Nearly all the men who broke baseball’s color barrier in the 1940s — Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Larry Doby — are no longer with us.
One who remains is former pitcher Don Newcombe, who joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949 and is still a member of the team’s management. Newcombe, who turns 91 today, was present at the start of the game’s integration, signing with the Dodgers’ minor-league organization in 1946 after two years in the Negro Leagues.
Every year, baseball honors Robinson, who became the first African-American to play in the major leagues in the 20th Century when he joined the Dodgers in 1947, the start of a career that ended with his selection to the Hall of Fame.