Bradley said he "does not accept" Campanis' beliefs. Waters, who spoke at a news conference, termed Campanis' statements "unbelievably racist."
Waters added: "They can get rid of him any way they would like, but they should get rid of him."
There was also the threat of a clubhouse rebellion. While many blacks were thankful that Campanis had given them their chance, then-third baseman Bill Madlock was furious.
"I wouldn't want to play for anybody who thinks I'm stupid," Madlock said at the time. "It's like they are saying to me, 'You're stupid enough to play for me, but you're too stupid to manage or be in the front office.' "
O'Malley met Campanis Wednesday morning and asked for his resignation. O'Malley then made a rare clubhouse visit to explain his position to the players and coaches.
"That (decision) was pretty clear and obvious," O'Malley said recently. "If he had not (resigned), I could see the clubhouse divided, and the people in the community, the state, the country also divided."
O'Malley bristles when the word "pressured" is used in relation to this incident.
"I did not use the word 'pressure,' " he said.
But Jimmy Campanis wonders if that word wasn't close to the truth.
"Peter said this would not cost my father his job, then overnight the complexion changed," Campanis said. "The NAACP got involved and that was it.
"I don't know if pressure was the right word, but if Walter O'Malley was alive and the NAACP or anybody else had told him to fire somebody, he would have fought tooth and nail not to fire him."
Al Campanis says that time has erased his bitterness. He said that upon reflection, O'Malley perhaps did the right thing.
"Actually, if some good has come out of it, I'm glad that it happened," Campanis said. "I know I caused him a lot of a pressure, a lot of problems. I know now that it was probably for the good of the club. He didn't have a choice."
It is difficult today to find someone who will condemn Campanis.
"Sure, I feel sorry for Al Campanis. He's a nice old man," Koppel said. "His tragedy is a generational one. Men, and a certain number of women, were accustomed to talking that way among themselves. But then you put those words on nationwide TV, and they are just stupid."
Don Newcombe, the Dodgers' director of community relations, said of Campanis: "If his old friend Jackie Robinson were alive, he would say that Al didn't mean anything by his words. He knew Al never felt that way and never treated him or anyone else that way."
Which raises the question that Campanis asks himself nearly every day: why won't anyone listen to him anymore?
"No other team will admit they won't hire him because of what he said, but those are questions you have to ask," Newcombe said. "Probably there isn't any employer looking for a man of Al's age, but if there is . . . have they closed the door on him because of that one act?"
For now, Campanis will continue taking his notes, folding them carefully, placing them into his pockets, waiting for somebody who can use them.
"Are you going to tell me that 46 years was nothing? That one night was everything? That one night was his life?" his son asked.
It is an early spring evening. The New York Mets and Yankees are playing on the television in Campanis' family room. The yellow paper is out.
"I've noticed Bobby Bonilla moving his lips in right field," Al Campanis says. "That means he is talking to himself. Something is wrong with him. He's upset. Somebody better talk to him, see what's going on. . . ."
