No moment in baseball history is more important than the April day in 1947 when Jackie Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field, ending a ban that had extended back to 1882 prohibiting African Americans from fully participating in the National Pastime. “Cap” Anson’s dictum, in 1882, of “Get that nigger off the field,” referring to the presence of black player Moses Fleetwood Walker on a Major League ground, merely reflected the overwhelming social attitude of the day. But in 1947 baseball no longer followed custom, but changed it. Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson’s integration plans went beyond challengingMajor League baseball’s apartheid policies, their actions set in motion and preceded, by.
