n April 10,1947, the Brooklyn Dodgers faced their AAA team, the Montreal Royals, at Ebbets Field. What everyone at the park and on the field – and in the nation – didn’t know was General Manager Branch Rickey had told Jackie Robinson earlier that day he was being promoted to Brooklyn. Robinson recalled he left Rickey’s office “in a daze.”
Robinson went hitless in the exhibition, but he did draw a walk and scored. In the fifth inning, after Robinson had bunted into a double play, Arthur Mann, an assistant to Rickey, released an announcement in the press box: “The Brooklyn Dodgers today purchased the contract of Jackie Roosevelt Robinson from the Montreal Royals.” The next two days, Robinson played for Brooklyn against the New York Yankees in an annual preseason series, unofficially breaking the color barrier before officially breaking it on opening day, April 15, against the Boston Braves.
Beginning in the 1880s, major league clubs played “exhibitions,” games that didn’t count and were considered post spring training, but “exhibited” major league players. Along with the Dodgers and Yankees, teams that shared a city – Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis – or even a state (Cleveland vs. Cincinnati) played each other. Exhibitions were played before, during, and even after the season.
“The city series was a promotion by the two clubs to encourage fans to buy tickets for the upcoming season,” said Charlie Bevis, a member of the Boston Braves Historical Society and author of Red Sox vs. Braves in Boston: The Battle for Fans’ Hearts, 1901-1952.
