CHARLESTON — If you’ve been to The Joe for a RiverDogs game, you’ve likely walked along the mezzanine on the eastern side of the downtown ballpark along the Ashley River. A plaque there, tucked behind section 207, commemorates the man who broke the color barrier in the American League.

Often overlooked for the first Black player in Major League Baseball (Brooklyn Dodgers star Jackie Robinson), S.C. native Larry Doby had a decorated and ground-breaking career as a professional baseball ( and, for a time, basketball ) player and later coach. As then-President George W. Bush said after his passing in June 2003, Doby had “a profound influence on the game of baseball.”

That influence began in Kershaw County, where Doby’s father David was a star first baseman for the Camden Sluggers. The e

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