In Philadelphia, the team's general manager allegedly urged the Dodgers not to bring Robinson here. The downtown hotel where the Dodgers stayed would not have him as a guest. In Brooklyn, less than three weeks earlier, Chapman and his players had ceaselessly spewed what one Dodgers official termed "racial venom."
"I have to admit that this day," Robinson wrote in 1972 of his first encounter with the Phils - April 22, 1947 - "of all the unpleasant days of my life brought me nearer to cracking up than I have ever been. For one wild and rage-crazed minute I thought 'To hell with Mr. Rickey's noble experiment.' "
On Sunday at Citizens Bank Park, the Phils, like the rest of Major League Baseball, plan to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Robinson's landmark debut. In tribute, Rollins will join other prominent players who plan to wear the late Hall of Famer's No. 42.
The Phillies have long sought to make peace with the African American community. The franchise has invested in youth baseball programs for inner-city youngsters, made several African American players high draft choices, and reached out to black fans.
Yet it likely will be many years, if ever, before the events of 1947 and the team's subsequent foot-dragging on integration are forgotten.
"That period," Richie Ashburn, the Hall of Famer, said in 1995, two years before his death, "certainly wasn't the Phillies' finest moment."
Robinson had played in only four games when the Phillies arrived in Brooklyn on April 22 for a three-game, midweek series.
That Tuesday was unseasonably brisk and only 6,790 fans showed up. Things were relatively quiet - as they had been through Brooklyn's first four games, there and at the Polo Grounds - until Robinson came to bat in the first.
