New Hampshire town recognized for historic role in racially integrating baseball in the 1940s

By MICHAEL CASEY
Associated Press

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire stadium is being recognized for playing a largely unheralded role in helping racially integrate baseball. Much of the attention has been on Jackie Robinson, who broke the major league color barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. But a year earlier, Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella and Cy Young award-winning pitcher Don Newcombe helped make the Nashua Dodgers, a minor league affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the first racially integrated baseball team in the United States. The Dodgers chose Nashua after finding resistance in other parts of the country and the players recalled being welcomed by the town’s mostly white residents.