The club, managed by Candy Jim Taylor, boasted some of the game's all-time greats: Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Howard Easterling, Sam Bankhead, Jud Wilson.

The club won its first Negro World Series in 1943 behind the pitching of Ray Brown, Roy Partlow and Wright.

"Johnny was exceptional, as good as anyone we had," said George "Tex" Stephens, a longtime local observer of Negro leagues baseball who played against Wright as a youth.

By 1945, he was playing for the Brooklyn Naval Air Base team where he posted a 15–4 record and was said to have the best ERA in the armed forces.

Two weeks after the Robinson announcement, the Negro leagues issued a protest to baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler claiming that Rickey was tampering with their players.

Influential black sports writer Sam Lacy of the Baltimore Afro-American said: "Wright doesn't boast the college background that is Jackie's, but he possesses something equally valuable – a level head and the knack of seeing things objectively.

But, in his autobiography, "Nice Guys Finish First," Irvin said Robinson had one advantage in spring training: Rachel, his wife, who accompanied her spouse to the South in what she knew would be a trial by fire.

[1] On March 4, 1946, in Sanford, Florida, Robinson donned his Montreal Royals uniform for the first day of spring training in the Dodgers' organization, joined by Wright.

Wright would be on the active roster on March 17, 1946, when Robinson started at shortstop for the Royals in an exhibition game against their parent club the Dodgers, the first step in breaking baseball's color barrier.

In the spring, Wright had a bad outing as pitcher in an intrasquad game against the Dodgers, giving up 8 runs on 10 hits in five innings.

The next time on the mound Wright pitched in Baltimore, the southernmost city in the International League, and a hostile environment for black players.

Johnny was a good pitcher, but I feel he didn't have the right kind of temperament to make it with the International League in those days.

"I'm sure most of his co-workers at the gypsum plant never even knew he was a ballplayer," said Walter Wright (no relation), president of the Old-Timers Club who played and followed baseball for most of his 84 years.