Professional Baseball Firsts
- player, professional: Bud Fowler, 1878. Fowler never played in the major leagues.
- player, major leagues: Moses Fleetwood Walker, debut game May 1, 1884, catcher for Toledo at Louisville
- all-black team, openly professional: Cuban Giants, 1885
- first professional league in the U.S. to be integrated: California Winter League, 1910
- all-black team in a minor league:
- pitcher, major leagues: Dan Bankhead, debut game August 26, 1947, for Brooklyn at home
- All-Star selection: Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, Don Newcombe, Jackie Robinson, 1949
- Most Valuable Player, major leagues: Jackie Robinson, 1949
- field manager, level AAA: Héctor López, 1969
- nine-man lineup, major leagues: Pittsburgh Pirates, 1971
- field manager, major leagues: Frank Robinson, debut game April 8, 1975, for Cleveland at home *
- general manager, major leagues: Bill Lucas, 1976
- First World Series winning field manager: Cito Gaston 1992 with the Toronto Blue Jays. He repeated the next season.
- First National League field manager to manage a World Series: Dusty Baker 2002 with the San Francisco Giants.
* A case has been made for Ernie Banks as the de facto first black manager in the major leagues. On May 8, 1973, Chicago Cubs manager Whitey Lockman was ejected from the game. Coach Ernie Banks filled in as manager for two innings of the 12-inning 3-2 win over the San Diego Padres. The Sporting News Official Baseball Guide prior to the 1974 season stated flatly that on May 8, "Ernie Banks became the major leagues' first black manager, but only for a day" (page 129). The other two regular coaches on the team were absent that day, opening this door for Banks for the one occasion, but Banks never became a manager on a permanent basis.
Read more about this topic: Baseball Color Line
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or baseball:
“I sometimes wonder whether, in the still, sleepless hours of the night, the consciences of ... professional gossips do not stalk them. I myself believe in a final reckoning, when we shall be held accountable for our misdeeds. Do they? If so, they have cause to worry over many scoops that brought them a day’s dubious laurels and perhaps destroyed someone’s peace forever.”
—Mary Pickford (1893–1979)
“Spooky things happen in houses densely occupied by adolescent boys. When I checked out a four-inch dent in the living room ceiling one afternoon, even the kid still holding the baseball bat looked genuinely baffled about how he possibly could have done it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)