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Talk about the first black baseball player and you may not be able to point to anyone specifically as there were many black players that were playing in the negro leagues which ultimately got phased out after the era of segregation ended in major league basketball. Many people from all the different races have always played baseball in their different forms. Therefore, it is not even easy to ascertain when baseball as now know it was first played.
Records however, have it that Rube Foster took the initiative to start organizing the Negro National League as it was known then in 1920. However, talk about the first black baseball player and everyone automatically thinks of Jackie Robinson, even though he wasn’t the first black baseball player in the true sense of the word. Anyways, the first black baseball to play professionally in the Major Leagues was ex-dodger Jackie Robinson.
Prior to his assignment with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1947, he excelled in four different sports at UCLA including baseball, basketball, football and track. He was also playing in the Negro league at the time. After signing with the Dodgers in 1945, he stayed one year in the minor leagues where he was assessed and then moved up to the Major League.
As fate would have it, that same year -1946- he won the Rookie of the Year award -which has been renamed the Jackie Robinson award now- and went on win many more awards. The professional baseball league recently honoured him by retiring his jersey number (42); the highest honor to be given any player since the history of professional baseball.
Other black players that did not get the opportunity to cross from the negro league include Josh Gibson, Roy Campanello, Pumpsie Green, Buck O’Neil, Piper Davis, and Leroy “Satchel” Paige
No matter what though, Jackie Robinson will always be known as the first black baseball professional to play in the major league.
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