Jackie Robinson Day: Remembering the Black men who played in the majors before he broke the color barrier
By Jordan Smith
Black major leaguers who predate Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson was far from the first Black man to play in the major leagues. Here are the four Black men who preceded him.
Major League Baseball will hold its annual Jackie Robinson Day celebrations on Thursday, commemorating the man who broke MLB’s color barrier in 1947.
Thousands of players will sport Robinson s iconic No. 42, which has been retired league-wide since 1997.
Ballclubs will post photos thanking him for ending segregated baseball. The Los Angeles Dodgers, Robinson s former team, are sure to outdo them all.
Origin
Baseball Hall-of-Famer Larry Doby was the first Black player in the American League, making his debut with the Cleveland Indians in July 1947, three months after Jackie Robinson had broken the color line in Major League Baseball by starting the season with the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League.
Although Robinson’s earlier entry into the big leagues somewhat eased the way for Doby to integrate the American League, the challenge and difficulties Doby faced were similar. As Doby later said: “It was eleven weeks between the time Jackie Robinson and I came into the majors. Eleven weeks. Come on. Whatever happened to him happened to me.”
Jackie Robinson
A multi-sport athlete at UCLA; a long-time activist (see
The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson). He was also the first black player in Major League Baseball (1947) since blacks were banned in the 19th Century; he was rookie of the year, and won numerous awards and championships during his career. He retired in 1957, rather than accept a trade from the Brooklyn Dodgers to the crosstown rival Giants; he worked for many years as an exec and a civil rights activist before he died in 1972.
Wed May 30 2001 at 20:57:48
Jackie Robinson was the man who was handpicked by Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers to start the process of integrating the major leagues of baseball. Until (and after) 1947, the year Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier of major league baseball, men with non-white skin were forced to play for baseball leagues such as The Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League. Black and Cuban men were not allowed to play on the
BELMAR - From home plate at Memorial Field you can see the American flag fluttering in the distance, beyond the center field fence and across Main Street. Beneath the flag, at the corner of 13th Avenue, is the borough’s post office.
It’s a long, long way from the batter’s box.
You wonder: Did a man really hit a baseball that far?
“If you walk it off, it has to be one of the longest home runs hit anywhere, anytime,” said Spencer Heulitt, president of the Belmar Historical Society.
The hitter was Josh Gibson, a legendary slugger of the 1930s and 1940s known as “the Black Babe Ruth.” With Major League Baseball played by whites only, Gibson starred in the Negro leagues and on barnstorming tours. His Pittsburgh Crawfords team paid multiple visits to Memorial Field, which was part-time home to the rival New York Cubans and full-time home to the semipro Belmar Braves.
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