Pecchia Communications played a key behind-the-scenes role in the placement of a statue in downtown Youngstown to mark the first handshake of white and black players in modern professional baseball – an iconic event that involved a Youngstown athlete.
Public relations and marketing services donated by the firm sparked visibility and financial support for the larger-than-life bronze that portrays the 1946 handshake of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American player in mainstream pro ball, and George Shuba, his white teammate from Youngstown.
The work included media relations activity, a website, promotional materials, Facebook and Twitter accounts and a variety of other writing, editing and design projects. As a result of its work, Pecchia Communications is listed as a donor on a plaque at the statue site.
A committee of volunteers raised more than $450,000 – during a global pandemic — to build the larger-than-life statue and unveiled it in Wean Park in downtown Youngstown on July 17.
“Our work began as a nice gesture that a handful of people knew about and grew to become an admirable cause that drew attention from the area’s top grant-making foundations and beyond,” said Ernie Brown Jr., a co-chair of the Robinson Shuba project committee. “The [handshake story] is a source of pride for Youngstown and our team capitalized big-time on the opportunities to tell it.”
The tale of the 1946 handshake at home plate has a decidedly Youngstown flare. Robinson was making his pro debut with the Montreal Royals, a farm team for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In his second at-bat, with two Royals on base, Robinson hit a home run. But neither of the teammates who scored on the homer waited at home plate to congratulate him.
Shuba, the on-deck batter, noticed that, so he stepped right up to shake Robinson’s hand just as the future Hall of Famer reached home plate. Photographers captured that iconic moment, now immortalized in the Robinson-Shuba handshake statue.
The largest grant for the project came from an Oregon foundation whose leader saw a story about the statue on CBS Sunday Morning and called to offer whatever support was needed to complete the campaign. The Marie Lamfrom Foundation is listed on top of the donor plaque.
Other big donors included the Youngstown Foundation and McDonald’s Restaurants of the Mahoning Valley and Western Pennsylvania, led by Herb Washington, a former Major League Baseball player and co-chair of the statue committee.
Communications supporting the statue leveraged the uniqueness of the project and its tremendous news value, said Dan Pecchia, president of Pecchia Communications.
“In a season of racial division, the story of a white Youngstown athlete stepping up against the racist attitudes of his day to congratulate a black teammate is pretty special,” Pecchia said. “The statue was attractive to news people, foundation leaders and many others who see the historic value of that handshake.”
Pecchia Comm’s pro bono work on the statue project resembled its donated support of two previous high-visibility community efforts in Youngstown – the Rayen Stadium restoration project in 2011-12 and the launch of the Men’s Rally in the Valley, now an annual men’s conference, in 2009-2010.
“Professional public relations support was a tremendous asset in our efforts to raise the profile of the statue project,” said Greg Gulas, another co-chair of the statue committee. “The media publicity and online presence enhanced our credibility as we secured the support we needed to get this statue built and dedicated.”
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