TODAY IN BASEBALL TAKES US TO BROOKLYN, NEW YORK APRIL 15, 1947 – Jackie Robinson made history on this date, becoming the first Black man to play Major League Baseball. He went hitless, but handled 11 chances at first base to help the Brooklyn Dodgers (today’s Los Angeles Dodgers) beat the Boston Braves (today’s Atlanta Braves) 5-3.
Technically, Jackie Robinson was not first Black major leaguer. There were others, but you had to go back to the late 1800s to find them. An unwritten “gentleman’s agreement” created a color barrier in major league baseball from roughly the late 1880s until 1947.
Many point the finger at Chicago White Stockings (the modern day Cubs) star Cap Anson for leading the charge to exclude Blacks. The story is, Anson refused to take the field in an 1883 exhibition game against the Toledo Blue Stockings because they had an African American catcher. Even if true, Anson was certainly not alone in his bigotry. By the end of the decade the “gentleman’s agreement” was in force barring teams from signing Black players. The color barrier lasted until the Dodgers’ Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson in 1947.
Ironically, the Black player Cap Anson reportedly threatened a boycott over was probably the smartest man on the field. Moses Fleetwood Walker studied Greek, French, German, Latin and math at Oberlin College in Ohio before going to law school at the University of Michigan. But on this date, Jackie Robinson makes history.
Additional Source:
Spalding’s World Tour, Page 68, by Mark Lamster, 2006