Royal Treatment: Jackie Robinson, Montreal, and the Breaking of Baseball's Color Barrier

The story of Jackie Robinson's prodigious talent, his courageous journey, and his influence on both the game of baseball and American society writ large has been told well and often. What hasn't been told is the full story of his first season in the minor leagues in Montreal. In 1946, before moving up to the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson spent a season thrilling home crowds in a Canadian city with Major League aspirations. He played for the AAA Montreal Royals of the International League, leading the team to victory in the Junior World Series.

As it turned out, postwar Montreal was the ideal location for Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey's "great experiment" to finally integrate America's pastime. Although both Rickey and Robinson have rightly been at the center stage of this story, it was the masses of cheering Montrealers who first showed the world that professional baseball was ready to bury race-based segregation. As Robinson told a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter years later, "Had it not been for the fact that we broke in in Montreal, I doubt seriously if we would have made the grade so rapidly. The fans were just fantastic, and my wife and I had nothing but the greatest of memories."

In Royal Treatment Sean J. McLaughlin explores Robinson's experience in Canada as a Minor Leaguer and the warm embrace he received from Montrealers well before he became one of baseball's household names. Bringing the early fan experience of Robinson directly to the foreground, Royal Treatment is an intimate look at a pivotal juncture in Robinson's career, and the overwhelmingly positive relationship he had with the community that supported his rise to fame. This baseball story centers Robinson within the context of the Black American expatriate experience in Montreal in the postwar era.

Sean J. McLaughlin is a historian, serving as the director of Special Collections and Exhibits at Murray State University in Kentucky. He is the author of JFK and de Gaulle: How America and France Failed in Vietnam, 1961-1963 and coauthor of The Finest Place We Know: A Centennial History of Murray State, 1922-2022.