Dodgers' Roberts becomes 4th African-American manager to reach World Series

It's fitting that the 2017 season, which marked the 70th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier, could end with Dave Roberts hoisting the Commissioner's Trophy.

In a moment that would have surely made Robinson proud beyond belief, Roberts - the first minority manager in Los Angeles Dodgers franchise history - led the Dodgers to the National League pennant on Thursday night. Once the World Series begins next week, the 45-year-old will join an exclusive list as only the fourth African-American skipper to manage in the World Series.

Cito Gaston - who became the first African-American to manage in the Fall Classic in 1992 and then led the Toronto Blue Jays to consecutive championships - remains the only black manager to win a World Series title. Roberts now has a chance to win his World Series on the 25th anniversary of Gaston's historic first title.

Venezuela native Ozzie Guillen is the only other minority manager and the lone Latin-American skipper to have won a World Series title, having done so with the Chicago White Sox in 2005.

Roberts, who was born in Japan to an Asian mother and black father, is well aware of both the role he plays as a minority manager in baseball and the history he'd make by winning the World Series in the same Dodger uniform once worn by Robinson as he broke the color line.

"It would mean a lot for me personally, of course," Roberts told The Undefeated's Rhiannon Walker earlier this month. "But for the Dodgers organization, the franchise where they've always been forward-thinking and groundbreaking as far as race and color barriers.

"So for the Dodgers and for me to be the manager of this ballclub to bring a championship back to Los Angeles, I think it's well beyond bigger than me."