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“Baseball Sluggers” series stamp image of Roy Campanella courtesy of USPS, Copyright © 2006 |
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By Brent Shyer
American icon Roy Campanella, whose courageous life’s story inspired countless others to lift themselves up in the face of adversity, is receiving recognition this summer.
The son of an African-American mother named Ida and an Italian-American father named John, Roy Campanella, better known as “Campy,” is posthumously featured on a United States Postal Service stamp honoring him as one of the nation’s heroes. Mel Ott, Mickey Mantle and Hank Greenberg will simultaneously be saluted in the July 15 first-day release of the “Baseball Sluggers” series of U.S. postage stamps at Yankee Stadium in New York.
From the time he was seven, Campanella grew up amongst the row houses in the Nicetown section of Philadelphia, which in the 1920s was filled largely with Polish and Italian immigrants. In the neighborhood, he began to hear the taunts of other children who called him “half-breed.” It was just the beginning of lifelong struggles for a star athlete who could only dream of playing baseball professionally — in the Negro Leagues, that is. At the tender age of 15, Campanella was spotted and signed by the Baltimore Elite Giants from the Bacharach Giants, a Negro semi-pro team in Philadelphia, for whom his mother had given him permission to play a few games as a part-time catcher.
Campanella had to overcome persistent prejudice that all African-Americans of his era endured, but he never let that deter him from playing baseball, the game he truly loved with all his heart and soul.
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