Jackie Robinson first played at Tinker Field on March 17, 1953, when the National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers faced the hometown Washington Senators before a record crowd of 6,550 in a stadium with fewer than 4,000 seats, breaking Babe Ruth’s attendance record from 1927. The New York Times reported that three-quarters of the crowd was African-American and cheering for the Dodgers, while the Orlando Sentinel noted that the “Negro bleachers” were full by noon and that an estimated 2,500 fans lined the grassy foul lines and outfield for a glimpse of Robinson. Brooklyn rallied from a four-run seventh-inning deficit to defeat the Senators 11-10 in ten innings. Seven years earlier, during 1946 spring training, Robinson had played with the Montreal Royals in Sanford and Daytona while enduring death threats and police intervention that removed him from the field during a game. From 1947 to 1952, the Dodgers trained in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and their own camp called "Dodgertown" to avoid the effects of racism against their integrated team. Robinson had first played in Orlando on November 3, 1950, in a postseason exhibition game with the Jackie Robinson All-Stars against the Orlando All-Stars at Carter Street Park, where a standing-room-only crowd saw players including Roy Campanella, Lary Doby, Don Newcombe, and a young Napoleon Ford.
