 In early 1947, Rennie was traveling with the New York Giants football team in St. Louis and met with an old friend, Dr. Robert Hyland, physician for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team and a singing partner with Rennie in a boozy amateur barbershop quartet.Hyland confided that some Cardinals players objected to African-American slugger Jackie Robinson "breaking the color barrier" by signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.On May 21, when the Dodgers were to play St. Louis at Sportsman's Park, Cardinals would go on strike and refuse to play against a black man.