanella to a Class B league. After the general manager of the Danville Dodgers of the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League reported that he did not feel the league was ready for racial integration, the organization sent Campanella and pitcher Don Newcombe to the Nashua Dodgers of the Class B New England League, where the Dodgers felt the climate would be more tolerant. The Nashua team thus became the first professional baseball team of the 20th century to field a racially integrated lineup in the United States.
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