On This Day: Jackie Robinson becomes first black player in Major League Baseball

APRIL 15, 1947: Jackie Robinson became the first black baseball player to play for a modern U.S. Major League side and end segregation in the sport on this day in 1947.

The 27-year-old broke the ‘colour line’ by debuting for the Brooklyn Dodgers in front of 26,623 fans – including 14,000 African Americans – at Ebbets Field.

He walked in a run in the New York perennial underdog’s 5-3 victory – and would go on to score 124 more that season and be named Major League Rookie of the Year.

The star, who was the first black player since a racist ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ was enforced when Moses Walker played one season in 1884, went on to hit 137 home runs and batted in 734 during his time with the team.

Dodgers coach Branch Rickey, who had long wanted to tap the talent of the Negro leagues, selected Robinson chiefly because of his stoic temperament.

He was not the best black player even at the Kansas City Monarchs - as hotheaded Satchel Paige was reputed to be a pitcher who could outclass anyone.

But Rickey saw in Robinson a player who could withstand the inevitable racial abuse, and someone ‘with guts enough not to fight back’.

He first tested Robinson – who was the subject of recent movie 42, after his shirt number – at the Dodgers’ minor league ‘farm side’, the Montreal Royals.

Despite protests from his own team’s coaching staff and hostility from rival players, who would deliberately throw the ball at him, Robinson was a sensation.

During his debut on April 18, 1946, he scored four runs, drove in three, and stole two bases in the Royals' 14–1 victory over the Jersey City Giants.

[On This Day: Jackie Robinson is first black Major League Baseball player]

The minor league’s first black star went on to become its most valued player and boosted Montreal’s attendance to an unprecedented one million fans that season.

His success convinced Rickey that it was time break the Major League colour line, which had no force in law.

A Warner Pathé newsreel shows Robinson preparing to bat in the opening game in 1950 after having become the league’s most valued player the previous season.

He went on to help the Dodgers win their first ever World Series in 1955 and played in the annual MLB All-Star game six times before retiring in 1956.

The following year, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.

Robinson’s achievement helped bring hundreds of other African American players into the game, although the Boston Red Sox resisted desegregation until 1959.

[On This Day: First black Wimbledon winner]

Among the new black recruits were his old teammate Paige, who at age 42 became the oldest man to debut in the major leagues and retired as the oldest when 59.

Some incredible young stars also entered the game thanks to Robinson pioneering effort to end segregation.

Hank Aaron, who joined the MLB aged 20 in 1954, went on to smash the legendary Babe Ruth’s ‘unbeatable’ 715 career home run record after hitting 755.

Another black man, Barry Bonds, finally beat that with 756 in August 2007, although the record is tainted after becoming a central figure in that decade’s steroids scandal.

But both feats were eclipsed by Josh Gibson, who hit 800 during his career in the Negro leagues and is perhaps the saddest example of a talent wasted by segregation.

[On This Day: Titanic finally sinks]

As for Robinson, the stress of breaking open this closed world is believed to have led him to become almost blind and die early from a heart attack at age 53 in 1972.