Distler: After Jackie: Players who followed Robinson to MLB also faced ongoing racism
From Andrew Distler at The Undefeated on April 14, 2020:
The fans in Philadelphia booed and hurled racial slurs. The daily mail brought death threats, not just from Philadelphia, but from around the country.
The story of Jackie Robinson facing racist crowds in Philadelphia is well known. But this isn’t the story of Robinson, and the year isn’t 1947. It’s the story of Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Dick Allen, and the year is 1965 — almost two decades after Robinson broke the color barrier to become the first black MLB player in the 20th century.
Allen is among the scores of black baseball players, many of them largely forgotten, who followed in Robinson’s footsteps in the 1950s and ’60s. Fans attacked their homes, teammates shunned them, owners abused them. Yet there are no biopics about them, few schoolchildren learn their stories and, unlike Robinson, there is no day on the baseball calendar to celebrate and appreciate them as the trailblazers they are.
Read the full article here: https://theundefeated.com/features/after-jackie-robinson-players-who-followed-faced-ongoing-racism-mlb/
Originally published: April 15, 2020. Last Updated: April 15, 2020.