DeWitt and the Browns also were among the vanguard, albeit only briefly, of MLB teams to break the baseball color line: in , they became the third club to integrate by purchasing the contracts of Hank Thompson and Willard Brown from the Kansas City Monarchs. Thompson made his MLB debut July 17 (only 12 days after Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians had integrated the American League) and Brown two days later. But the experiment fizzled; the players performed below expectations and encountered resistance from their white St. Louis teammates. They were sent back to the Monarchs late in August after only 41 total hits.