Jake Daubert, Brooklyn Superbas
Image Source: Charles Conlon
Image Subject: Team captain and fan favorite Jake Daubert posing in his 1913 Brooklyn Superba (later known as the Brooklyn Dodgers) road uniform. This is the year Daubert won a Chalmers automobile after being named the outstanding player in the National League. He later played first base for the victorious Cincinnati Reds in the infamous 1919 World Series against the Chicago White Sox.
Fun Fact: Daubert was, by every measure, a superb baseball player. Yet his greatest contribution to the game wasn’t his hitting or fielding, but rather his trailblazing advocacy for the union rights of baseball players. In 1913, his MVP year, he served as vice president of the Baseball Players’ Fraternity, which demanded rights such as freedom to negotiate with any team after unconditional release, proper notice before unconditional release, and teams providing uniforms and shoes free of charge. MLB executives didn’t give in to any of their demands, however, and labor conditions for players would remain oppressive for decades.
In hindsight, Daubert’s brave championing of labor is a perfect antecedent to similar chapters in Dodgers lore, such as Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947 and especially Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale’s 1966 salary holdout setting the tone for labor advancements in baseball soon thereafter. It was certainly becoming of the Pennsylvanian coal miner’s character, known for selflessly dismissing his fantastic playing accomplishments and using his player’s salary to support his father as well as his wife and children.
For Daubert himself, however, his unionization efforts yielded negative consequences. He became known as a “troublemaker” throughout baseball for his unrelenting demands, and when he thus got into a salary dispute with Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets in 1918, he was swiftly traded to the Cincinnati Reds. Despite finishing with career totals of 2,326 hits, 1,128 fielding assists, 165 triples, and a .303 average (hitting over .300 in ten seasons), he has yet to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, which some believe to be a result of his uncompromising work for players’ rights.
Original Painting Detail: Printed on 8½” x 11” canvas and painted using Schmincke Mussini and Marshall’s oil paints. Finer details were made using Prismacolor pencils.
Acknowledgement: The Fun Fact is taken directly from a piece written by Marshall Garvey in included in the Dodger Nation website.