Jackie Robinson hit .349 for Montreal in 1946

Jackie Robinson, signed by the Montreal Royals on Oct. 23, 1945, led the International League with a .349 batting average in 1946 and helped the team to a championship, a season that Montreal has claimed as part of its own history ever since.

The announcement was made at Delorimier Stadium, according to a Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) account of how Montreal received him. The Royals were the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top farm team, and Dodgers president Branch Rickey had signed Robinson, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia. The encyclopedia said the deal reportedly included a $3,500 bonus and $600 a month.

Reaction in the press was cautious at first. SABR said Montreal Herald writer Al Parsley described the response as “belligerent neutrality.” The Montreal Star’s Lloyd McGowan wrote that baseball had no need of Robinson, though he later conceded Robinson had made “a more than decent start.” Paul Parizeau of Le Canada called Montreal the most democratic city in the world, a claim SABR quoted without testing.

Robinson’s path to Montreal ran through the American South. SABR reported that spring training games in Florida were cancelled in Jacksonville and DeLand, and that the team was run out of Sanford. On April 6, 1946, a police chief ordered Robinson off the field under a local law banning mixed sports. His wife, Rachel Robinson, later described Montreal as “almost blissful” by comparison, SABR said.

He played his first game as a Royal on April 18, 1946, in Jersey City, N.J. The Canadian Encyclopedia said Montreal won 14-1 and Robinson had four hits, including a home run. His home debut on May 1 drew a large ovation, SABR said, and Charles Mayer of Le Petit Journal called it the greatest ever given a Royals player.

The numbers followed. Robinson led the league with 113 runs and stole 40 bases, according to SABR. The Royals clinched the regular-season title on Aug. 25 with 90 wins and a 19-game lead. SABR counted 214,352 fans at the first 30 home games, about 55,000 more than in 1945, and more than 27,000 on Labour Day, Sept. 2.

The Robinsons lived at 8232 De Gaspé Ave., after a landlady offered Rachel Robinson the apartment, The Canadian Encyclopedia said. U.S. diplomats unveiled a commemorative plaque at the address in 2011. SABR said neighbours helped Rachel Robinson with groceries and maternity clothes while the couple awaited the birth of their first child.

The championship series against the Louisville Colonels tested the team. SABR said Louisville fans booed Robinson constantly, and that he stayed at the home of a Black lawyer while his teammates stayed at the Brown Hotel. Montreal trailed 2-1 after Louisville’s games, tied the series at home on Oct. 2, and won on Oct. 4 when Curt Davis pitched a 2-0 shutout in front of more than 19,000 fans. The Canadian Encyclopedia said the crowd hugged and kissed Robinson and lifted him onto its shoulders.

The celebratory telling has limits. SABR noted that much of it rests on Montreal press reports and on later recollections by Robinson and his wife, and that it does not examine racism inside Montreal or Quebec. Robinson’s own account, as SABR summarized it, was that the warmth of Montreal’s fans was partly a reaction to how he had been treated in Louisville.

The same year, Viola Desmond was arrested in Nova Scotia for sitting in the whites-only section of a theatre, a case Canada News Media has examined. Black Canadians, among them the railway workers who organized a porters’ union in Winnipeg, were already challenging segregation on their own terms.

Robinson left Montreal for the Dodgers. His major-league debut came on April 15, 1947, The Canadian Encyclopedia said.

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Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Jackie Robinson and the Montreal Royals”; Society for American Baseball Research, “A Great Leap Forward: Jackie Robinson and the View from Montreal.”