Walking Alone

Dan Taylor is a former award-winning television sportscaster. He is the author of Fate’s Take-Out Slide in collaboration with George Genovese, A Scout’s Report: My 70-Years in Baseball, Rise of the Bulldogs, and Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball. Taylor is involved with the television broadcast team for the Fresno Grizzlies of the Pacific Coast League and is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and the Pacific Coast League Historical Society. He resides in Fresno, California.

• ForewordAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Blue, the Break, and an Accent2. A Mea Culpa3. Anticipation and Animosity in Westwood4. Do We Play?5. The Pass6. The Most Dangerous Player in the Game7. Jackie Joins the Team8. Unparalleled Ovation9. Unadulterated Hokum10. Bing, Boxing, and Bright Lights.11. A Star Among Stars12. The Drawing Card13. Diverted By War14. A Memorable Homerun15. I Gotta Have That Washington16. The Join Jackie Dilemma17. Cutting Into His Skills18. Dawn of a New Day19. Like Old Times20. Calling It A Career21. Back to the Big Screen22. A Baseball Shot at Last.23. There Will Never Be AnotherEpilogueNotesBibliographyIndexAbout the author

Taylor writes the first solo biography devoted to swivel-hipped tailback Kenny Washington (1918–71), who was the best known of the four Black athletes (the others being Woody Strode, Bill Willis, and Marion Motley) who broke the color barrier in American pro football in 1946. Washington was every bit the pioneer that his onetime UCLA baseball and football teammate Jackie Robinson was, but Washington’s legacy has been much more obscured, Taylor posits. (Though in recent years, Washington has been included in three group biographies that focused also on Strode, Willis, and Motley.) Washington was already 27 and hampered by bad knees by the time he was finally signed by the Los Angeles Rams in 1946, but teammate Bob Waterfield still called him the best player he ever saw. Based on archival research and the author’s interviews with Washington’s surviving family members, Taylor’s book is a fine read that elucidates Washington’s impacts on football and civil rights. A long-overdue thorough treatment of a largely forgotten giant in sports history; it should be widely read.