Can't Handle Pressure? Yankees Crush Dodgers 4-0 in Series Streak Kicking Off Another Triumph!

The Nov. 1, 1945 issue of The Sporting News devoted nearly three full pages to the delicate matter of “John Roosevelt (Jackie) Robinson, age 26, Negro,” signing a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor league affiliate in Montreal, even as writer Dan Daniel protested in the third paragraph of the lead item that it was all much ado about nothing. “It is quite conceivable that the story has received far more attention than it is worth,” Daniel wrote, before adding in the next paragraph: “Robinson has not been signed by the Dodgers, and insofar as can be discerned, never will play for the Brooklyn club in the National League.

” Baseball establishment types quoted in that issue parroted the main talking point of the time when it came to integration: It wasn’t a question of prejudice, they claimed; Black players simply weren’t good enough to play in the majors. That assertion flew in the face of evidence plenty of fans had witnessed personally while watching barnstorming tours that occasionally pitted AL and NL stars against their Negro Leagues counterparts. Robinson hitting a league-leading .

349 for Montreal in 1946 further gave lie to that notion. It became a matter of when, not if, he would get the call to Brooklyn and change the game forever. That day arrived on April 15, 1947, when Robinson donned his No.

42 jersey and started at first base for the Dodgers against the Boston Braves, going 0 for 3 and scoring a run. He would be named Rookie of the Year at the end of the season. “When I was in college I used to think that the time would come when Negroes would be in major league ball as they are in other sports,” he told Sporting News correspondent Ward Morehouse after his debut, “but I didn’t think it would be in my time and I never dreamed that I would be the first.