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[QUOTE="Orangeyes, post: 365762, member: 34"]
[URL='http://www.orangehoops.org/JBrown.htm']The site orangehoops[/URL] wrote the following in it's Jim Brown bio:
 
"Brown didn't play baseball at Syracuse, but he could have. He threw two no-hitters in high school, and the Yankees offered him $150,000 to play for them. Fortunately for Syracuse fans he turned them down."
 
That would have been in 1953, five years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and there were only 9 black players in MLB. In the mid 50's Jackie only made $42,ooo a year. In 1955 Elston Howard became the first black, New York Yankee.
 
Consider this:
 
" Howard became a Yankee when the civil rights movement was just beginning in this country
the Brooklyn Dodgers had broken the color barrier in baseball in 1947 by signing Jackie Robinson, most other Major League ball clubs were slow to accept the idea of having black players on their teams. The Yankees were no exception. By 1952, pickets appeared in front of Yankee Stadium criticizing the discriminatory practices of the Yankee organization. The general manager of the Yankees, George Weiss, to postpone the inevitable as long as possible, did what a number of other clubs did. He signed a handful of black players to minor league contracts. Tokenism was having blacks playing in the farm system. In the early 1950's, the Yankees signed Artie Wilson, Ruben Gomez, Vic Power, Frank Barnes, and Elston Howard. Then, whenever Weiss was criticized for being a racist, he would reply, "The Yankees will bring up a Negro as soon as one that fits the high Yankee Standards is found."
 
Back in 1953 $150,000 was a ton of money and Jim Brown coming from a poor background probably would have jumped at it.
 
I'm not buying that story.
 
Does anyone have evidence to the contrary?
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