Robinson’s Royal history

Jackie Robinson has been baseball royalty since his Hall of Fame induction in 1962.

But before becoming royalty, Robinson was a Royal before becoming a Royal.

On Tuesday, Oct. 23, 1945, Branch Rickey and the Brooklyn Dodgers leveled a fatal blow against the color line in the major and minor leagues by signing the Kansas City Monarchs’ Jackie Robinson. By contracting Robinson to play for the Montreal Royals, Brooklyn’s International League affiliate, Rickey struck down a decades-old gentlemen’s agreement which allowed all of organized baseball to remain without African-American players.

Robinson had already suited up in a Royals uniform before 1946 Spring Training – he had been a member of the Kansas City Royals, though not the recent back-to-back American League champs. Robinson played for Chet Brewer’s Kansas City Royals, a California Winter League entry composed solely of Negro Leaguers.

The California Winter League, which began in northern California before the turn of the 20th century and later moved primarily to southern California, lasted until 1947.

Having African Americans play in the California Winter League was nothing new – it was one of the first integrated baseball leagues, since the early 1900s, though none of the teams themselves were integrated. Numerous African Americans who played in the league would eventually find themselves with a plaque in Cooperstown: Rube Foster, Joe Rogan, Jose Mendez, Mule Suttles, Turkey Stearnes, and, of course, Robinson.

Brewer put Robinson at shortstop, and while statistics and box scores from the league are scarce, researcher and author William McNeil, who literally wrote the book on the California Winter League, discovered that Robinson hit .429 in four games where statistics are known. The Royals won 14 games to 10 losses, games played in the roughly month-long period allowed for barnstorming following the major league season.

Thanks to a recent donation to the Baseball Hall of Fame Library, we now know that it was expected that Jackie Robinson would play shortstop and bat in the clean-up spot against Bob Feller and other major leaguers. The scorecard is for a game, played Oct. 24, 1945, at Lane Field in San Diego, between Brewer’s Royals and Kent Parker’s Major and Minor League All-Stars, headlined by Feller.

Except one thing: Robinson never played in the game. The day before the game, Robinson signed his name to the contract Rickey offered.

It was not uncommon, at the time, for teams or promoters to pre-print lineups and rosters in game programs. During barnstorming tours, however, rosters were sometimes fluid, with players coming and going.

Just a few weeks earlier, on Oct.7, Lane Field was the scene of the Dodgers’ secret tryout for Robinson and two other African American ballplayers, Buster Haywood and Herb Souell. Both Haywood and Souell played for the Royals in the Oct. 24 game. Invited to the tryout was photographer Maurice Terrell, whose job it was to capture these tryouts on film. Baseball historian John Thorn relates the story behind the photographs on his blog.

Robinson is clearly wearing a Royals uniform in the photographs – a Kansas City Royals uniform.

Even though he did not play at Lane Field on Oct. 24, Robinson made history there nonetheless. But Brooklyn is where Robinson would be crowned 1947 Rookie of the Year and 1955 World Champion, all items on a baseball resume eventually resulting in his Cooperstown enshrinement.