In American sport, few dates rival April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking a Major League Baseball color line that had stood for decades. A generation later came Sept. 1, 1971 — the day the Pittsburgh Pirates fielded the first starting nine to consist of all Black and Latino players.
That 1971 game is typically noted in the context of Robinson’s achievement. But while the Dodger great’s debut immediately registered as national news, reaction to the Pirates’ milestone was relatively muted and delayed — even though the club went on to win the World Series that year.
The game was on a Wednesday night, at Three Rivers Stadium, with the first-place Pirates facing the last-place Philadelphia Phillies. Veteran manager Danny Murtaugh — who had guided the Bucs to a World Series win 11 years earlier — made out the historic lineup, but it seems no one noticed until the game was a few innings old.
Starting first-baseman Al Oliver said he was sitting on the bench next to third-baseman Dave Cash.
“I said, ‘Dave, you know, we got all brothers out there on the field,’” Oliver said in a recent phone interview.
From rookie second-baseman Rennie Stennett to All-Star pitcher Dock Ellis, all nine Pirates were either African-American or Latino. But Oliver notes that the Pirates — led by future Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente, who was born in Puerto Rico, and Black slugger Willie Stargell — typically had at least six Black or Latino starters in any given game anyway. It was days before Oliver learned the line-up was unprecedented.
“It had to be in the newspaper or something like that,” said Oliver. “I know no one called and told me.”
The other starters that day were catcher Manny Sanguillen, shortstop Jackie Hernandez, and center-fielder Gene Clines.
Media attention was light partly because both of Pittsburgh’s daily newspapers, the Press and the Post-Gazette, were on strike. National outlets, however, soon took notice, with short articles in Sports Illustrated (headlined “The All-Blacks”) and The Sporting News. Jet magazine called the line-up a first for the Pirates, but didn’t acknowledge it as a Major League milestone.