Signing on to history

Jackie Robinson in 1945 with Branch Rickey

Today marks the 80th anniversary of Branch Rickey helping make right the decades of wrong as the Brooklyn Dodgers’ team president signs Jackie Robinson to a contract, marking the first time in the 20th century that 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.

Robinson initially deals with racism and threats both on and off the field en route to playing 10 seasons for Brooklyn before retiring after the 1956 season.

Jackie Robinson with Pee Wee Reese

His final totals over those 10 seasons include 1,518 career hits, a .311 batting average and a .409 on-base percentage.

He also leads the Dodgers to six World Series, including their only championship in 1955, before becoming a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 1962.

While Robinson and Pee Wee Reese, the Dodgers’ shortstop in ’47 when Robinson arrives in the majors, eventually are elected to the Hall of Fame, they would not be the earliest set of Black-and-White teammates in pro baseball to be enshrined in Cooperstown.

That honor belongs to a pair playing in 1890 for the minor-league Harrisburg Ponies on historic City Island — then-catcher Hughie Jennings and infielder Frank Grant.

Jennings is elected to the Hall of Fame in 1945; Grant in 2006.

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