The United States Mint was unaccustomed to requests like the one made by Larry Doby Jr.

For centuries, the bureau of the Department of the Treasury has been responsible for designing and casting the Congressional Gold Medal - the highest civilian honor in the country. And as part of that process, the Mint's team of artists will typically consult with recipients or their surviving family members to determine the proper way to present the individual's achievements and contributions.

But after Congress voted to posthumously award Larry Doby - a World War II veteran, Negro Leagues star and the first Black player in the American League - with a Congressional Gold Medal back in 2018, this process hit a snag.

Because Doby Jr. didn't just want his father on the coin.

He wanted another man on it, too.

Doby Jr. said,

The Mint is not in the habit of emblazoning images of people who aren't being saluted on these precious medals. Yet Doby Jr. was adamant that the image he requested for the back of the medal was too important to be denied.

If you watch MLB Network's new feature on Doby's Congressional Gold Medal, you'll see that he was right.

The feature tells the story of a photo taken in the home clubhouse at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium on Oct. 9, 1948.

That afternoon, in front of more than 80,000 fans, Larry Doby hit the go-ahead home run and a right-hander named Steve Gromek threw a complete game in a 2-1 victory that gave the Indians a commanding lead in a World Series they would go on to win.

In the aftermath, Doby and Gromek embraced, cheek-to-cheek, in front of Gromek's locker. A Cleveland Plain Dealer photographer snapped the image of the two triumphant teammates, and the Associated Press transmitted it to newspapers across the country. Americans saw a Black man and a white man brandishing big smiles, blissfully unbound by the widespread racial discrimination and segregation of the time.

Some celebrated the photo; many others reflexively cringed.

When Gromek returned home to Hamtramck, Mich., that offseason, he was given the cold shoulder by supposed friends who were angry with him for taking such a photo with a Black man.

Gromek's son Carl said of his dad, who passed away in 2002.

So did Doby. He once called it the best moment of his baseball career.

said Doby, who passed away in 2003.

Though the Mint's pushback was an early complication, it was not a lasting one. Doby Jr. was persistent and insistent, even enlisting the help of Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), who had sponsored the bill that awarded the medal to Doby.

Doby Jr. said.

The bureau eventually relented to create what Mint Director Ventris C. Gibson called a design on the back of Doby's medal.

said Mint medallic artist John McGraw, the designer of the medal.

After long delays due to the design complications, the pandemic and Congressional distractions, the Doby family was finally presented with the finished product in a touching ceremony in the Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 13, 2023 - on what would have been Larry Doby's 100th birthday.

That ceremony was meaningful not just to the Doby family but also to the Gromeks. Carl and his brother, Greg, drove to D.C. with their 98-year-old mother, Jeanette.

Carl said that day.

No smile, however, was bigger than that of Jeanette when she got to hold the medal after the ceremony in D.C. She had lost her vision with age, but she was able to feel the texture of her late husband's image next to that of Larry Doby.

She was beaming.

Carl said through tears.

That moment took on greater poignancy this week, when Jeanette Gromek passed away, shortly after celebrating her 99th birthday. Losing her just two months after the ceremony made her family even more grateful for the medal.

To read the complete article, see:
U.S. Mint had never made a Congressional Gold Medal like Larry Doby's(https://wfin.com/guardians/u-s-mint-had-never-made-a-congressional-gold-medal-like-larry-dobys/)

To watch the video, see:
Stronger together(https://www.mlb.com/video/larry-doby-stronger-together)
"Stronger Together" - Larry Doby's Congressional Gold Medal(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C98Qc-o-D7I)