The average height of a Major League Baseball player is 6′-2″, and the average weight roughly 207 pounds. But it is not uncommon to have players below both averages. For example, both Dodgers catchers Will Smith and Austin Barnes are measured below those averages at 5′-10″ / 195 pounds and 5′-10″ / 187 pounds respectively.

If we travel back in time to 1945, there was a Brooklyn Dodgers catcher and later Dodgers manager – albeit for only two games – named Clyde Sukeforth. He was measured at 5′-10″ and weighed in at 155 pounds. Sukeforth was considered small in stature even back in the forties.

Sukeforth managed in the Brooklyn farm system from 1937 to 1942 before his promotion to the Dodgers coaching staff in 1943. He was activated as a player by the Dodgers – at age 43 – for 18 games during the first three months of the 1945 season due to a player shortage caused by World War II; this despite having not played competitively since 1939 when he was a player-manager in the Dodgers minor league system. Sukeforth started 13 games as Brooklyn’s catcher in 1945, collecting 15 hits (14 singles and one double) to finish the season with a respectable .288 batting average. He also had one heck of a batting average during the 1929 season, when he hit .354 in the 84 games that he appeared in with the Cincinnati Reds.

Sukeforth retired permanently from the playing ranks during the 1945 season and resumed his former role as a Brooklyn coach and occasional special-assignment scout. It was in this capacity that he made Dodgers – and baseball – history.

Unbeknownst to everyone, Dodgers president Branch Rickey was making secret plans to break organized baseball’s six-decades-long “gentleman’s agreement” that enforced racial segregation. In August of 1945, Rickey sent Sukeforth to Chicago, where Jackie Robinson‘s team, the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues, was slated to play the Chicago American Giants. Rickey told Sukeforth to urge Robinson to come back with him to Brooklyn for a meeting. The two men traveled by train to Brooklyn for the historic meeting at the Dodgers Montague Street offices on August 28. Sukeforth was the only other person in the room when Rickey told Robinson of his plans to promote him to the Dodgers.

On April 15, 1947, Sukeforth, functioning in the unwanted role as interim manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers after the suspension of Leo Durocher, wrote Robinson’s name on the Dodger lineup card – and into the history books – on Opening Day 1947 against the (then) Boston Braves at Ebbets Field.

But Sukeforth was more than just a manager to Jackie. He was considered a close friend as well. Several sources have reported that Jackie sent Sukeforth a letter during the 1970s that, in part, included the following:

“Whenever there were problems in the earlier days, I could always go to you, talk with you, and receive the warm and friendly advice that I always did.”

Sukeforth’s career with the Brooklyn Dodgers ended abruptly after deciding who was the better choice to face New York Giants outfielder/third baseman Bobby Thomson at the Polo Grounds in New York City on October 3, 1951. He chose Ralph Branca, resulting in the famed ‘Shot Heard Round the World’ to win the 1951 National League pennant.

Sukeforth was solely blamed for his decision, so he went to seek his vengeance by ‘stealing’ a Dodgers minor leaguer by the name of Roberto Clemente while later the manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He also could have signed eventual Hall of Fame left-hander Sandy Koufax, but the Pirates didn’t have the money at the time. They were playing cheap and ended up paying dearly for that one.

Never judge a player by their size. You just never know – they could become the next person to make history.

…maybe even Dodgers history.

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