On Thursday, every Major League Baseball player will don a No. 42 jersey in honor of Jackie Robinson Day. The annual event, celebrated officially since 2004, marks the anniversary of Robinson’s major league debut in 1947, which broke baseball’s color line that stretched back to the 19th century.
Robinson’s signing, a watershed moment in the sport, was far more complicated than it has been portrayed in the years since. The move of Robinson, and every other star, to the National and American leagues contributed to the swift decline of the long-established Negro leagues. And on the heels of M.L.B. officially recognizing the Negro leagues as having been the equivalent of major leagues, it is important to look at how it could have played out differently.
In the weeks and months after the announcement of Robinson’s signing by Branch Rickey and the Brooklyn Dodgers on Oct. 23, 1945, which came without compensation to the Kansas City Monarchs, Negro leagues executives were reeling. Outside their office doors, in the Black communities in Kansas City, Newark, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere, there was jubilation, a collective celebration of the apparent proof of racial progress. Inside, however, there was anger and worry about a young star being taken from their leagues and what that could mean for their future.
