How the Debut Was Covered

How some media covered Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947:

Baseball, a game invented in Brooklyn by Larry MacPhail and refined to extreme lengths by Leo Durocher, returned to its birthplace yesterday with both its foster parents missing. Also missing were about 5,800 critters whose absence was unexplained. In spite of honey-and-gold weather, only 26,623 of Ebbets Field’s 32,500 seats were occupied, and there were wide, piebald patches of untented pews in left field. This gave rise of to a rumor considered widely implausible in some quarters--that Durocher has 5,800 friends in Brooklyn. . . .

(12th paragraph)

However, Hatten, helped himself with a skillful play on a grounder by Danny Litwhiler when the Braves were threatening in the fourth, and he might have got through all the way if Jackie Robinson could have aided him in the fifth innings.

That dark and anxious young man had grounded out the first time he faced Johnny Sain and flied out the second. Now he came up for the third time, with two runners on and one out. He seemed frantic with eagerness, restless as a can of worms.

He fouled off the first pitch. Phil Masi, the Boston catcher, caught it but knocked himself goggle-eyed against the Braves dugout and dropped the ball. Robinson took a called strike on the outside corner, then rapped a bleeder toward second which looked like a sure hit for a man of his speed.

Cutler, however, dived on the ball, scooped it to Connie Ryan, who tagged second and beat Robbie with a throw to first for a double play. Robinson kicked up dirt with his spikes but made no protest.