When the Dodgers trained at Havana in 1947,

[musial6]

Jackie was forced to stay at the Hotel Boston while the rest of the team stayed at the Hotel Nacional.

[CaliforniaCajun]

Jackie was forced to stay at the Hotel Boston while the rest of the team stayed at the Hotel Nacional.

1948 was the first year training in Vero Beach and 2008 will be the last. :atthepc

[55 chmps]

They put spring training there because they wanted Robinson to get away from the racial south in florida. He was treated a lot better in Havana.

[EbtsFldGuy]

1948 was the first year training in Vero Beach and 2008 will be the last. :atthepc


Hard to believe that the Dodgers and Vero Beach will be an item no more.

Vero Beach is the last vestige of contact with the Brooklyn days.

[tonypug]

Hard to believe that the Dodgers and Vero Beach will be an item no more.

Vero Beach is the last vestige of contact with the Brooklyn days.
I am surprised they have stayed at Vero Beach as long as they have. I make a trip there every year. I swear you can feel the history, just by walking around the place.

[BayRidgeBrooklyn]

Tony, I've never been to the Dodgers camp at Vero Beach. Would you please tell us about it in detail?

[VIBaseball]

Jackie was forced to stay at the Hotel Boston while the rest of the team stayed at the Hotel Nacional.

I'm a little surprised by this...I'm going to dig more into the story. The reason I'm surprised is that the Caribbean was more relaxed about such issues. The next year, in spring 1948, the Dodgers trained in the Dominican Republic. Jackie and Dan Bankhead encountered no problems at the Hotel Jaragua. It was the first time that black and white ballplayers stayed at the same hotel.

[musial6]

I'm a little surprised by this...I'm going to dig more into the story. The reason I'm surprised is that the Caribbean was more relaxed about such issues. The next year, in spring 1948, the Dodgers trained in the Dominican Republic. Jackie and Dan Bankhead encountered no problems at the Hotel Jaragua. It was the first time that black and white ballplayers stayed at the same hotel.


So, if 1948 "was the first time that black and white ballplayers stayed at the same hotel," where do you think Jackie stayrd in 1947?

[VIBaseball]

So, if 1948 "was the first time that black and white ballplayers stayed at the same hotel," where do you think Jackie stayrd in 1947?

Do you mean during the regular season, musial6? As you established at the top of this thread (and I've seen other sources to confirm), Jackie's quarters were at the Hotel Boston while the other Dodgers were at the Nacional.

[VIBaseball]

Here is an excellent article by Cuban baseball author Roberto González Echevarría in Spring Training Magazine (1996). It's all about the '47 Dodgers and their Havana experience.

http://www.springtrainingmagazine.com/history3.html

The key quote on why Jackie and the other black players were at the Hotel Boston:

The soon-to-be Dodgers of black descent did not stay at the Nacional, but at the Hotel Boston in old Havana while their minor-league teammates stayed in the dormitories of the Havana Military Academy, a prep-school. Since major hotels in Havana did not accommodate blacks, the Boston was the place where American blacks had been staying for decades when they performed in the Cuban winter league. This was no Hotel Nacional. To Robinson, Roy Campanella (who had played in Cuba), and Don Newcombe (who would), this was aggravation as well as insult. Robinson was irate when he discovered that the segregation was due not just to Cuban customs but to arrangements made by the Dodgers. Rickey wanted no chance of racial incident in the Dodger or Royal camp. However, the Boston did provide a haven from an atmosphere at the Nacional that would have been tense if not hostile. Its environs were friendly, familiar and had over the years built a kind of support system for these players. The Dodgers were making use of a baseball infrastructure in Cuban society that had been building for nearly 100 years.

[VIBaseball]

I ran across a reference in an ESPN.com article about a return to Havana by the Dodgers in 1959. This was something I hadn't heard about, so I looked further.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iqsJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aDEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7195,2331502&dq=brooklyn-dodgers+havana

I went back to the article quoted in the post above, and I hadn't gotten to the ending:

"The Dodgers did return to Cuba once, in March of 1959, after revolutionary forces toppled Batista in January. Heavy rains in Florida prompted the Dodgers to come to Havana with the Cincinnati Reds for an unscheduled weekend series. I found out by word of mouth and rushed to Gran Stadium to witness my first major-league game. Dick Gray, a reserve Dodger infielder, hit a foul ball that I caught in the stands amidst a crowd of barbudos, (bearded) rebels from the hills of Sierra Maestra. The next day one rebel was kind enough to go through the dugouts and have it signed for me by both teams. It still sits on one of my shelves, and though the signatures have faded, I can still make out Sandy Koufax, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Don Drysdale, and dream."

By then the team was in L.A., but the Brooklyn presence on the roster was still strong.