Curt Roberts
The Cincinnati Reds beat the Milwaukee Braves, 9-8 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Making his major league debut for the Braves is Hank Aaron, batting 5th, playing left field, and wearing Number 5. In the 1st inning, batting against Clarence "Bud" Podbelian, he grounds to short, starting an inning-ending double play. He grounds out to 3rd base in the 3rd. He pops up to 2nd in the 4th. He leads off the top of the 7th, and flies to right. And he flies out to right again in the 8th.
He ends the day at 0-for-5. Over the next 23 seasons, wearing Number 44 from the 2nd season onward, he would collect 3,771 hits, 755 of them home runs.
The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. 2nd baseman Curt Roberts becomes the 1st black player to play for the Pirates, and goes 1-for-3.
The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 13-4 at Busch Stadium, formerly Sportsman's Park, in St. Louis. 1st baseman Tom Alston becomes the 1st black player to play for the Cardinals, and goes 0-for-4. The previous September Ernie Banks had become the Cubs' 1st black player.
Four days later, on April 17, Saturnino "Nino" Escalera, an outfielder from Puerto Rico, became the 1st black player for the Cincinnati Reds, who were known as the Cincinnati Redlegs from 1953 to 1958, because the only thing dumber than caving in to McCarthyism was McCarthyism itself.
In 2014, 60 years later, New York Daily News baseball columnist Bill Madden published 1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever. In the introduction, he wrote, "Whether baseball and America realized it, 1954 was the launching pad for a new era, when the dominant players in baseball were to be blacks and Hispanics."
The Pirates' pioneer would not be one of those dominant players: Curt Roberts, who had previously been a teammate of Banks on the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues, only lasted 2 years in the majors, last playing on June 8, 1956, as the emergence of Bill Mazeroski made other 2nd basemen surplus to requirements. He starred in the high minors, with teams like the Denver Bears, the Montreal Royals and the Spokane Indians, but a broken leg in 1961 led to the end of his career in 1963. In 1969, he was changing a tire on his car in Oakland, California when he was hit by a drunk driver, and killed. He was only 40 years old, and should still have been playing.
The Cards' barrier-breaker also felt short of stardom: Tom Alston played 4 full seasons for them, but fell victim to neurasthenia, a neurotic disorder, and never played again after the 1957 season. He spent the rest of his life in hospitals, dying in 1993, at 67.
And Escalera only played 73 games in the majors, all for the '54 Redlegs. He does have the distinction of being the last lefthanded thrower to play shortstop in the National League. He played in the high minors until 1962, then scouted Puerto Rico for the New York Mets and the San Francisco Giants. Among the players he discovered were Jerry Morales, Ed Figueroa and José Oquendo. He lived until 2021, at 91.
All 3 franchises would find more suitable representatives. After being openly hostile to the integration of the sport in 1947, the Cardinals began to develop black players like Bob Gibson, and acquire Curt Flood, Bill White and Lou Brock; while developing Hispanic players like Julián Javier and Mike Cuellar, eventually acquiring Orlando Cepeda. That team would win 3 Pennants in the 1960s.
In 1955, the Pirates obtained Roberto Clemente, and he was a key figure in their team that won the 1960 World Series. In 1971, with Clemente and Mazeroski still there, and Willie Stargell building a career that would allow him to join them in the Baseball Hall of Fame, they fielded the 1st starting lineup in MLB history to be entirely made up of players who were black, Hispanic, or both; and went on to win another World Series.
In 1956, the Reds brought Frank Robinson up, and followed him with other black and/or Hispanic players like Vada Pinson, winning the Pennant in 1961.
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April 13, 1954 was a Tuesday. These other games were played in Major League Baseball that day:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Washington Senators, 5-3 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. President Dwight D. Eisenhower threw out the ceremonial first ball. Uncharacteristically, Whitey Ford didn't get out of the 4th inning. The Yankees used 5 pitchers, the last of them Allie Reynolds. Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra each went 0-for-5.
Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially
the leadoff variety. In the bottom of the 10th inning, Reynolds walked Eddie Yost -- known as the Walking Man, with 8 seasons of 100 or more walks, leading the American League 6 times, so his lifetime batting average was .254 but his on-base percentage was .394 -- and gave up a game-winning home run to Mickey Vernon, to make a winning pitcher out of Chuck Stobbs.
* The National League's New York arch-rivals played each other at the Polo Grounds. The New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4-3. Sal Maglie outpitched Carl Erskine. Mays, Hank Thompson (who became the Giants' 1st black player in 1949), and Alvin Dark each hit home runs. Roy Campanella hit 2 for the Dodgers, while Jackie Robinson went 1-for-4, and Duke Snider went 2-for-5. From 1951 to 1956, either the Giants or the Dodgers won the Pennant every year.
* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-4 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Bobby Shantz outpitched Mel Parnell. Gus Zernial hit a home run, and A's 2nd baseman Forrest "Spook" Jacobs went 4-for-5. Ted Williams did not play, but in his place in left field, Billy Goodman went 4-for-5. Sammy White and Jackie Jensen hit home runs for Boston. No one knew it at the time, but this would be the last season in Philadelphia for the A's.
* And the Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Early Wynn, later to be the ace for the White Sox' 1959 American League Pennant winners, outpitched Billy Pierce. Wally Westlake and George Strickland hit home runs. The Indians went on to break the Yankees' streak of 5 straight Pennants, and win 111 games, to break the Yankees' AL record of 110 wins in 1927. But the Giants swept them in the World Series.
Football was out of season. The NBA season, and an era, ended the night before, as the Minneapolis Lakers beat the Syracuse Nationals, 87-80 at the Minneapolis Auditorium, to win the Finals in 7 games. George Mikan retired, and the NBA instituted the 24-second shot clock for the next season.
And Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals was played. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the Montreal Forum, to send the Finals to a Game 7. Floyd Curry scored 2 goals, while Bernie "Boom-Boom" Geoffrion and Maurice "the Rocket" Richard each added 1. But the Wings would win Game 7 in Detroit, 3 days later, on an overtime goal by Tony Leswick.
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