For Doby Jr., life and career to come full circle

CLEVELAND — Center field at the Indians’ home park was once Larry Doby’s domain, the place where the man who integrated the American League established himself as a seven-time All-Star and Hall of Famer.

But come July, it will be a different Doby out in center — not breaking down a barrier, but setting up a stage.

Larry Doby Jr. has spent the last 23 years as a rigger on Billy Joel’s road crew, which made Thursday’s announcement that Joel will headline a concert at Progressive Field so meaningful for him. Joel will play the show on July 14, exactly 70 years and nine days after the elder Doby debuted with the Tribe.

“It’s quite exciting to come here in a professional capacity,” Doby said before the news conference announcing the Joel show. “I’m normally only here for something concerning my dad. To be in the city where they opened up their hearts to him and he made history, with my boss Billy Joel? It’s kind of fun.”

Had the bloodline come with guarantees — and, more to the point, had curveballs not been so complex — maybe the younger Doby would have followed further in his dad’s baseball footsteps. Doby Jr. played baseball at Duke University and spent a few seasons in the White Sox farm system in the late 1970s and early ’80s, but it ultimately wasn’t meant to be.

And so Doby navigated into a different realm of entertainment altogether. He became a union stage hand working at Madison Square Garden in New …

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