Which U.S. city’s professional baseball team was the first to field one or more Black players on an integrated squad in the modern era?
Wrong! The Brooklyn Dodgers were certainly the first to sign a Black player, Jackie Robinson in 1945. He was assigned to Brooklyn’s top minor league club the Montreal Royals, however, and played the 1946 season there.
Brooklyn GM Branch Rickey believed Robinson would receive better treatment from French-Canadian fans than Americans. In Montreal, Robinson largely avoided the racist invective heaped on him when he started the 1947 season in Brooklyn and traveled the National League circuit.
The answer? Nashua, New Hampshire of the old New England League. Rickey also signed eventual stars Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe in advance of the 1946 season. The Dodgers wanted to locate a lower-level minor league club in a U.S. city with a large French-Canadian population, building on their Montreal experience, and chose Nashua. They placed Campy and Newcombe there for the '46 campaign.
Thus, the 1946 Nashua Dodgers playing in historic Holman Stadium were the first U.S. professional baseball team to field Black players on an integrated squad in the modern era. Campanella even managed one game against the Lawrence (MA) Millionaires that season after Nashua skipper Walt Alston was ejected. In doing so, he became the first Black man to manage an integrated club as well.
Downtown Nashua in the 1940s. Image courtesy of Hip Postcard.