The Main Event

  • Bob Trice (born 1926) – A right-handed pitcher who starred in the Negro Leagues with the Homestead Grays before becoming the first Black player in Philadelphia Athletics — and Philadelphia major league — history when he debuted on September 13, 1953.

Bob Trice holds a singular place in Philadelphia sports history. When the right-hander took the mound at Connie Mack Stadium on September 13, 1953, he became the first Black player to appear for the Philadelphia Athletics — and the first Black player on any major league team based in Philadelphia. His career was brief and in the end, painful, but his story says as much about the city and the sport he played in as it does about the man himself.

A Georgia native forged in the Negro Leagues

Robert Lee Trice was born August 28, 1926, in Newton, Georgia, the second of three sons born to Benjamin and Henrietta Trice. The family soon moved north to Weirton, West Virginia, chasing steel mill work, and Trice grew into a three-sport captain at segregated Dunbar High School. He joined the Navy at 17 during World War II, then came home to Weirton in 1946 for a single day of mill work before deciding factory life wasn’t for him.

Trice kept playing ball, and in 1948 the Homestead Grays of the Negro National League gave him his break — as a pitcher, not the first baseman he thought he was. Grays veteran Sam Bankhead taught him control and command, and Trice later credited barnstorming games with Satchel Paige in 1949 for teaching him “a dozen or more tricks about pitching.” Those lessons carried him through stints with the Farnham Pirates and St. Hyacinthe Athletics of Quebec’s Provincial League, where he starred as both a pitcher and everyday player.

In 1953, the Athletics’ Triple-A affiliate in Ottawa gave Trice his biggest stage yet, and he seized it. He went 21-10, led the International League in wins and shutouts, and was named both the league’s Most Valuable Pitcher and Rookie of the Year. Ottawa fans adored him — the club threw a “Bob Trice Night” in August, complete with gifts and a surprise visit from his mother. His manager, Frank Skaff, called him one of the best-conditioned athletes he’d ever seen and praised his composure on the mound.

Breaking the line at Connie Mack Stadium

That performance forced the Athletics’ hand. Trice was called up in September 1953, nearly six and a half years after Jackie Robinson debuted with Brooklyn. When he arrived at Connie Mack Stadium, the reception from his new teammates was cold — Trice put on his Philadelphia uniform alone before venturing onto the field by himself. It was journeyman pitcher Bobby Shantz who broke the ice, introducing himself and telling Trice he was glad to have him aboard.

“These other guys were trying to act indifferent,” Shantz said later. “I didn’t want it to bother him.”

In a strange twist of history, the opposing St. Louis Browns that day featured Satchel Paige, one of Trice’s own mentors, on their roster. Trice lost his debut, 5-2, but didn’t walk a batter and showed real poise; 8,477 fans turned out, a strong crowd for the last place A’s that season. He picked up his first big-league win in his next start and closed the year with a complete-game victory over Washington.

A promising start unravels in 1954

Trice opened 1954 in the rotation and looked every bit the rookie sensation, winning his first four starts and shutting out the defending champion Yankees. He was even floated as an early Rookie of the Year candidate. Then a shoulder injury sapped his fastball, and his season collapsed — he went 3-8 with a bloated ERA over his next several outings.

What wasn’t public at the time was how much racial mistreatment weighed on him. Traveling with the club in the south, Trice was once turned away from a restaurant and left to wait on the team bus while his white teammates ate inside; they later brought him hot dogs in a bag, which he refused to eat. The Athletics had hired Negro Leagues great Judy Johnson as a spring-training mentor for Trice and fellow Black player Vic Power in 1954, but Johnson wasn’t retained once the regular season began, leaving Trice without that support system. He told his son decades later that “dealing with race took precedence over the game.” After an 18-0 drubbing by Boston, Trice stunned the organization by asking to be sent back to Ottawa — a request the club granted.

He returned to the Athletics’ roster, now in Kansas City, for a handful of relief appearances in 1955 before being sent down for good. His entire major-league career amounted to 142 innings in Philadelphia and 10 more in Kansas City.

Trice pitched several more seasons in the Mexican League and winter ball in Panama before retiring in 1959. He settled back in Weirton, worked as a county property appraiser, ran a bar called the After Five Club, took a job at Weirton Steel, and later coached high school baseball. He died of pancreatic cancer on September 16, 1988, at age 62, survived by his wife, Florence, and their three children.

Where the Athletics and Phillies stood on integration

Trice’s arrival made the Athletics the eighth of baseball’s 16 teams to integrate, a middle-of-the-pack showing, well behind pioneers like the Dodgers, Indians and Giants, but well ahead of the sport’s stragglers. The Phillies, by contrast, were dead last in the National League and next to last in all of baseball, waiting until April 22, 1957 — more than four and a half years after Trice’s Philadelphia debut — to field John Kennedy as their first Black player. Only the Boston Red Sox, who didn’t integrate until 1959, lagged further behind.

The Phillies’ slow pace fit a troubling pattern that began in 1947, when manager Ben Chapman and his players subjected Jackie Robinson to some of the ugliest bench-jockeying of his rookie season, prompting a rare public warning from the commissioner’s office. Even after Trice, meaningful change came slowly across the city: no Black pitcher threw as many as 200 innings for a Philadelphia team in a season until Grant Jackson did it for the Phillies in 1969 — sixteen years after Trice first toed the rubber at Connie Mack Stadium.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for August 28

  • August 28, 1901 – The Phillies win the first of 10 games in a row, a streak they won’t match until an 11-game run in July 1955.
  • August 28, 1921 – Second baseman Jimmy Dykes sets an American League record by handling 17 fielding chances in a game, though the Athletics fall to the St. Louis Browns, 12-4.
  • August 28, 1938 – On Connie Mack Day at Shibe Park, the Athletics sweep a doubleheader from the White Sox, setting an AL record by playing their seventh doubleheader in eight days.
  • August 28, 1950 – Earle and Roy Mack buy out the shares held by their half-brother Connie Mack Jr. and other family members, gaining effective control of the Athletics and ending years of family infighting over the club.
  • August 28, 1971 – Rick Wise hits two home runs, including a seventh-inning grand slam, to help beat the Giants 7-3 — the second multi-homer game of his career, making him the first Phillies pitcher with two such games.
  • August 28, 1987 – Mike Schmidt hits career home run number 522 off San Diego’s Ed Whitson, moving him past Ted Williams and Willie McCovey into ninth place on the all-time home run list.
  • August 28, 1998 – The Phillies trade Gregg Jefferies to the Angels for a player to be named later (Doug Nickle).
  • August 28, 2006 – At Single-A Clearwater, Greg Golson hits for the cycle.
  • August 28, 2014 – The Phillies receive Victor Arano from the Dodgers as the second of two players to be named later in the Roberto Hernandez trade.
  • August 28, 2018 – The Phillies trade a player to be named later to the Mets for Jose Bautista.
  • August 28, 2023 – Trea Turner hits two home runs in a win over the Angels, the first game of a five-game home run streak that helped fuel the Phillies’ surge into that year’s postseason.
  • August 28, 2025 – Kyle Schwarber becomes the 21st player in MLB history to hit four Home Runs in a game.

ICYMI

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for August 28

  • Dode Paskert (born 1881) – A slick-fielding center fielder for the Phillies from 1911 to 1917, he anchored the outfield and batted third for the club’s first pennant-winning 1915 team.
  • Byron Houck (born 1891) – A right-handed pitcher for the Athletics from 1912 to 1914, he went 22-14 for Connie Mack’s staff during the club’s Deadball Era dynasty, including the 1913 World Series championship season.
  • Braggo Roth (born 1892) – A well-traveled slugging outfielder best known for his home run power with the White Sox and Indians, he spent part of the 1919 season with the Athletics, batting .323 with 5 homers in 48 games.
  • Charlie Grimm (born 1898) – A longtime first baseman and three-time Chicago Cubs manager nicknamed “Jolly Cholly.” He broke into the majors with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1916 before the National League career that made him a Cubs icon.
  • Jack Peerson (born 1910) – A utility infielder whose entire two-year major league career, in 1935 and 1936, was spent with the Philadelphia Athletics.
  • Tony Gonzalez (born 1936) – An outfielder for the Phillies from 1960 to 1968 and the club’s first Latin American star, he hit .339 in 1967 (second-best in the NL) while playing steady defense in center and left field.
  • Billy Cowan (born 1938) – A well-traveled outfielder across eight big-league seasons, he spent the 1967 season with the Phillies before being taken by the Yankees in the 1968 Rule 5 draft.
  • Mark Ryal (born 1960) – A pinch-hitter, outfielder and first baseman who appeared in 29 games for the Phillies in 1989 during a six-team, six-season MLB career.
  • Ryan Madson (born 1980) – A right-handed reliever who spent parts of nine seasons (2003-2011) with the Phillies, serving as a key set-up man on the 2008 World Series championship team before taking over as closer in 2011 with 32 saves.

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