Jackie Robinson Day: Remembering The Dodger Legend

May 7, 2012; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers owner Peter Guber (right) poses with members of the late Jackie Robinson’s family before the game against the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium. From left: Sharon Robinson, Jackie’s widow Rachel Robinson, and Guber. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-USA TODAY Sports

“Were there better players? Sure. But were there better men? No.”  

– Bob Costas

66 years ago on this date, a 28-year old African American with a muscular build jogged onto the baseball diamond at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of New York City, and played his first game with his new team, the Dodgers, playing first base.

He hailed from Pasadena, CA and was a four-sport letterman at UCLA, starring in football, where he was the nation’s leading punt returner, basketball, where he led his conference in scoring, and track, where he set NCAA records.

Oddly enough, baseball was his worst sport in Westwood as he batted a pathetic .097 during his one season as a Bruin, but he more than made up for it  when he hit .387 with the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs in 1945, which led to him eventually being signed by the Dodgers’ owner, Branch Rickey.

With the number 42 adorned on his back during that first game in Dodger blue in front of roughly 26,000 fans, his 0-for-3 (with a base-on-error) performance at the plate wasn’t exactly spectacular, but he did score the winning run to help his team beat the Boston Braves, 5-3.

However, what he did on that Ebbets Field diamond wasn’t as significant as what Robinson did that day in changing baseball, sports, and American society for all time, doing something that no other black man had been able to do since 1887 – which was to play in a major league baseball game.

One must keep in mind that this event happened seven years before the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which ruled that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional, eight years before Rosa Parks refused to go in the back of a bus in Montgomery, AL and started that boycott in that town, and over 15 years before the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed in the mid-1960s.

Essentially speaking, by breaking the color line in major league baseball, Jackie Robinson started the Civil Rights Movement.

Apr 15, 2012; Toronto, ON, Canada; Decals on the bases pay tribute to Jackie Robinson day during the Baltimore Orioles game against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre. The Blue Jays beat the Orioles 9-2. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

And to add a little more perspective on all of this, Martin Luther King was a 18-year old student at Morehouse College the day Robinson began as a Dodger, Malcolm X was a street hustler serving time in a Massachusetts prison, and Muhammad Ali was five years old and went by the name of Cassius Clay!

Breaking this color line was no easy feat as Robinson went through pronounced hardship and torment in the face of the many major leaguers, teammates as well as opponents and the other big league owners, who in wanting their game to be kept white – 60% of the MLB players in 1947 were from the South, which explained their built-in racism – used almost any means necessary to achieve that …

Fastballs exceeding 90 miles an hour thrown at Robinson’s head – he led the league in being hit by pitches that first year – he was intentionally spiked numerous times, and vicious, bigoted epithets were screamed at him on a regular basis. The St. Louis Cardinals even threatened to strike rather than take the field against Robinson in May of ’47, but more than that…

He had to endure all this evilness while keeping a stoic attitude as he had promised Rickey that for three years, with 1947 being the second year of that agreement, he would not retaliate or answer back no matter how bad the taunts and abuse grew.

Which was a lot to ask as Robinson was a natural hot-head who confronted people and fought at the drop of a hat. But he was successful in maintaining his temper because the young Dodger knew that if he punched out some bigot, he would have been gone in a flash with everyone saying, “See, we knew they (black players) couldn’t handle it.”

And as staunchly conservative as the major league owners were, it would have likely been 20 years before another African American ballplayer would have gotten a chance at “The Show”.

That’s why Jackie’s character was so extraordinary, the whole experience showing what kind of man he was as while there were better players in the Negro Leagues at that time, Jackie was the only one that had the ability to endure what he endured, which was why he was chosen to make true baseball’s claim as the National Pastime.

To commemorate all of this, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig decreed in 2007 that every April 15th forever after, all MLB players would wear Robinson’s number 42, which was officially retired by all 30 clubs in 1997.

Considering the significance of what Jackie did in getting the ball rolling on true societal change in this country, it is only right that he is honored on this day.

I’ll certainly be honoring Jackie Robinson as I have always done, and I sincerely hope that you will, too.

For your enjoyment, here’s a video clip of the man and his superb exploits on the baseball field: