70-years ago today, the colour barrier in professional basebal was broken in North America, through a Canadian team.
Baseball was and is, one of America’s favourite games. It was also extremely white. There was a “negro” league, but for the major professional leagues in terms of skin colour, it was a closed shop.
Post-war, there were several star players in the negro leagues. Jackie Robinson was among them and he was eager to get into a better league.
The Noble Experiment
Robinson was good, and there was a desire to get him into the professional and very “white” leagues. The Montreal Royals were a pro-team in the International League, and a farm team for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Branch Rickey, owner of the Dodgers gave him a chance, after getting assurances he could withstand the jeers and criticism from crowds and called it a noble experiment.
At the time, racism was rampant in the US, and was certainly not absent in Canada. During training camp in the US he was subjected to much humiliation, from racist taunts to outright discrimination. Nevertheless he stuck it out, and he and his wife moved to Montreal, to a small apartment in a white neighbourhood with great trepidation.
It was on this day April 18 1946, that Robinson debuted in pro-baseball in a game in the US with the Royals playing the hometown Jersey-City Giants. It was a good start with a home-run, four RBI (runs batted in) and two stolen bases.
As to how they were treated in Montreal, both would later say, the city treated them very well.
Quoted in the Globe and Mail in 2013, the then 90-year-old Mrs Robinson said, “When I hear of bad things that are happening in other places – where people are fighting or being violent and are trying to exclude African-Americans – I think back to the days in Montreal,” Mrs. Robinson said. “It was almost blissful.”
Indeed the couple said Canadians treated them very well. And as Robinson became a star player for the team, Canadian fans loved him.
A former teammate would later say that unlike the situation in the US, no-one in the stands in Montreal would insult him.
He was so good, Montreal fans knew he would be snapped up by the Dodgers for sure. And at the end of the 1946 season when the Royals were playing against the Louisville Colonels, Montreal’s old Deloriminier Stadium was packed to overcapacity with over 19,000 fans who had come to see Robinson. The Royals won, and the crowd started chanting for their hero, yelling in English and French, “we want Jackie”. When he came back out onto the field, the fans carried him around on their shoulders. Indeed, Jackie was , and remains a Montreal hero to this day.
He later remarked in a 1964 CBC interview tha, “Had it not been for the fact that we broke in in Montreal, I doubt seriously we could have made the grade so rapidly. The fans there were just fantastic and my wife and I have nothing but the greatest memories.”
Now that he had had exposure in professional baseball in the U.S. through touring with the Royals, Robinson would then be hired and debut with the Dodgers in 1947.
Wording of the plaque (French and English)
“ Hall of Fame baseball legend and civil rights leader Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson and his wife Rachel lived in this house when he played with the Montreal Royals in the Class AAA International League in 1946. The first black Major League Baseball player in the modern era. Robinson became a powerful symbol of hope and an inspiration to millions with his grace, dignity, and determination.”
Additional information-sources
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