April 15, 1947: Jackie Robinson's Debut

April 15, 1947, 75 years ago: Opening Day at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers of Major League Baseball's National League. The Dodgers take the field with this lineup:

12 2B Eddie Stanky

42 1B Jackie Robinson

7   CF Pete Reiser

11 RF Fred "Dixie" Walker

22 LF Gene Hermanski

10 C   Bruce Edwards

21 3B Johnny "Spider" Jorgensen

1   SS Harold "Pee Wee" Reese

19 P   Joe Hatten

This lineup is unusual. In fact, for most baseball fans, it is completely unprecedented: Robinson is black, the 1st member of his race to appear in an MLB game in 63 years. Dodger president and part-owner Branch Rickey had decided that the timing was right to desegregate the game.

He decided that he was the man to do it, because of something that happened to him in 1904. He was the head coach at Ohio Wesleyan University, and they were traveling from Delaware, Ohio to South Bend, Indiana to play the University of Notre Dame. This was before Notre Dame became known for football.

OWU's best player was their catcher, Charlie Thomas, and he was black. One by one, the OWU players signed the hotel register, until Thomas reached the head of the line. The clerk pulled it back from him, saying, "We don't register (N-word)s at this hotel!" Rickey explained to the clerk that they were there as guests of the University of Notre Dame, and the clerk said he didn't care.

Rickey, who also had a law degree from the University of Michigan, was one of the smartest men ever to be involved in baseball. He came up with an idea: "There's two beds in each room, right? He can have the other bed in my room, without signing the register." The bigoted clerk accepted this, and handed Rickey the key. Rickey handed Thomas the key, and told him to go up to the room while Rickey finished checking everyone in.

When Rickey got up to his room, he saw Thomas sitting on the bed, crying, and pulling on his hands. "It's my skin, Mr. Rickey," he said. "If I could just pull it off, I'd be like everyone else." Thomas persevered, became a dentist, and lived until 1971.

Rickey played in the major leagues, not well; became a manager, not a good one; and became a general manager, a brilliant one, building the St. Louis Cardinals into the dominant team in the National League from 1926 to 1946; and, while not quite "inventing" the farm system, expanded the idea to what it would later become.

In 1942, he was named president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and was looking to build them into a great team, following their NL Pennant of 1941.

He knew that bringing black players to the Dodgers would help the team competitively, and at the box office, bringing in black fans. It was good politics, and good capitalism. All he needed was the right man.

And he decided that Robinson was the right man, because he had already played on integrated sports teams, as a star running back at UCLA. Baseball was only his 4th-best sport: He was also a record-setter in track and a letterman in basketball, a generation before coach John Wooden made UCLA basketball a legend.

Robinson was playing for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues when Dodger scout Clyde Sukeforth watched him, and reported back to Rickey on him. Rickey brought him in, and told Robinson, "I want a Negro with courage enough not to fight back." He was sure that, if the 1st black player in the major leagues since 1884 would fight back, it would set the movement back a generation.

Robinson was signed to the Dodgers' top farm team, the Montreal Royals, and he led them to the 1946 International League Pennant. He was promoted to the Dodgers on April 11, 1947, despite a petition drawn up by the Southern players on the team. Manager Leo Durocher -- soon to be suspended for reasons that had little to do with baseball -- told them they could wipe their asses with the petition. Notably, the Dodgers' captain, shortstop Harold "Pee Wee" Reese, a native of the Southern State of Kentucky, refused to sign it, and stood with Robinson.

*

This is what the world was like at the time: 

There were 16 teams in Major League Baseball. Three of them were in New York City: The Dodgers in Brooklyn, the New York Giants in Manhattan, and the New York Yankees in The Bronx. Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis and Chicago each had teams in both Leagues; by 1955, of those, only Chicago would. No team was further south than the Potomac and Ohio Rivers; except for St. Louis, no team was west of the Mississippi River.

There had been Hispanic players, from Puerto Rico and Cuba, but they were light-skinned enough that they were accepted as "white." Attempts had been made to bring in black players, by claiming they were "Indian" (Native American). Usually, this was attempted in Spring Training, and they were given away when large numbers of black fans came, and cheered especially loudly when the player in question came to the plate, forcing the team to let the player go.

Most major league teams had lights at their stadiums. The Boston Red Sox would get them later in 1947, and the Detroit Tigers in 1948, but the Chicago Cubs wouldn't until 1988. No team played on artificial turf, or under a dome, retractable or otherwise. Electric scoreboards? There were some. Electronic scoreboards? No way. Only Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago were in use in 1947 and are still in use in 2022.

Baseball games had been on television, but rarely: The 1947 World Series would be the 1st to be broadcast on TV, and all 3 New York teams would begin TV broadcasting the next year.

The league that would become the NBA was playing its 1st season, and its 1st Finals would begin the next day. Pro football had been integrated, considerably more quietly. Kenny Washington and Woody Strode had played for UCLA -- Washington in the same backfield as Robinson -- and were signed by the Los Angeles Rams, who also played in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In the All-America Football Conference, the Cleveland Browns had Marion Motley at running back and Bill Willis at guard. So pro football had "four Jackie Robinsons."

The NBA would have 3, the way things worked out: Just before the 1950-51 season began, Chuck Cooper of the Boston Celtics would be the 1st black player drafted, Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton of the New York Knicks would be the 1st black player signed to a contract, and Earl Lloyd of the Washington Capitols would be the 1st black player to actually get into a regular-season game, debuting a day before Cooper's and Clifton's teams started their seasons. Willie O'Ree would integrate the NHL with the Boston Bruins in 1958.

19th Century baseball legends Hugh Duffy, Arlie Latham and Bill Dahlen were still alive. Yogi Berra, Ralph Kiner, and Robinson's fellow Dodger Duke Snider were rookies. Whitey Ford and Don Larsen were in high school.

Ernie Banks was 16 years old; Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Eddie Mathews were 15; Hank Aaron was 13; Luis Aparicio, Roberto Clemente, Roger Maris and Al Kaline were 12; Frank Robinson, Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax were 11; Harmon Killebrew and Bill Mazeroski were 10; Brooks Robinson, Juan Marichal, Willie McCovey were 9; Phil Niekro was 8; Carl Yastrzemski and Willie Stargell were 7; Pete Rose was 6; Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton were 2; Rod Carew was a year and a half; Reggie Jackson was 10 months; Rollie Fingers was 7 months; Nolan Ryan was a few weeks old; and Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Mike Schmidt and Dave Winfield weren't born yet.

The defending World Champions were the St. Louis Cardinals in baseball, the Chicago Bears in football, the Montreal Canadiens in hockey, and the National Basketball League Championship was won by the Rochester Royals. The Heavyweight Champion of the World was Joe Louis.

The Olympic Games have since been held 5 times in America; 4 times in Japan; 3 times in Canada and Italy; twice each in Britain, Norway, Australia, Austria, France, Russia, Korea and China; and once each in Switzerland, Finland, Mexico, Germany, Bosnia, Spain, Greece and Brazil.

The World Cup has since been held twice each in Brazil, Mexico and Germany; and once each in America, England, Switzerland, Sweden, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Brazil and Russia.

There were 48 States in the Union, and 21 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. There hadn't been a Civil Rights Act since 1875. There was no Interstate Highway System, Medicare, Medicaid, Environmental Protection Agency, OSHA or Title IX. The idea that there was a constitutional right to birth control or abortion was considered absurd. So was the idea that two people of the same gender could get married, and have all the legal rights of a regular married couple. Then again, so was the idea that corporations were "people" and entitled to the rights thereof.

The President of the United States was Harry S Truman. Germany was still occupied by American, British, French and Soviet troops. Japan was also occupied by U.S. troops. Through his Marshall Plan, drawn up by his Secretary of State, George C. Marshall, Truman was beginning to aid Western Europe in its rebuilding after World War II. Former President Herbert Hoover, and the widows of Franklin Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and even Grover Cleveland were still alive.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were all in the U.S. House of Representatives. Jimmy Carter was serving in the U.S. Navy. Ronald Reagan was President... of the Screen Actors Guild. George H.W. Bush was in the oil business in Texas. John McCain was 10 years old. Nancy Pelosi was 7. Mitch McConnell was 5. Joe Biden was 4. George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney and Donald Trump were babies. (Trump still is.) And Barack Obama, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris weren't born yet.

The Governor of the State of New York was Thomas E. Dewey. The Mayor of the City of New York was William O'Dwyer. The Governor of New Jersey was Alfred E. Driscoll. The current holders of those offices were not born yet. There were still living veterans on both sides of the American Civil War, on both sides of the Franco-Prussian War, and survivors of the Zulu War.

American activists Emily Greene Balch and John Raleigh Mott had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Pope was Pius XII. The current Pope, Francis, was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 10 years old and living in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Prime Minister of Canada was William Lyon Mackenzie King, and of Britain Clement Attlee. The monarch of both nations was King George VI. There have since been 14 Presidents of the United States, 15 Prime Ministers of Britain, and 7 Popes.

England hadn't yet restarted its Football League, meaning that 1939 Champions Everton, the blue team in Liverpool, were still the title holders. But it had restarted its FA Cup, and, 11 days later, Charlton Athletic of South London would beat Burnley of Lancashire in the Final at the original Wembley Stadium.

Major novels of 1947 included The Plague by Albert Camus, Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, The Pearl by John Steinbeck, Knock On Any Door by Willard Motley; Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener, which would be turned into the Broadway musical South Pacific; the debut of Mickey Spillane's private detective Mike Hammer, I, the Jury; and the debut of science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, Dark Carnival.

Margaret Wise Brown published the children's classic Goodnight Moon. J.R.R. Tolkien had published The Hobbit, but not yet any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. His close friend C.S. Lewis had published fantasy works, but not yet any of the Chronicles of Narnia stories.

Hugh Lofting, Willa Cather, and Scarlet Pimpernel creator Baroness Orczy died. Tom Clancy, Kathy Acker, Salman Rushdie, Octavia Butler, P.J. O'Rourke and Stephen King were born. George R.R. Martin was born the next year.

Major films of the Spring of 1947 included The Bishop's Wife (later remade as the mostly-black The Preacher's Wife), The Egg and I, The Farmer's Daughter, Lady in the Lake, Ramrod; Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman; and Song of Scheherazade. And there was also a newly-released film that had nothing to do with Jackie Robinson, the Dodgers, or baseball, titled It Happened in Brooklyn.

Ian Fleming was the foreign manager for London's Sunday Times. Gene Roddenberry was a pilot for Pan American Airways (Pan Am). Neither had yet written anything for films or television. George Lucas was about to have his 3rd birthday. Steven Spielberg was 4 months old. Although the superheroes Batman, Captain Marvel (a.k.a. Shazam) and Captain America had appeared in films, there had yet to be a live-action Superman.

The Number 1 song in America was "Heartaches" by the Ted Weems Orchestra, with Elmo Tanner singing lead. In 1961, doo-wop group The Marcels would make it the follow-up to their Number 1 version of Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart's "Blue Moon," and it would hit the Top 10.

Frank Sinatra had recently released his 2nd studio album, Songs by Sinatra. Country music legend Hank Williams had recently recorded "Move It On Over," not just his 1st hit song, but considered by some people to be "the first rock and roll record." Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles and Fats Domino were already professional musicians.

But Johnny Cash was only 15 years old; James Brown was 13; Elvis Presley and Frankie Valli were 12; Dolly Parton and John Phillips were 11; Bobby Darin, Buddy Holly and Don Everly were 10; Phil Everly, Ben E. King and Marvin Gaye were 8; Dion DiMucci, Tina Turner and Smokey Robinson were 7; John Lennon, Ringo Starr and Tom Jones 6; Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Chubby Checker, Carole King, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and Lou Reed 5; Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Brian Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia 4; Diana Ross, Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison 3; Ray Davies, Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton 2, Pete Townshend nearly 2; Neil Young was a year and a half; Cher was 11 months; David Bowie and Elton John had just been born; and Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Robert Plant, Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder hadn't been born yet.

Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $12.89 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 3 cents, and a New York Subway ride 5 cents. The average price of a gallon of gas was 23 cents, a cup of coffee 25 cents, a burger 20 cents, a movie ticket 44 cents, a new car $1,864, and a new house $6,600. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed that day at 166.82.

The tallest building in the world was the Empire State Building in New York. More than half of all American homes had telephones, but the idea of a portable phone was fantasy. There were only a few thousand televisions in use in America. There were no photocopiers, and computers as we know them were a new invention. Alan Turing was still alive, but Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee weren't born yet.

There were no credit cards or automatic teller machines. An artificial kidney was possible, but not an artificial heart. Transplantation of organs was not possible. The distribution of antibiotics were still new. There was no polio vaccine. Fruit flies were, for the moment, the only living things flown past the official boundary of “space.” No one had yet put any object into orbit.

Telephone numbers were still based on "exchanges," based on the letters on a rotary dial. So a number that, today, would be (718) 293-6000 (this is the number for the Yankees' ticket office, so I’m not hurting anyone's privacy), would have been CYpress 3-6000. There were no ZIP Codes, either. They ended up being based on the old system: The old New York Daily News Building, at 220 East 42nd Street, was "New York 17, NY"; it became "New York, NY 10017."

In the Spring of 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. The Ba'ath Party was established in Damascus, Syria. A new constitution was introduced in Japan. Ferrari and Hyundai began making cars. The Communist Party took over in Hungary. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists introduced their "Doomsday Clock." And Bernard Baruch, American financier and Presidential adviser, introduced an expression into the world lexicon, calling the tensions between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies a "cold war."

In America, a coal mine explosion in Centralia, Illinois killed 111 miners; while tornado strikes from Kansas through Oklahoma and into Texas killed 184 people. The French cargo ship SS Grandcamp exploded in Texas City, Texas, killing at least 581 people. A plane crash killed 42 people at La Guardia Airport in New York, setting a record for worst air disaster in American history, a record that lasted all of one day, when 53 people were killed in a crash near Bainbridge, Maryland. Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, the organized crime figure who "invented Las Vegas," was rubbed out. And the Taft-Hartley Labor Relations Act passes a Republican-controlled Congress. Democratic President Truman vetoes it, as being too harsh on organized labor. Congress overrides the veto.

Henry Ford, and Georg Ludwig von Trapp, and Johnny Evers died. James Patterson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Johan Cruijff were born.

That's what the world was like on April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson became the 1st nonwhite person to play in a regular-season Major League Baseball game in 83 years.

*

The Dodgers played the Boston Braves, whose starting pitcher that day was Johnny Sain. In the bottom of the 1st inning, Jackie grounded out to 3rd base. In the 3rd, he flew out to left. In the 5th, he grounded into a double play: Shortstop to 2nd base to 1st base.

But Stanky led off the bottom of the 7th with a walk. Jackie was told to bunt, and he did. Braves 1st baseman Earl Torgeson fielded it, and made a bad throw to Sain, who was trying to cover 1st base. Jackie made it to 2nd on the error, Stanky to 3rd. Reiser then doubled both of them home.

So Jackie finished the game 0-for-3, but scored what turned out to be the winning run. He also fielded 11 chances without an error, despite never having played 1st base prior to that season's Spring Training. The final score: Dodgers 5, Braves 3.

The season would be more difficult for Jackie, and the racist abuse far worse, than anyone could have prepared him for. But he held it together, batted .297, won the NL's Rookie of the Year award, and the Dodgers won the Pennant. Rickey's "Great Experiment" worked, and there was no turning back: Baseball was now a game for any boy, regardless of race. (Still not for girls, though, despite the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League still being in business for another few years.)

Other MLB games played on this epochal Tuesday:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-1 at the original Yankee Stadium. Spud Chandler did not have it for the Pinstripes that afternoon, and was outpitched by Phil Marchildon. Eddie Joost had 3 hits and an RBI for Connie Mack's A's.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the New York Giants, 4-3 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 7-6 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 2-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-1 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 1-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* And the Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Browns, 7-0 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

*

April 15, 1947 was also the day of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, played at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. An overtime goal by team Captain Syl Apps gave the Toronto Maple Leafs a 2-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens. Four days later, the Leafs would win Game 6 and take the Cup. This would be the last year of the "cigar-shaped," or "elephant leg" version of the Cup: The following season would see the debut of the "barrel-shaped" Cup that has been used ever since.

Syl Apps with the 1947 Stanley Cup

The NBA, then still in its 1st season and known as the Basketball Association of America, began its Finals the very next day -- which also turned out to be a New York-based beginning for another African-American sports legend. Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born in Manhattan. He became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

At any rate, the BAA's Eastern Division Champions were the Philadelphia Warriors, and its Western Division Champions were the Chicago Stags. The Warriors won Game 1 at the Convention Hall of the Philadelphia Civic Center, 84-71. They also won Game 2 there, 85-74.

The series moved out to the Chicago Stadium, but the Stags weren't much luckier, as the Warriors won Game 3, 75-72. The Stags avoided the sweep by the narrowest of margins, winning Game 4 at home, 74-73. On April 22, back in Philly, the Warriors won 83-80, and took what is now recognized as the 1st NBA Championship.

The 1947 Philadelphia Warriors

The Stags made the Playoffs again in 1948, 1949 and 1950, but lost money every year, and folded in 1950.

The Warriors also won the NBA Championship in 1956. George Senesky, a player on their '47 titlists, coached the '56 edition. They moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1962, and changed their name from "San Francisco Warriors" to "Golden State Warriors" upon moving to Oakland in 1971. Although they moved back to San Francisco in 2019, they have kept the "Golden State" name.