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The significance, influence and impact of Jackie Robinson is much larger than a ball field. To confine his legacy to a list of Rookie of the Years would be to diminish what he accomplished, becoming the first African-American player to appear in Major League Baseball when he took the field as a first baseman for the Dodgers in 1947.

After starring for UCLA as a four-sport letterman, he was drafted to the Army and served during World War II, though he never spent time overseas. Fortuitously, he was introduced to a former member of the Negro League club Kansas City Monarchs, who encouraged him to ask for a tryout. Robinson’s athletic ability was undeniable, hitting .387 in 47 games at shortstop.

During the 1940’s, club president Branch Rickey of the Dodgers began scouting the Negro Leagues and compiled a list of players as possible additions to the Dodgers roster and ended up signing him to the Montreal Royals, the AAA affiliate for the Dodgers in 1946.

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Robinson won the International League’s MVP award that season after batting .349 despite facing humiliation and hostility at nearly every stop. That prepared him for the next step, however, a trip to Brooklyn and a call-up to the Major Leagues.

In his first game, he scored the game-winning run and then it was – literally – off to the races. Despite threats by opposing teams to ‘strike’ and not take the field against a team featuring a black player, notwithstanding death threats and bean balls, Robinson batted .297 with 27 stolen bases, tallying 175 hits and a .810 OPS in winning the Rookie of the Year award.

Robinson walked 74 times against only 36 strikeouts and was instrumental in leading the Dodgers to their second pennant since 1920. They eventually fell to the Yankees in seven games in the World Series.

Robinson finished fifth in MVP voting in 1947, but that was only a small part of the scope of his rookie season, and the legacy of that Rookie of the Year award. In 1987, the award was literally renamed the Jackie Robinson Award, and the moniker still holds to this day.

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives,” is a quote attributed to Robinson, who perhaps impacted more lives on-field than any single player in sports history. Robinson not only broke the so-called color barrier, but his uniform number 42 is universally retired in Major League Baseball, amongst every team. There is no question that Jackie Robinson is the number one Rookie of the Year in not just Dodger history, but all of baseball history.