George “Shotgun” Shuba His Greatest Moment

Yesterday Evan gave us a great read on Ralph Branca – the man – not the unfairly maligned baseball player. With his reference to Jackie Robinson and “shot” it brought me back to another historic moment in time and an article I had written eight years ago about one more little known Dodger who too was a better man.

George Shuba – now there’s a name that I suspect doesn’t ring a bell for many present-day baseball fans. However, mention George “Shotgun” Shuba around any old-time Dodger fan and you’re sure to get a smile.

Shuba did not have an especially notable career, one that was cut short by injury, but his career was not without significance to the Dodger organization and the history of the game itself. He was never a regular player but was a key pinch hitter and back-up outfielder for the Dodgers from 1948 through 1955. He hit .259 lifetime with the Dodgers, with 24 homers and 125 RBI in 355 games. There are suggestions he did not become a regular following a stellar year in the minor leagues in Mobile (21 HR, 110 RBI) either because Branch Rickey felt he did not have enough power or because he was not a strong defensive player.

“Shotgun” got his nickname for the way he sprayed line drives while he was in the Dodgers’ farm system, but his smooth left-handed swing wasn’t a fluke. It was the result of a tenacious practice regimen when he was a teenager. The Dodgers said Shuba earned his nickname after someone compared his line drives to the sound of buckshot.

He explains: “I got a bat and drilled a hole in it about six inches in the barrel. I put lead in it. Then in my basement, I had a ball of string hanging, and I would swing in 25-swing increments until I had 600 swings for the day. Sometimes I would do 400 swings in the day, go out on a date, and come back at 12:30 in the morning and do 200 more.”

He used that swing in 1953 to become the first National Leaguer to hit a pinch-hit home run in a World Series game. And though that may seem hard to believe, what was even more unbelievable is that he hit that two-run shot off  Yankee great Allie Reynolds. At the time of his pinch-hit home run, Shotgun was completely unaware that it had etched his name into baseball history forever.

“Shotgun” Shuba’s final AB in the major leagues was in the 1955 World Series, again as a pinch hitter. Manager Walter Alston used him to pinch-hit for second baseman Don Zimmer. A hit at that time would have scored at least two runs in a tight final game that was eventually won by the Dodgers 2-0, but it wasn’t to be. Shotgun’s pinch-hit at-bat did, however, become part of the famous Sandy Amoros catch. With Don Zimmer now out of the game (having been pinch-hit for by Shuba), Jim Gilliam was moved to second base and Sandy Amoros entered the game in left field. A short while later, Amoros made his impossible and historic catch which he turned into a double play. Most agree that because Gilliam was not as fast as Amoros and unlike Amoros wore his glove on his left hand instead of his right, Gilliam would not have made that catch in the left-field corner and thus, no double play.

Shuba played seven seasons in the majors, all with Brooklyn, and like many others, he was known to have been outfoxed by Branch Rickey at contract negotiation time. Shuba wanted a salary increase to $23,000 and during his meeting with Rickey, the Dodger general manager was summoned to another office for an important phone call. As he waited, Shotgun noticed a contract with Jackie Robinson’s name on it for $21,000 sitting on Rickey’s desk. When Rickey returned, Shuba immediately agreed to take $20,000. Like many before him, he found out later that Jackie’s contract was a phony and that the important phone call had been a setup.

George “Shotgun” Shuba was rewarded by Roger Kahn with his own chapter in Kahn’s 1972 best selling book ‘The Boys Of Summer’, a book that was later selected by a Sports Illustrated panel as the greatest baseball book ever written. Kahn notes that even though Shuba hit that first-ever National League pinch-hit homer in a World Series game, he is best remembered for a truly remarkable moment in baseball history that occurred while Shuba was still in the minor leagues with the Montreal Royals. He was the first person to congratulate Jackie Robinson with a handshake on Jackie’s first home run in an all-white man’s league. As Jackie reached home plate at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City on April 18, 1946, Shuba extended his hand and shook Robinson’s hand, accepting Jackie as a respected teammate. The famous photo, ‘Handshake for the Century’, records a pivotal moment in Jackie’s career and marked the beginning of integration in professional baseball.

In a subsequent interview, Shuba answered a question about that historic moment:

“It didn’t matter that Jackie was black, he was the best guy on the team and he was my teammate. He could have been technicolor, it didn’t matter to me.”

“I could see in Jack’s eyes he was very happy I was at the plate to shake his hand,” George tells his son Mike later. “But I do remember a few guys that didn’t want to bat after Jack.”

Mike recognizes the importance of what happened at home plate that day. “Jackie was scared none of his teammates would shake his hand in public. Look at the photo – can you imagine Jackie crossing the plate with no one there? That was a sign America was maturing.”

Mike Shuba says a large framed photograph of that moment hangs proudly in the family home.

” It’s known as the first interracial handshake in a professional baseball game – not a barnstorming game or other exhibition. Mike, who owns the rights to the image, says “it was a labor of love to promote” his dad.

On July 20, 2008, at age 83, George “Shotgun” Shuba returned to Brooklyn and appeared at KeySpan Park (now called MCU Stadium) to greet fans and sign copies of his own book ‘My Memories as a Brooklyn Dodger’. Prior to that evening’s Brooklyn Cyclones game, Shuba participated in a reenactment of the ‘Handshake for the Century’ to commemorate the historic event. It was truly an emotional night for Shuba and for all in attendance.

George “Shotgun” Shuba died in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio,  on September 29, 2014, at age  89.

He will not be easily forgotten, especially in Youngstown where he lived his entire life. Plans are being made to commemorate that historic moment with a statute to be unveiled on April 18, 2021, the 75th anniversary of the handshake.

This is from The Business Journal in Youngstown on January 1, 2019.

A larger-than-life statue commemorating the inspiring 1946 handshake of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American Major League Baseball player, and George “Shotgun” Shuba, his white teammate from Youngstown, will inspire better relations among people of different racial backgrounds, say leaders of a group planning to build the statue in downtown Youngstown.

“A handshake at home plate by players of different races is no big deal in America today, but in 1946 it was a historic moment,” said Herb Washington, a local businessman, former Major League Baseball player and one of the co-chairs of the committee. “We want to memorialize that moment in a way that inspires people to relate more respectfully to those of other races. We need more Americans to follow the examples of Jackie Robinson and George Shuba.”

Robinson-Shuba Statue to Celebrate 1946 Handshake

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The bronze statue will portray the handshake as captured in a landmark photograph now owned by Mike Shuba. Both players will stand nearly 7 feet tall in bronze at a site in Wean Park near the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre, where they would enjoy high visibility.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Mike and his father toured schools and youth centers across the United States to talk about the handshake and racial relations in sports.

“If my father were still around, he would be so thrilled and so proud,” Mike said. “That handshake with Jackie and the photo of it were among the highlights of his life.”

We too are proud to have been a tiny part in his life having heard Vin Scully call that 1953 pinch-hit home run and later learn of the “Hand Shake for the Century”.