Two teams, one from New Jersey, and one from Montreal met on a beautiful spring day in New Jersey in 1946 to open their baseball season.
Hoping to impress his coaches, a new player for Montreal walked up to the plate to the sound of 52,000 fans in the stands cheering or yelling obscenities… regardless they were about to witness history But it was an inauspicious beginning, in his first at-bat, he grounded out to the shortstop. A mere hiccup because when he returned at bat, he hit a three-run homer.
He followed that with a bunt single, and a stolen base that led to a run.
With each success, the cheers grew
That day, the player went 4 for 5 with four runs-batted-in, leading the Montreal Royals to a 14-1 win.
Much has been written about the future career of this trailblazing baseball player, but it all began with that game in New Jersey.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today you better buy some peanuts and cracker jacks and then root, root, root for the home team as we cheer on Jackie Robinson’s time with the Montreal Royal!
Baseball may be called America’s Pastime, but what if I told you that North America’s first recorded baseball game was played in Canada?
On June 4, 1838, in a farmer’s field in Beachville, Upper Canada, about 40 kilometres east of what is now London, Ontario a ball made of twisted yarn covered in calfskin, was first thrown at a baseball bat carved from a cedar branch.
This took place a full year before the first baseball game in Cooperstown, New York and most of the spectators were Scottish volunteers with a battalion fighting for the end of the Upper Canada Rebellion.
The new game called baseball quickly spread across present-day Canada.
In the Red River area of what is now Manitoba, residents played a variation known to them as bat.
In Huntington, Quebec in the 1840s, Hazelton Moore threw the first recorded beanball, leading to a fist fight with the batter.
In 1874, Canadian pitcher William Smith led Guelph to capture the world semi-professional baseball league championship against Waterton, New York.
Baseball might be America’s pastime, but Canada has always been a player.
Two decades before Jackie Robinson was born, a Black Canadian named Hippo Galloway delighted fans in 1919 with his athleticism and because he was cool and collected on the ice.
Born in Buffalo in 1882, Galloway was raised in Dunnville, Ontario and excelled at hockey from a young age.
During the summer, he loved to hit a few balls and play a bit of baseball.
From 1897 to 1898, he played for a team in Dunnville, but he was so good he got recruited by the Woodstock Bains of the Canadian League.
The winter before that happened though he played for the Woodstock Hockey Club in the Central Ontario Hockey Association in 1899.
Much like Deion Sanders, Hippo Galloway was an athletic phenom and a two-sport star.
Once the hockey season was over, he made his baseball debut with the Woodstock Bains and made an impact almost immediately.
Unfortunately, a few white players objected to him on the team and told the owner that it was either Hippo Galloway or them.
Almost as soon as his professional career began it was over even though several fans wanted him to stay. A local sportswriter was one of them and wrote,
“An effort should be made to keep Hippo in town. Our baseball team needs him.”
It was all in vain and he was dismissed.
Galloway then moved to the United States and played for the Cuban X-Giants in the Negro Leagues.
He was the last Black player to play in Canada until Jackie Robinson arrived.
Sadly, Galloway never lived long enough to see it because he died in 1943.
The man that would be heralded for ending racial segregation in professional baseball was born on Jan. 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia
He was the youngest of five children born to Mallie and Jerry Robinson and soon after he was born his father left the family and they moved to Pasadena, California in 1920 where he was raised.
In 1935, Robinson graduated from junior high school, and enrolled in John Muir Technical High School, that’s when his brothers encouraged him to pursue sports. Robinson played varsity football, basketball, track and field and baseball and lettered in all four sports.
After he graduated from high school, Robinson enrolled in Pasadena Junior College where he continued to excel in those four sports.
His athleticism led him to NCAA championships, and he was a rising star toying with playing semi-professional football, until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into World War II.
Robinson’s nascent football career ended when he was drafted into the army in 1942. He rose to the rank of Second Lieutenant, but he never served overseas, and his military career would be derailed by the events July 6, 1944.
That’s when Robinson was awaiting results on the ankle he had injured in junior college and boarded an Army bus, and although unsegregated the driver ordered him to the back of the bus.
Robinson refused and was later court-martialed. He was acquitted of charges and transferred to Kentucky where he became a coach for army athletics until he was honourably discharged in 1944.
With his military career behind him, in 1945, he accepted an offer with the Kansas City Monarchs.
They had sent Robinson an offer to play professional baseball in the Negro Leagues which had operated since the early-1920s and was the semi-professional baseball association that allowed Black players in the United States.
Robbinson suited up for the Monarchs and in 47 games he hit five homeruns, had a .387 batting average and stole13 bases.
While Robinson was happy to be playing baseball again, he did not like his time in the Negro Leagues. He found the play unstructured compared to what he was used to, and the amount of gambling by fans and players appalled him.
Following the end of season, he chose not to return in favor of a new dream.
He was going to try out for Major League Baseball.
Not since Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884 had a Black player made the Majors.
It was a daunting goal.
But at first things seemed promising when the Boston Red Sox gave Robinson a tryout on April 16, 1945.
And then he quickly realized they had no intention of allowing Black players onto the team.
The tryout was meant to appease de-segregationists on the Boston city council.
The Red Sox would be the last team in the Major Leagues to sign a Black player, and that didn’t happen until 1959.
While they may not have wanted a Black player, several others who were interested.
Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, had begun scouting the Negro leagues.
His reasons were twofold.
First, he found the idea of segregation in baseball, and in other aspects of American life, appalling.
Second, he knew the Negro Leagues were full of incredibly gifted players. If he could sign players to the Brooklyn Dodgers, he could improve his team and maybe win the World Series.
Rickey was impressed with Robinson’s skills and said he was looking for a player who had the guts enough not to fight back because he needed to be prepared to face racial abuse as the first Black player in the Majors.
Robinson was ready to make his dreams come true, regardless of the hardship, so Rickey signed him to the organization.
But…before Robinson could make history in the Major Leagues, he needed time in the minors.
On Oct. 23, 1945, it was announced Robinson would be playing for the Montreal Royals, Brooklyn’s farm team.
Jackie Robinson was heading to Canada.
The Montreal Royals were one of the most successful baseball teams in Canada.
But they had a bumpy ride to the top, the team was first formed in 1897, but folded in 1917 then reformed in 1922 for two years before they folded again.
During this time the Royals won their league championship in 1898 and 1922.
They didn’t come back until1928, when former Major League Baseball executive George Stallings, politician Athanase David and businessman Ernest Savard along with several other prominent Montreal businessmen resurrected the team.
One of the team’s investors was Charles Trudeau who made his fortune by owning a chain of gas stations in Quebec.
He became the father of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the grandfather of Justin Trudeau.
With financing secured, the team needed a field and Delorimier Stadium was built in Montreal to serve as their home park.
From 1933 to 1934 the Royals were the farm team for the Philadelphia Athletics then became the minor team for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1937 to 1938.
In 1939, they became the top farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers and emerged as one of the best squads in the minors.
Branch Rickey believed Montreal would be the best place for Robinson to get used to playing in a white league.
Montreal was much more racially tolerant compared to the rest of North America.
Before I continue let me pause for a minute
I don’t want to give you the impression that Canada was a haven of equality at the time, or even now.
In the 1940s, unofficial segregation still existed in places like Nova Scotia and Ontario even had segregated schools.
Those wouldn’t disappear until the late-1960s.
But compared to many places in the United States Montreal was a haven where prejudices seemed centered on language and religious lines.
Although the city could be more accepting of Robinson it didn’t mean the team would be. In 1946 Clay Hopper, a former professional baseball player, became the Royal’s manager; he had been part of the Brooklyn Dodgers organization since 1942. Having grown up in Mississippi, Hopper did not want to manage a team with a Black player.
He opposed integration and asked Rickey to assign Robinson to another team, but Rickey refused.
In the spring of 1946, Jackie Robinson arrived at Daytona Beach, Florida for spring training and began his journey to the Major Leagues.
But training with the Montreal Royals proved to be difficult from the start.
Robinson and his wife Rachel were bumped off two flights to Florida and their seats were given to white passengers.
They decided to take a bus but that wasn’t a smooth ride.
On the trip, they were told in the middle of the night to vacate their reclining seats for white passengers and were forced to move to the back of the bus.
Branch Rickey had chosen Daytona Beach for spring training because he believed it was more racially tolerant than other Florida cities.
It was not.
The Royals had to schedule time at local facilities and when word spread that the team had a Black player, most locations refused to allow the team to practice.
When the team travelled to nearby Sanford, Florida, the police chief threatened to cancel all the games if Robinson trained there. With no other option, the Royals sent him back to Daytona Beach.
It wouldn’t be the last incident.
When a game was scheduled in Jacksonville, Florida, the stadium was padlocked shut without warning.
George Robinson, the executive director of the Jacksonville Playground and Recreation Board said,
“This means, that white and Negro athletes cannot play together and would serve to bar any Negro player from the game here Sunday.”
In DeLand, Florida, another game was postponed when the stadium crew said stadium lights were not working and had it been a night game that would’ve been an issue, but this was an afternoon game on a bright sunny day.
Rickey lobbied local officials for days to get the Royals a chance to play.
He finally succeeded and on March 17, 1946, Jackie Robinson made his Royals debut at Daytona Beach, in an exhibition game against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Robinson had two singles and stole a base as the Royals beat their parent team 6-1.
Robinson who hoped to impress his coaches wrote,
“I wanted to produce so much that I was tense and over-anxious. I found myself swinging hard enough to break my back. I started swinging at bad balls and doing a lot of things I wouldn’t have done under ordinary circumstances. I wanted to get a hit for them because they were pulling so hard for me.”
Robinson’s wife Rachel called the entire training camp experience horrendous and a few weeks after it ended the Robinsons headed to their new home in Canada where they didn’t know what to expect.
Rachel Robinson said,
“We were still shaking from the experience we had before going to Canada.”
Their treatment in Montreal was beyond their wildest expectations.
When the couple looked for a place to rent in the city, they worried they would be refused because of their race.
Instead, the landlady of the first place they looked at accepted them immediately and invited Jackie and Rachel into her home for tea.
Rachel said,
“When we got to Montreal it was like coming out of a nightmare. The atmosphere in Montreal was so positive, we felt it was a good omen for Jack to play well.”
With a home in Montreal secured, Jackie Robinson could take his next step towards history.
And that started with a regular season debut with the Montreal Royals.
On April 18, 1946, Jackie Robinson played in the season opener against the Jersey City Giants in Roosevelt Stadium in New Jersey.
Rachel nervously paced back and forth in the aisles under the stands, too nervous to sit and watch the game.
The pitcher for the other team was Warren Sande who knew and had played against Robinson back in California.
As Robinson walked up to his first at-bat, Jersey City catcher Dick Bouknight demanded that Sandel throw a pitch to hurt him.
Sandel refused to do so.
Robinson’s reputation was solid.
The treatment he received in Florida, and his response to it, had won over many players and if that hadn’t, his skills as a player couldn’t be denied.
Teammates and those who knew him were impressed and respected him.
By the time he made his debut nearly the entire team had his back.
When Robinson hit a three-run homer, his teammate George Shuba greeted him at home plate with an outstretched hand and a smile.
By the end of the game, the crowd was cheering his name, and he was swarmed for autographs which he happily signed.
The Ottawa Citizen wrote,
“The Royals’ clubhouse was a made scene after the final out with well-wishers fighting to get into congratulate Robinson.”
Robinson was ecstatic by the result and said.
“The one thing that I cared about was the way my teammates backed me up all the way. There wasn’t any riding out there but if there was, I wouldn’t have minded as long as my team was behind me. They have been swell.”
Montreal fans would get their chance to cheer on Jackie Robinson when he played his first home game on May 01.
In attendance was Montreal Canadiens star Maurice “The Rocket” Richard who was there to show his support.
The Montreal Gazette wrote,
“Jackie Robinson was given a big hand by the crowd the first time he appeared at bat.”
After the game, Robinson stayed on the field and signed autographs for an hour.
Fans treated him like a hero and it unlike anything Robinson had experienced in the United States.
The Robinsons lived in a brick duplex building a short walk from the stadium.
He said that when he walks back and forth to practice or a game, people would pop their heads out of their windows and cheer him on
Quote,
“The only thing the people of Montreal were asking was that I do the best I possibly can for the Montreal ballclub.”
Robinson’s teammate, Jean-Pierre Roy, said,
“Up in the stands, no one dared insult Jackie. He was Black, but in their eyes and hearts the fans didn’t see that. I heard obscenities thrown at him in the US. In Montréal, he was always respected as a baseball player.”
He was loved in Montreal t, but half of the games were played on the road in the United States.
By mid season, Robinson began to feel sick.
At first, he believed he was seriously ill, but he soon realized the abuse he faced on the road wore him down and that took a toll on his health. In his autobiography, I Never Had It Made, he wrote.
“I was overestimating my stamina and underestimating the beating I was taking.”
Robinson dealt with near constant hostility, especially when playing against teams in the American South and the Royals were forced to cancel a Southern tour because of threats.
And the discrimination didn’t stop north of the Mason–Dixon line.
During a game in Syracuse, New York, an opposing player threw a black cat on the field and yelled it was Robinson’s cousin.
Away from Montreal, Robinson did not eat much or sleep well.
He nearly always had to stay indifferent hotels because of segregation laws. It was all too much to deal with.
Thankfully there was a brief break mid-way through the season, and he was able to spend it in Montreal.
After, he felt refreshed and was ready to be back on the field, ready to lead the Royals to a championship.
A reinvigorated Jackie Robinson also found out that his wife Rachel was pregnant with their first child, Jackie Jr.
She said that as soon as she started to show, the eight neighborhood children living upstairs began to carry her groceries for her.
“The neighbors were all friendly and protective. The women came over and helped sew my maternity gowns and brought me rationing tickets because they said I needed to eat more meat.”
The happy home life helped Robinson propel him to a stellar season where he led the league with a .349 batting average and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player.
By the end of the season the Royals had won 100 games and finished atop the league. Over one million people attended home games in Montreal which was an incredibly high attendance for a minor league team at the time.
In the championship series, the Royals took on the Louisville Colonels in Kentucky.
Once again, Robinson had to stay away from his teammates, and the Louisville team owners put a quota on the number of Black fans allowed to attend the championship series.
The hostile environment in Kentucky impacted Robinson’s play.
He went 0 for 5 in the first game and had only one hit in 11 at bats in the first three games.
The team went back to Montreal for the rest of the series, and everything changed.
Angry at how Robinson had been treated in Louisville, Montreal fans packed the stadium and cheered him on helping The Royals win the next three games and the championship.
It was a bittersweet moment.
Montreal fans knew Robinson would be going onto bigger things.
When the final out signaled the end of the game, fans stormed the field as Robinson went into the locker room.
Ushers and police couldn’t do much other than join in the celebrations and chant “We want Robinson.”
A delegation of ushers asked Robinson to address the crowd and as soon as he appeared, they surged to greet him throwing their arms around him, hugging and kissing him.
Sam Maltin, a sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Courier, wrote that there were tears in Robinson’s eyes when the crowd lifted him on their shoulders. quote,
“Probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on its mind.”
Clay Hopper the team e manager who didn’t want him, shook Robinson’s hand and said,
“He is a player who must go to the majors. He’s a big-league ballplayer, a good team hustler, and a real gentleman.”
Branch Rickey took Hopper’s advice and the following season Jackie Robinson’s dream of playing in the Majors came true when he was promoted to play with The Dodgers.
Robinson changed baseball the moment he stepped onto the field in Brooklyn, but he never forgot the Canadian city that welcomed him. In his 1948 book My Own Story, he wrote,
“As my plane roared skyward and the lights of Montreal twinkled and winkled in the distance, I took one last look at this great city where I had found so much happiness. ‘I don’t care if I never get to the Majors,’ I told myself. ‘This is the city for me. This is paradise.’”
Robinson’s influence went far beyond the baseball diamond.
Lew Hayman and Leo Dandurand were the owners of the Montreal Alouettes, the city’s football team.
They saw how well-received Jackie Robinson was in Montreal and were inspired to sign the first Black football player to play professionally in Canada.
In 1946, the same year of Jackie Robinson’s championship season the Aloettes signed Herb Trawick who helped the team win the Grey Cup in 1949 on his way to a Hall of Fame career.
Robinson made his debut in 1947 and within three years, the Negro Leagues shut down because so many Black players were playing in the Majors.
Robinson played with the Brooklyn Dodgers until 1956 when he retired.
During that time, he was a six-time All-Star, World Series champion, National League MVP, and a Rookie of the Year.
Two years later Robinson returned to Montreal with his wife Rachel and were met by huge crowds and he was invited to sign the city’s Golden Book.
If you’re unfamiliar with it, the golden book was designated by Montreal city council to celebrate the achievements and development of citizens who made a difference in Canadian communities and abroad.
The honours wouldn’t end there.
In 1962, he became the first Black player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Two years later, he spoke about his time in Montreal with the CBC and said,
“Had it not been for the fact that we broke in in Montreal, I doubt seriously if we could have made the grade so rapidly. The fans there were just fantastic, and my wife and I had nothing but the greatest of memories.”
In 1972, Jackie Robinson’s number #42 was retired by the Dodgers, who by had been relocated to Los Angeles
Sadly, later that year the man who broke barriers in baseball died of a heart attack.
Following his death on Oct 25 many wondered how he would be honoured by the game he loved and by the city that loved him [TRANSITION]
In 1991, Jackie Robinson was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
Then on the 50th anniversary of his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, commissioner Bud Selig retired Robinson’s jersey number, 42, from Major League Baseball.
It was common for a team to retire a player’s number but for a number to be retired across all teams within a sport was unprecedented. The only other athletes to have their numbers retired across a league are Wayne Gretzky’s #99 in the NHL and Bill Russell’s #6 in the NBA.
That same year, in 1997, a Heritage Minute was made about Jackie Robinson’s time with the Royals.
In 2012, it was voted the greatest Heritage Minute ever made.
Today, outside the Olympic Stadium where the Montreal Expos played from 1977 to 2004, there is only one statue of a baseball player.
It is not a statue of Gary Carter, nor Andre Dawson, both of whom played for the Expos and are in the Hall of Fame.
The sole statue is for the man who stole Montreal’s heart while busting open barriers.
