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| pastnames = | pastparks = Delorimier Downs | classchamps = | leaguechamps = 9 (1898, 1922, 1941, 1946, 1948, 1949, 1953, 1958) | conferencechamps = | divisionchamps = }} The Montreal Royals were a minor league professional baseball team in Montreal, Quebec, from 1897–1917 and 1928–60. A member of the International League, the Royals were the top farm club (Class AAA) of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1939; pioneering African-American player Jackie Robinson was a member for the 1946 season. ==History== In 1928, George Stallings, a former Major League Baseball executive and Southern United States plantation owner, formed a partnership with Montreal lawyer and politician, Athanase David, and Montreal businessman, Ernest Savard, to resurrect the Montreal Royals. Among the team's other local affluent notables were close friends Lucien Beauregard, Romeo Gauvreau, Hector H. Racine, and Charles E. Trudeau. Charles Trudeau, businessman and father of former Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, would remain on the Montreal Baseball Club Inc. Board of Directors until his death in 1935. Together these men financed and built Delorimier Stadium ''(also known as Montreal Stadium, Hector Racine Stadium and Delorimier Downs)'' 〔(Baseball Reference: Delorimier Downs )〕 at Delorimier Avenue and Ontario Street in east-end Montreal to serve as the team's home field. This version of the Montreal Royals enjoyed great success and launched the baseball careers of Sparky Anderson, Gene Mauch, Roberto Clemente and the man who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier with Montreal in 1946, Jackie Robinson. Other Royals' players of note include Duke Snider, Don Drysdale, Chuck Connors, Walter Alston, Roy Campanella, Johnny Podres and the winningest pitcher in the history of the team, Tommy Lasorda.〔http://www.hour.ca/news/news.aspx?iIDArticle=9381〕 thumb The team holds a unique place in baseball history for being the first major-league affiliate to break the so-called "baseball color barrier". On October 23, 1945, two members of the Brooklyn National League Baseball Club Inc. Board of Directors, Montreal Royals owner and team president, Hector Racine, and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager, Branch Rickey, signed Jackie Robinson, an African-American.〔(General Baseball History: Baseball's Negro Leagues )〕〔(Society for American Baseball Research: Quebec )〕 Robinson played with the Royals during the 1946 season. John Wright and Roy Partlow, black pitchers, also played with the Royals that year. During that season, Robinson faced the race-related resistance from his manager, Mississippian Clay Hopper, and teammates but soon won them over with his masterful play (beginning with his spectacular debut in the opening game against the Jersey City Giants) and courage facing hostile crowds and opponents. As for his home city, he was welcomed immediately by the public, who followed his performance that season with intense adoration. For the rest of his life, Robinson remained grateful to the people of Montreal for making the city a welcoming oasis for him and his wife during that difficult 1946 season. They lived in an apartment in a white neighborhood of Montreal that summer. Robinson then left to play for the Dodgers the following year, but not before winning the Little World series and being chased by exultant Montreal fans right to the train as he left. In Ken Burns' documentary film ''Baseball'', the narrator quotes Sam Maltin, a stringer for the Pittsburgh ''Courier:'' "It was probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on its mind." The Royals continued through the 1960 season. On September 13, 1960 Dodgers President Walter O'Malley announced that due to weak attendance, the Dodgers were ending their affiliation with the team. While a new affiliation with the Minnesota Twins was arranged, efforts to keep the team in Montreal failed, and the franchise was relocated to Syracuse, New York for 1961, where it has played as the Syracuse Chiefs since. Montreal would gain an MLB team, the Expos, in 1969. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Montreal Royals」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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