Signing on to history

Today marks the 78th anniversary of Branch Rickey helping make right the decades of wrong by signing Jackie Robinson to a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers and marking the first time in the 20th century a Black player will be allowed in so-called organized baseball.

Robinson plays the 1946 season with the Dodgers’ top farm team in Montreal before joining the Dodgers – and the major leagues – in 1947.

While Robinson and Pee Wee Reese, the Dodgers' shortstop in ’47, would be elected to baseball's Hall of Fame, they would not be the first set of Black-and-White teammates to eventually be enshrined in Cooperstown.

That honor belongs to a pair that play for the Harrisburg Ponies on historic City Island in 1890 – infielder Frank Grant and then-catcher Hughie Jennings.