The Line is drawn
             In 1997 we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson's shattering of the color line in modern, major-league baseball, April 10th, 1947. In reporting this event, careful historians and writers always qualify his accomplishment with the word "modern". In doing so, they differentiate the present era of baseball from the "pre-modern" era, circa 1846-1903, the year the National League and the American League came to a permanent post-season playing agreement (there actually was much more to it than that, but that
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