It is the first professional baseball team based in the United States in the twentieth century to play with a racially integrated roster.
[3][4][5][6] With the possibility that the New England League club would be integrated, Bavasi looked for a community with a significant French Canadian population (believing that the ethnic group would be accepting of African Americans) and a racially progressive newspaper.
[3][5] By the middle of March, Rickey had signed two African American players, catcher Roy Campanella and pitcher Don Newcombe, to play for the Dodgers organization.
[3] To promote the Nashua Dodgers within the community, Bavasi arranged for local war veterans to try out for the club, and also made the signing of French Canadian ballplayers a top priority.
Sukeforth, who had scouted Robinson, Newcombe, and Campanella for Brooklyn, had played minor-league baseball briefly in Nashua in 1926, and the Telegraph made that fact known to the public.
Campanella, who wore number 10, batted .291, hit thirteen home runs, and was named the team's Most Valuable Player.
[5] Although Newcombe was promoted, the Nashua Dodgers remained integrated in 1948 with the addition of Dan Bankhead, who had been a pitcher with Brooklyn.
However, in July, partly as a result of a collapse in the region's industrial economy, teams from Providence, Manchester, Fall River, and Lynn disbanded, leaving only Nashua, Springfield, Portland, and Pawtucket to finish the season.
Sensing doom, Branch Rickey reassigned his best players to other teams, among them Gino Cimoli, so-called "bonus baby" Billy Loes, and Wayne Belardi.