Jackie Robinson’s overlooked season in the Negro Leagues shaped his historic path to Major League Baseball

By Dayn Perry

If not for that team, if not for that buccaneering league that housed them, would that scout — that “white fellow,” in the words of inquiring teammates — ever have approached Jackie Robinson in late August of 1945 at Chicago’s Comiskey Park? Would that scout have asked him to meet him in Toledo and then take the train east with him but in the meantime ask him to keep quiet about those plans? Would he have beseeched Robinson to please believe him when he told him why he was there? 

“Jack,” he said to him. “This could be the real thing.”

Read more…