1947 was the most important year in the history of baseball. That was the first full season in which all the players came home and readjusted after service in World War II and Americans began flocking to the ballpark and tuning in on the radio like never before.

     This was also the year that the game became one in which all Americans could participate when Jackie Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. This Brooklyn Dodgers scorecard was purchased and scored during a July 12th double header against the Chicago Cubs at Ebbets Field. The Dodgers took the first game 7-2 and an anonymous fan scored the second game in which the Dodgers also won in dramatic fashion with a two-run rally in the bottom of the 9th. Jackie Robinson went 1-for-5 and finished the game with a .303 average. Sometime after the game, the owner managed to have the two men whose names are synonymous with the Brooklyn Dodgers sign the front of his scorecard: Jackie Robinson and Red Barber. Each of these men were pioneers - Barber was the first modern radio play-by-play man and Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. In addition to defining how a ballgame is called, Barber, a Southerner from segregated Florida, was forced to re-think how he thought about race by watching Robinson both on the field and off it during the 1947 season. By the end of the ’47 season Red Barber had become a dedicated supporter of Robinson and the other black ballplayers who followed in his wake.

     That both men’s signatures are captured on this scorecard from that pivotal 1947 season makes this an extraordinary piece of baseball history. The scorecard has some surface wear and exhibits some edge tearing and folds. The scorecard has been scored, recording the entire second game and the owner has recorded the game’s outcome on the front cover in fountain pen and pencil. A dynamic scorecard signed by two men who changed the game in their own different ways. The scorecard comes with a full LOA from PSA/DNA (Y01527) for the signatures.

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