The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Hampshire town recognized for role in integrating baseball in the 1940s
The conversation around racial integration in baseball often revolves around Jackie Robinson, who broke the major league color barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
But a year earlier, history was being made in the small town of Nashua, New Hampshire. It was here that Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella and Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Don Newcombe would join the Nashua Dodgers, making the minor league club the first racially integrated baseball team in the United States.
They played at the 86-year-old Holman Stadium, which will celebrate their achievements by adding the venue to a stop on the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire.
Already, the 2,825-seat stadium serves as a shrine of sorts to the players. Visitors are greeted with banners of the players at the entrance, and access streets leading to the venue have been named in their honor. Their Dodgers numbers — 36 for Newcombe, 39 for Campanella and 42 for Robinson — adorn the outfield brick wall of the field that is home to the Nashua Silver Knights, which play in the Futures League.
“They hit a home run with Nashua,” said Mark Langill, the team historian for the Los Angeles Dodgers. “It worked out and it was really the launching point to a new chapter, a new era in baseball. “The two players obviously had the ability. They not only needed the chance but they needed the setting to play the game like everyone before them.”
Campanella and Newcombe were part of a plan by Branch Rickey, the team president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to break baseball’s color barrier. While Robinson was playing for a Triple-a Dodger affiliate in Montreal in 1946, Rickey sent Campanella and Newcombe to a Class B Nashua farm team after being told they wouldn’t be welcome in a Midwest league because they were Black. Both were signed from the Negro Leagues.
Nashua, an industrial town known for its foundries and textile mills, proved welcoming to the two budding stars. Newcombe would later say they did face abuse from some opposing teams.
Lured by the numerous factories, workers from around the globe had settled in Nashua including French-canadian, Jewish and Irish families. Newcombe recalled he was given his first car by a dealership in Nashua and that he lived with a white family while he was there.
The two players thrived on the field in Nashua, and Newcombe credited his time there with setting the stage for his success in the major leagues. Campanella followed Robinson to the Dodgers in 1948 and Newcombe joined the team in 1949. The three supported each another throughout their careers and won a World Series together in 1955.