July 4, 1911

From Jonathan Mahler's piece "From Jackie Robinson to Dead Silence" in the NYT: On July 4, 1911 Rafael Almeida and Armando Marsans, who happened to be Cuban, made their major league baseball debut with the Cincinnati Reds. "The Reds took great pains to highlight the irreproachable ethnicities of their newest employees: yes, they were Cubans, but they were purebred Spaniards, without so much as a trace of African blood."