<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>"Larry Doby, who broke the color barrier in the American League in 1947, three months after Jackie Robinson became the first black in modern major league baseball, died last night at his home in Montclair, N.J. He was 79. <P>"He had been ill for some time, his son Larry Jr. told The Associated Press.</P> <P>"Doby, who was promoted to the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, eventually became the second black to manage a major league team and became a member of the Hall of Fame. But his arrival in the major leagues was overshadowed by Robinson's debut.</P> <P>" 'The only difference was that Jackie Robinson got all the publicity," Doby later said. "You didn't hear much about what I was going through because the media didn't want to repeat the same story.' "</P> <P><<A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/obituaries/19DOBY.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/obituaries/19DOBY.html</A>></P> <P>Technically, Doby and Robinson weren't the first black players to play in the white majors -- Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday played in the American Association in 1884. But hostility from white players and owners proved too much, and they and others were banned until Doby and Robinson broke the barrier wide open in '47.</P></DIV> <DIV><<A href="http://www.nlbpa.com/walker__moses_fleetwood.html">http://www.nlbpa.com/walker__moses_fleetwood.html</A>></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>DP</DIV></BODY></HTML>