With the Dodgers from 1947 to 1956
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck(/ˈbɒzwɛl, -wəl/; 29 October 1740 – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer and diarist, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for the biography he wrote of his friend and contemporary, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson, which is commonly said to be the greatest biography written in the English language.
Click here to view Jackie Robinson's four page contract with the Dodgers:
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www.phillymag.com/news/2016/05/24/jackie-robinson-contracts-constitution-center/#gallery-2-4
42 The Jackie Robinson Story
Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954
Second baseman
Born: January 31, 1919
Cairo, Georgia
Died: October 24, 1972 (aged 53)
Stamford, Connecticut
Batted: RightThrew: Right
MLB debut
April 15, 1947, for the Brooklyn Dodgers
Last MLB appearance
October 10, 1956, for the Brooklyn Dodgers
MLB statistics
Batting average.311
Hits1,518
Home runs137
Runs batted in734
Teams
Negro leagues
- Kansas City Monarchs (1945)
- Brooklyn Dodgers (1947–1956)
Career highlights and awards
- 6× All-Star (1949–1954)
- World Series champion (1955)
- NL MVP (1949)
- MLB Rookie of the Year (1947)
- NL batting champion (1949)
- 2× NL stolen base leader (1947, 1949)
- Jersey number 42 retired by all MLB teams
- Major League Baseball All-Century Team
Baseball Hall of Fame
Inducted1962
Vote77.5% (first ballot)
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (/ˈbɒzˌwɛl, -wəl/; 29 October 1740 – 19 May 1795), was a Scottishbiographer and diarist, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson, which is commonly said to be the greatest biography written in the English language.[1][2]
Boswell's surname has passed into the English language as a term (Boswell, Boswellian, Boswellism) for a constant companion and observer, especially one who records those observations in print. In "A Scandal in Bohemia", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes affectionately says of Dr. Watson, who narrates the tales, "I am lost without my Boswell."[3]
Boswell's surname has passed into the English language as a term (Boswell, Boswellian, Boswellism) for a constant companion and observer, especially one who records those observations in print. In "A Scandal in Bohemia", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes affectionately says of Dr. Watson, who narrates the tales, "I am lost without my Boswell."[3]
Red Barber was the Dodgers original broadcaster, calling Brooklyn Dodgers games on the radio (and later TV) from 1939-1953.
Walter Lanier "Red" Barber (February 17, 1908 – October 22, 1992) was an American sports commentator. Barber, nicknamed "The Ol' Redhead", was primarily identified with radio broadcasts of Major League Baseball, calling play-by-play across four decades with the Cincinnati Reds (1934–1938), Brooklyn Dodgers (1939–1953), and New York Yankees (1954–1966). Like his fellow sports pioneer Mel Allen, Barber also gained a niche calling college and professional American football in his primary market of New York City.
Walter Lanier "Red" Barber (February 17, 1908 – October 22, 1992) was an American sports commentator. Barber, nicknamed "The Ol' Redhead", was primarily identified with radio broadcasts of Major League Baseball, calling play-by-play across four decades with the Cincinnati Reds (1934–1938), Brooklyn Dodgers (1939–1953), and New York Yankees (1954–1966). Like his fellow sports pioneer Mel Allen, Barber also gained a niche calling college and professional American football in his primary market of New York City.
Above
Leo Durocher
Baseball player
Leo Ernest Durocher, nicknamed Leo the Lip and Lippy, was an American professional baseball player, manager and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as an infielder. Wikipedia
Born: July 27, 1905, West Springfield, MA
Died: October 7, 1991, Palm Springs, CA
Height: 5′ 10″
Spouse: Lynne Walker Goldblatt (m. 1969–1980), More
Books: The Dodgers and Me: The Inside Story, Dodgers and Me: Inside Story: American Autobiography
Quotes
Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand.
I never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes.
You don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain.
Leo Durocher
Baseball player
Leo Ernest Durocher, nicknamed Leo the Lip and Lippy, was an American professional baseball player, manager and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as an infielder. Wikipedia
Born: July 27, 1905, West Springfield, MA
Died: October 7, 1991, Palm Springs, CA
Height: 5′ 10″
Spouse: Lynne Walker Goldblatt (m. 1969–1980), More
Books: The Dodgers and Me: The Inside Story, Dodgers and Me: Inside Story: American Autobiography
Quotes
Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand.
I never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight, yes.
You don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it may rain.
On June 17, 1971, at the age of 24, he was killed in an automobile accident. The experience with his son's drug addiction turned Robinson Sr. into an avid anti-drug crusader toward the end of his life. Robinson did not long outlive his son.
Above
Harold Peter Henry "Pee Wee" Reese (July 23, 1918 – August 14, 1999) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers from 1940 to 1958. A ten-time All Star, Reese contributed to seven National League championships for the Dodgers and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984. Reese is also famous for his support of his teammate Jackie Robinson, the first modern African American player in the major leagues, especially in Robinson's difficult first years.
Early life Reese's nickname originated in his childhood, as he was a champion marbles player (a "pee wee" is a small marble). Reese was born in Ekron, Meade County, Kentucky, and raised there until he was nearly eight years old, when his family moved to racially segregated Louisville. In high school, Reese was so small that he did not play baseball until senior year, at which time he weighed only 120 pounds and played just six games as a second baseman. He graduated from duPont Manual High School in 1937. He worked as a cable splicer for the Louisville phone company, only playing amateur baseball in a church league. When Reese's team reached the league championship, the minor league Louisville Colonels allowed them to play the championship game on their field. Reese impressed Colonels owner Cap Neal, who signed him to a contract for a $200 bonus.
Harold Peter Henry "Pee Wee" Reese (July 23, 1918 – August 14, 1999) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers from 1940 to 1958. A ten-time All Star, Reese contributed to seven National League championships for the Dodgers and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984. Reese is also famous for his support of his teammate Jackie Robinson, the first modern African American player in the major leagues, especially in Robinson's difficult first years.
Early life Reese's nickname originated in his childhood, as he was a champion marbles player (a "pee wee" is a small marble). Reese was born in Ekron, Meade County, Kentucky, and raised there until he was nearly eight years old, when his family moved to racially segregated Louisville. In high school, Reese was so small that he did not play baseball until senior year, at which time he weighed only 120 pounds and played just six games as a second baseman. He graduated from duPont Manual High School in 1937. He worked as a cable splicer for the Louisville phone company, only playing amateur baseball in a church league. When Reese's team reached the league championship, the minor league Louisville Colonels allowed them to play the championship game on their field. Reese impressed Colonels owner Cap Neal, who signed him to a contract for a $200 bonus.
The LA Dodgers Got Their Name From Brooklyn's Deadly Streetcars
Adam Clark Estes
6/10/15 6:05pm
Most people know that the blue-hatted Los Angeles Dodgers were once the Brooklyn Dodgers. But while you may have assumed that the “Dodgers” moniker referred to avoiding a tag or stealing a base, the true story is more complicated. That’s because the Brooklyn Dodgers were once the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers—and those trolleys were deadly.
But before we get into the etymology of “Dem Bums” from Brooklyn, it’s useful to review a little bit of baseball history. It all started in the mid-19th century, when baseball was not yet a national pastime. It was a leisure activity and, initially, a way to build community and camaraderie in a country full of immigrants.
In many ways, New York City had become an epicenter of baseball fervor after the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York played the first full game against the New York Nine in 1845. (The New York Nine won 22-1.) The game’s popularity spread across the country, of course, but teams formed in other boroughs, including Brooklyn. In fact, the Atlantic Base Ball Club of Brooklyn won the very first national championship in 1857 and dominated the game for years to follow.
Here’s a fantastic photograph of the Brooklyn Atlantics, “champions of America,” in 1865:
Building on a tradition of success, real estate magnate Charles Byrne formed another baseball team in 1883: the Brooklyn Grays. At this point in baseball history, teams were largely known by their colors, and it was up to the newspaper writers to come up with their names. The Brooklyn Grays became the Brooklyn Bridegrooms in 1888, for instance, because six members of the team got married during the season. A few years later, however, another name started appearing in the press: the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers.
There’s a bit of confusion surrounding the exact origins of the name “Trolley Dodgers.” As one sports history blog explains, the team moved in 1891 to Eastern Park which was surrounded by horse-drawn trolley lines. These slow-moving cars didn’t really require dodging, though. It wasn’t until the 1890s, when the Brooklyn Rapid Transit started to replace the rickety old trolleys. These fast-moving trolley cars were powered by a new-fangled thing called electricity.
This is where the story gets dark. In the late 19th-century, Americans weren’t accustomed to fast-moving vehicles running down city streets. Brooklyn was actually the second city in America to get an electric trolley line. As such, pedestrians hadn’t learned the habit of looking both ways when crossing the street. After all, if you stepped out in front of a horse, the horse would typically just stop in its tracks. An electric trolley car, however, would plow right over you.
Nevertheless, the speedier electric technology prevailed, and before long Brooklyn was completely covered in streetcar lines. The death toll from trolleys hitting pedestrians quickly rose. In the first year, 1892, five people died after being hit by trolleys. The Evening World reported that year:
[A] new precaution is necessary for the suffering Brooklynite. In addition to being always prepared to dodge the trolley wire, he must always be careful to step clear of the trolley rail.
There were 51 deaths in 1893 and 34 in 1894. By the time 1895 rolled around, Brooklyn had earned itself a reputation, and the newspaper writers across the country bestowed a new title on the city’s baseball team. The first use of the team name Trolley Dodgers actually popped up in print over a hundred miles away from Brooklyn. From The Scranton Tribune on May 11, 1865:
The “Rainmakers” and the “Trolley Dodgers” are the latest terms used by base ball writers to designate the Phillies and Brooklyns respectively.
The name stuck. Soon many newspapers were referring to Brooklyn’s baseball team as the Trolley Dodgers. One magazine called it a “playful descriptive term,” though some might think it somewhat derisive towards Brooklynites. Inevitably, however, the city—which became a borough of New York City in 1897—embraced the term.
Over time, the Trolley Dodger moniker was shortened to Dodgers. The baseball club officially acknowledged the nickname in 1933, when it put “Dodgers” on its jerseys. Five years later, the now familiar Dodgers script appeared. It’s the same script that Jackie Robinson wore when he became the first African-American player in the major leagues in 1947. In 1958, the Dodgers moved West, but the Los Angeles Dodgers kept the name, as well as the same iconic logo.
In the years that followed, trolley cars disappeared from the streets of Brooklyn and Los Angeles. But the legend lives on as a lasting memory of how technology and city culture collide, sometimes to a deadly degree.
Adam Clark Estes
6/10/15 6:05pm
Most people know that the blue-hatted Los Angeles Dodgers were once the Brooklyn Dodgers. But while you may have assumed that the “Dodgers” moniker referred to avoiding a tag or stealing a base, the true story is more complicated. That’s because the Brooklyn Dodgers were once the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers—and those trolleys were deadly.
But before we get into the etymology of “Dem Bums” from Brooklyn, it’s useful to review a little bit of baseball history. It all started in the mid-19th century, when baseball was not yet a national pastime. It was a leisure activity and, initially, a way to build community and camaraderie in a country full of immigrants.
In many ways, New York City had become an epicenter of baseball fervor after the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York played the first full game against the New York Nine in 1845. (The New York Nine won 22-1.) The game’s popularity spread across the country, of course, but teams formed in other boroughs, including Brooklyn. In fact, the Atlantic Base Ball Club of Brooklyn won the very first national championship in 1857 and dominated the game for years to follow.
Here’s a fantastic photograph of the Brooklyn Atlantics, “champions of America,” in 1865:
Building on a tradition of success, real estate magnate Charles Byrne formed another baseball team in 1883: the Brooklyn Grays. At this point in baseball history, teams were largely known by their colors, and it was up to the newspaper writers to come up with their names. The Brooklyn Grays became the Brooklyn Bridegrooms in 1888, for instance, because six members of the team got married during the season. A few years later, however, another name started appearing in the press: the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers.
There’s a bit of confusion surrounding the exact origins of the name “Trolley Dodgers.” As one sports history blog explains, the team moved in 1891 to Eastern Park which was surrounded by horse-drawn trolley lines. These slow-moving cars didn’t really require dodging, though. It wasn’t until the 1890s, when the Brooklyn Rapid Transit started to replace the rickety old trolleys. These fast-moving trolley cars were powered by a new-fangled thing called electricity.
This is where the story gets dark. In the late 19th-century, Americans weren’t accustomed to fast-moving vehicles running down city streets. Brooklyn was actually the second city in America to get an electric trolley line. As such, pedestrians hadn’t learned the habit of looking both ways when crossing the street. After all, if you stepped out in front of a horse, the horse would typically just stop in its tracks. An electric trolley car, however, would plow right over you.
Nevertheless, the speedier electric technology prevailed, and before long Brooklyn was completely covered in streetcar lines. The death toll from trolleys hitting pedestrians quickly rose. In the first year, 1892, five people died after being hit by trolleys. The Evening World reported that year:
[A] new precaution is necessary for the suffering Brooklynite. In addition to being always prepared to dodge the trolley wire, he must always be careful to step clear of the trolley rail.
There were 51 deaths in 1893 and 34 in 1894. By the time 1895 rolled around, Brooklyn had earned itself a reputation, and the newspaper writers across the country bestowed a new title on the city’s baseball team. The first use of the team name Trolley Dodgers actually popped up in print over a hundred miles away from Brooklyn. From The Scranton Tribune on May 11, 1865:
The “Rainmakers” and the “Trolley Dodgers” are the latest terms used by base ball writers to designate the Phillies and Brooklyns respectively.
The name stuck. Soon many newspapers were referring to Brooklyn’s baseball team as the Trolley Dodgers. One magazine called it a “playful descriptive term,” though some might think it somewhat derisive towards Brooklynites. Inevitably, however, the city—which became a borough of New York City in 1897—embraced the term.
Over time, the Trolley Dodger moniker was shortened to Dodgers. The baseball club officially acknowledged the nickname in 1933, when it put “Dodgers” on its jerseys. Five years later, the now familiar Dodgers script appeared. It’s the same script that Jackie Robinson wore when he became the first African-American player in the major leagues in 1947. In 1958, the Dodgers moved West, but the Los Angeles Dodgers kept the name, as well as the same iconic logo.
In the years that followed, trolley cars disappeared from the streets of Brooklyn and Los Angeles. But the legend lives on as a lasting memory of how technology and city culture collide, sometimes to a deadly degree.
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Jackie Robinson
This article was written by Rick Swaine
Jackie Robinson is perhaps the most historically significant baseball player ever, ranking with Babe Ruth in terms of his impact on the national pastime. Ruth changed the way baseball was played; Jackie Robinson changed the way Americans thought. When Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, more than sixty years of racial segregation in major-league baseball came to an end. He was the first acknowledged black player to perform in the Major Leagues in the twentieth century and went on to be the first to win a batting title, the first to win the Most Valuable Player award, and the first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He won major-league baseball's first official Rookie of the Year award and was the first baseball player, black or white, to be featured on a United States postage stamp.
The raw statistics only scratch the surface in evaluating Jackie Robinson as a ballplayer. Because of institutionalized racism and World War II, he did not play his first big-league game until he was twenty-eight years old, and therefore his major-league career spanned only ten seasons. His lifetime batting average was a solid .311, but because of the brevity of his career, his cumulative statistics are relatively unimpressive by Hall of Fame standards.
But in what would be considered his prime years, ages twenty-eight to thirty-four, Robinson hit .319 and averaged more than 110 runs scored per season. He drove in an average of eighty-five runs, and his average of nearly fifteen home runs per season was outstanding for a middle infielder of that era. And he averaged 24 stolen bases a season for a power-laden team that didn't need him to run very often.
Colorfully described as a tiger in the field and a lion at bat, the right-handed-hitting Robinson crowded the plate and dared opposing hurlers to dust him off—a challenge they frequently accepted. He was an excellent bunter, good at the sacrifice and always a threat to lay one down for a hit. Not known as a home-run hitter, he displayed line-drive power to all fields, had a good eye for the strike zone, and rarely struck out. For his entire big-league career, he drew 740 walks and struck out only 291 times—an extremely impressive ratio.
Second base was Robinson's best position. In a 1987 "Player's Choice" survey, he was voted the greatest second baseman of his era despite having played there regularly for only five seasons. Though not a smooth glove man in the classic sense, he was sure-handed and possessed good range and instincts. He made up for an average arm by standing his ground on double plays and getting rid of the ball quickly. Robinson also displayed his versatility by playing regularly at first base, at third base, and in left field when the needs of the team dictated it.
It was running the bases, however, where Robinson's star shined brightest. He was a dynamo on the basepaths—fast, clever, daring, and rough. He was the most dangerous base runner since Ty Cobb, embarrassing and intimidating the opposition into beating themselves with mental and physical errors. Former teammate and big-league manager Bobby Bragan, who initially objected to Jackie's presence on the Dodgers, called him the best he ever saw at getting called safe after being caught in rundown situations. He created havoc by taking impossibly long leads, jockeying back and forth, and threatening to steal on every pitch. His mere presence on base was enough to upset the most steely-nerved veteran hurlers.
Robinson revived the art of stealing home, successfully making it nineteen times in his career—tied with Frankie Frisch for the most since World War I. At the age of thirty-five in 1954, he became the first National Leaguer to steal his way around the bases in twenty-six years, and a year later he became one of only twelve men to steal home in the World Series.
Throughout his career, Jackie Robinson was a fearless competitor. As Leo Durocher, first his manager and later an archrival, so elegantly phrased it, "You want a guy that comes to play. But (Robinson) didn't just come to play. He came to beat you. He came to stuff the damn bat right up your ass."1
Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, a sleepy Southern town near the Florida border. Jackie was the youngest of five children, four boys and a girl, born to impoverished sharecroppers Jerry and Mallie Robinson. Jerry Robinson deserted the family six months after Jackie was born. Mallie Robinson, a strong, devoutly religious woman, moved the struggling family across the country by rail to Pasadena, California, in 1920 when Jackie was fourteen-months old. She worked as a domestic to support her family; leftovers from the kitchens of families she worked for often constituted their daily diet.
With the help of a welfare agency, the Robinson family purchased a home in a predominantly white Pasadena neighborhood, where neighbors immediately petitioned to get rid of the newcomers and even offered to buy them out. When those ploys failed the family was harassed for several years. The Robinson boys often had to fight to defend themselves, and young Jackie was involved in his share of scrapes with white youths and had some run-ins with authorities.
Jackie's athletic talent became evident at an early age. But he wasn't the only gifted athlete in the family. His older brother Mack became a world-class track star, finishing second in the 200-yard dash to Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. But after Olympic stardom and college, the only job Mack Robinson could find was janitorial work for the City of Pasadena. It was a position he soon lost. As in most of the country at that time, Jim Crow rules prevailed in Pasadena. Black citizens were permitted to use the city's public swimming pool only one day a week. When a judge ordered full access to the pool for black citizens, the city fathers responded by firing black employees, including Mack Robinson.
After starring in baseball, football, basketball, and track at Muir Technical High School and Pasadena Junior College, Jackie declined many other offers to enroll at the University of California at Los Angeles, near his Pasadena home. Robinson gained national fame at UCLA in 1940 and 1941. He became the school's first four-letter man and was called the "Jim Thorpe of his race" for his multisport skills.2 Sharing rushing duties with Kenny Washington, who later became one of the first black men to play in the National Football League, Jackie averaged 11-plus yards per carry as a junior. Sports Weeklycalled him "the greatest ball carrier on the gridiron today."3 On the basketball court Jackie led the Pacific Coast Conference in scoring as a junior and as a senior.
Although he wasn't named to the first, second, or third all-conference teams, one coach called him "the best basketball player in the United States."4 Already the holder of the national junior college long-jump record, he captured the NCAA long-jump title and probably would have gone to the 1940 Olympics had they not been canceled by the war in Europe. In addition, he won swimming championships, reached the semifinals of the national Negro tennis tournament, and was the UCLA Bruins' regular shortstop. Baseball was probably Robinson's weakest sport at the university, although he'd been voted the most valuable player in Southern California junior college baseball.
Financial problems at home forced Robinson to drop out of college in his senior year a few credits short of graduation. He took a job as an athletic coach for the National Youth Administration and played semipro football for the Los Angeles Bulldogs. In the fall of 1941, he signed on to play professional football with the Honolulu Bears. Already a gate attraction and a hero in the black community, he got top billing as "the sensational all-American halfback."
Upon returning home from Hawaii shortly after Pearl Harbor, Robinson was drafted into the Army in 1942. Stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, he was originally denied entry into Officer Candidate School despite his college background. Intervention by a fellow soldier, boxing great Joe Louis, who was also stationed at the base, managed to get the decision reversed. Yet, Jackie was not allowed to play on the segregated camp baseball team, which infuriated him so much that he refused to play on the football team even when superior officers pressured him to do so. After OCS, Robinson was appointed morale officer for the black troops at Fort Riley and won concessions for them that predictably angered a few higher-ups in command.
Reassigned to Ford Hood, Texas, Jackie continued to be controversial. On July 6, 1944 he defied a white bus driver's orders to move to the back of the bus "where the coloreds belonged." When the base provost marshal and military police supported the driver, Robinson objected vehemently and was subject to court-martial. Facing a dishonorable discharge, Jackie prevailed at the hearing. But the Army had had enough of the controversial young black lieutenant and quickly mustered him out with an honorable discharge.
It's ironic that Jackie Robinson's difficulties with white authority in the military led directly to his rise to the top of Branch Rickey's list of candidates to break baseball's color barrier. Rickey, the orchestrator of Organized Baseball's desegregation, was the president, general manager, and a part-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey's scouts had been surreptitiously scouring the Negro Leagues for major-league talent for some time before tapping Robinson to break the unwritten, and diligently enforced, gentlemen's agreement that banned blacks from participating in Organized Baseball.
Rickey was looking for a black pioneer who—in addition to possessing the requisite talent—was educated, sober, and accustomed to competing with and against white athletes. Robinson met those conditions. He grew up in a racially mixed environment, attended school with white classmates, and matriculated at UCLA. He'd been an officer in the military. He was well-spoken, personable, and comfortable in front of crowds. He had experienced the glare of the spotlight and reveled in it. Also extremely important to the pious Rickey was the fact that Robinson was a nonsmoker and nondrinker. Nor was he a womanizer; he was planning to marry his college sweetheart, Rachel Annetta Isum. In addition, Jackie was a Methodist, as was Rickey, and he coincidentally shared a birthday with Branch Rickey Jr. Jackie and Rachel were married in Los Angeles on February 10, 1946.
Certainly there were other black ballplayers who possessed the qualifications Rickey sought. Monte Irvin and Larry Doby were two obvious candidates. But when Rickey sent his scouts to scour the nation for the best black player, Irvin and Doby were overseas, still in the armed forces. Robinson, though he was far from being considered the best player in Negro baseball, was available due to the early termination of his own military obligation.
After his discharge, Robinson had joined the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League for the 1945 season. The Monarchs, one of the most successful franchises in the Negro Leagues, had been ravaged by the manpower demands of the war, but their roster still included veteran stars Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, Hilton Smith, and Satchel Paige. Flashy-fielding veteran Jesse Williams moved over to second base to make room for Jackie at shortstop. Though Robinson hit well over .300 and showed speed and power as a rookie, he disliked the nomadic and often boisterous barnstorming life and was incensed by the Jim Crow laws that the Monarchs often encountered on the road.
On October 23, 1945, it was announced to the world that Robinson had signed a contract to play baseball for the Montreal Royals of the International League, the top minor-league team in the Dodgers organization. Robinson had actually signed a few months earlier. In that now-legendary meeting, Rickey extracted a promise that Jackie would hold his sharp tongue and quick fists in exchange for the opportunity to break Organized Baseball's color barrier.
The integration movement in general had picked up steam during World War II as black American soldiers fought and died beside whites. In fact, the decade leading up to Robinson's signing had been marked by significant progress in efforts to gain equal rights for minorities in all facets of life. Yet the moguls running Major League Baseball stubbornly resisted efforts to integrate the sport, refusing to consider black players even as the talent pool was depleted by the war and one-armed and one-legged players could be found among the old-timers, teenagers, and 4-Fs gracing big-league rosters.
But in November 1944, longtime Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was generally thought to be against integration, died of a heart attack. Landis's passing was the break Branch Rickey needed to begin implementing his plan to integrate the Dodgers.
When Robinson's signing was announced, the news was heralded in black newspapers and generally received positive reviews in national publications despite objections and attacks from predictable quarters. But Rickey and the Dodgers faced near-unanimous disapproval from the Organized Baseball establishment. After the initial furor died down, a campaign to downplay Robinson's talent and the import of the event began. The New York Daily News rated Robinson's chances of making the grade as 1,000 to 1. An editorial in The Sporting News deemed Robinson a player of Class C ability and predicted, "The waters of competition in the International League will flood far over his head."5 Star pitcher Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians said that Robinson had "football shoulders and couldn't hit an inside pitch to save his neck."6
Muscularly built with a thick neck and wide shoulders, Robinson did look more like a halfback than an infielder. He suffered from rickets as a child and walked with a pigeon-toed gait, but on the diamond he moved with amazing quickness. He stood five feet eleven and weighed 190 to 195 pounds in his prime, although he thickened noticeably in the latter stages of his career. In the decades prior to Robinson's entry into Organized Baseball, there were several major leaguers whose skin tone caused doubts about their racial background. There could be no doubt about ebony-skinned Jackie Robinson. Columnist John Crosby called him "the blackest black man, as well as one of the handsomest, I ever saw."7
Plagued by a sore arm during the Royals' 1946 spring training camp, Jackie performed poorly, generating numerous "I told you so" claims. But when Montreal opened the season on April 18, 1946, against the Jersey City Giants at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, Robinson was playing second base and hitting second in the batting order.
The first twentieth-century appearance by an acknowledged black player in Organized Baseball was a preview of things to come. In front of a packed house, Jackie lashed out four hits and scored four times to lead Montreal to a 14–1 victory. After grounding out in his first at-bat, he blasted a three-run homer over the left-field wall in the third inning. In the fifth inning he bunted for a hit, stole second, and made a daring play to take third on a grounder to the third baseman. From third base he danced far off the bag, darting back and forth and bluffing a steal until the harried pitcher balked him home. Two innings later, he singled sharply to right field and stole second base again before scoring on a triple. In the eighth Jackie again bunted safely. He once again took an extra base, advancing from first to third on an infield single, and again scored by provoking a balk by the Jersey City hurler.
The next day, the headline in the Pittsburgh Courier read: "Jackie Stole the Show."8 According to Joe Bostic of New York City's Amsterdam News, "He did everything but help the ushers seat the crowd."9
Baseball's defense for keeping the game segregated hinged primarily on two points. The first was the contention that there just weren't any black players good enough to merit a shot at the majors at the time. The second centered on financial concerns—the fear that white fans wouldn't pay to watch Negro players and didn't want to sit in the stands beside black fans. There was also much feigned concern about the financial impact on the established Negro Leagues.
But Jackie Robinson's first year in Organized Baseball emphatically dispelled those tired excuses. He was a sensation on the field, the Royals dominated the International League, and the turnstiles hummed. Thanks to Jackie, the Royals established a new attendance record in Montreal, and his impact on the road was even greater, as attendance at Royals games in other International League cities almost tripled over the previous year. More than a million people came to watch Robinson and the Royals perform that year, an amazing figure for the minor leagues at the time.
For the season Robinson led the International League with a .349 batting average and scored 113 runs in 124 games to pace the circuit in that department as well. His forty stolen bases were the second highest total in the league and he led the league's second basemen in fielding. Jackie led the Royals to the International League pennant, by a nineteen and a half game margin, and to victory in the Little World Series. After the Series, ecstatic fans wanted to hoist Jackie on their shoulders in celebration, but Jackie had a plane to catch. They chased him for three blocks, prompting a journalist to observe, "It was probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of hate on its mind."10
In preparation for the 1947 campaign the Brooklyn Dodgers and their top farm clubs set up spring training camp in Havana, Cuba. Based on his performance at Montreal it seemed a foregone conclusion that Robinson would get a chance with the parent team, but he was still listed on the Royals' roster when the workouts started. Rickey chose Havana to avoid the racial attitudes of the spring training sites in the South. His plan was to allow the Dodgers' veterans to gradually get used to having Jackie around and to see for themselves what an asset he would be to their pennant prospects. Three other black players, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Roy Partlow, were also on hand. Rickey scheduled a seven-game exhibition series between the Dodgers and the Royals to showcase Robinson's skills, and Jackie dominated the contests with a .625 batting average.
One problem that Rickey and Robinson had to overcome was that the Dodgers had Eddie Stanky playing second base. Therefore it was determined that Robinson would make his major-league debut at first base, a strange position for a man who had always been involved in the action in the middle of the diamond.
During training camp, a crisis arose when a core of Southerners on the team began to circulate a petition against Robinson. The dissenters were reportedly led by outfielder Dixie Walker, who initially dismissed the news of Robinson's signing with the comment, "As long as he isn't with the Dodgers, I'm not worried."11 Rickey and manager Leo Durocher promptly quashed the mini-rebellion. Shortly thereafter, Durocher, an avid Robinson supporter, received a one-year suspension from the commissioner's office for associating with gamblers and other “unsavory” characters. Rickey deftly took advantage of the cover provided by the resulting clamor to quietly transfer Robinson to the Brooklyn roster.
Contrary to dire predictions, Robinson's first season in the Major Leagues went fairly smoothly as the rookie steadfastly stuck by his promise to Rickey to turn the other cheek. Tension surrounding his first game was defused by a series of preseason exhibition contests against the Yankees in New York, and Jackie's Opening Day debut against the Braves was actually somewhat anticlimactic.
He received death threats when the club visited Cincinnati, but, in an oft-told but undocumented story, Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese, a native son of Kentucky, draped an arm over the shoulders of the nervous rookie infielder in a courageous public show of support. Later, a threatened strike by the St. Louis Cardinals was short-circuited by a show of force by league president Ford Frick.
Jackie's worst experience came at the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies. Led by manager Ben Chapman, the Phils baited Robinson so cruelly that he later admitted, "It brought me nearer to cracking up than I had ever been."12 But the Chapman episode actually served to strengthen support for Robinson and even converted some of his detractors. Stanky, who originally had opposed playing with Robinson, challenged the Phillies to pick on someone who could fight back. Public reaction against Chapman was so severe that he had to ask Robinson to pose for a photo with him to save his job. Jackie graciously complied.
For his rookie campaign, Robinson hit .297, led the league with twenty-nine stolen bases, and finished second in the National League with 125 runs scored. In 151 games he lashed out 175 hits, including 12 home runs. Usually hitting second in the batting order, he walked seventy-four times and led the league in sacrifice hits. On defense, his sixteen errors at first base were the second highest total in the league, but his fielding was generally considered adequate.
With Robinson the biggest addition to the lineup, the Dodgers captured the National League pennant. In the World Series, Jackie and his teammates lost to the powerful Yankees in a thrilling seven-game classic. The 1947 season was the first in which the full membership of the Baseball Writers Association of America selected a Rookie of the Year, and Robinson beat out twenty-one-game-winner Larry Jansen of the New York Giants for the award. In the National League Most Valuable Player voting, he finished fifth. At season's end, Dixie Walker admitted that "(Robinson) is everything Branch Rickey said he was when he came up from Montreal."13
The integration of major-league baseball proceeded without critical incident. Though Robinson was scorned by some of his teammates, was harassed by enemy bench jockeys, and received a steady diet of fastballs close to his head; he faithfully abided by his promise to Rickey to turn the other cheek. Even when veteran outfielder Enos "Country" Slaughter of the Cardinals appeared to deliberately try to maim him with his spikes in an August 20 game at Ebbets Field, Jackie didn't retaliate.
In fact, baseball's "Great Experiment" was a huge success. Despite the concerns of the owners, integration proved to be a financial windfall for Major League Baseball. Robinson and the Dodgers eclipsed the home attendance record they had set the previous year. They also broke single-game attendance records in every National League ballpark they played in during the 1947 season, with the exception of Cincinnati's Crosley Field, where the attendance record for the first major-league night game held up. Near the end of the season, Jackie was feted by fans with a day in his honor. At year's end, he finished runner-up to crooner Bing Crosby in a national popularity poll.
Before the 1948 season, Eddie Stanky was swapped to the Boston Braves to open up the Dodgers' second-base slot for Robinson. Jackie reported to camp out of shape and got off to a poor start. He was shifted back to first base for thirty games while utilityman Eddie Miksis manned second for the Dodgers. Eventually, Gil Hodges emerged as the club's regular first baseman, and Robinson returned to second. He finished strong at the plate, ending the year with a .296 batting mark and leading the league's regular second basemen in fielding percentage. Spending more time in the power spots in the batting order, he drove in 85 runs, tops on the disappointing third-place squad.
In 1949, Robinson enjoyed the best season of his career, establishing career highs in games played, hits, batting average, slugging, runs batted in, and stolen bases as the Dodgers captured the National League pennant by a single game. He won the batting title with a .342 mark and his major-league-leading thirty-seven steals were the highest total in the National League in nineteen years. He finished second in the league in runs batted in (124), hits (203), and on-base percentage (.432), and third in slugging average (.528), runs scored (122), doubles (38), and triples (12). His efforts were rewarded with his selection as the National League Most Valuable Player.
Robinson enjoyed two more superb seasons in 1950 and 1951, batting .328 and .338 and finishing second and third respectively in the batting race. Both years the Dodgers lost the pennant on the last day of the season, although Jackie's heroics kept them in the hunt until the bitter end. In 1951, his spectacular play forced the playoff with the Giants that would be decided by Bobby Thomson's momentous home run. In the final regular-season contest against the Phillies, Robinson prevented the winning run from scoring in the ninth inning with a sensational diving catch, and blasted a game-winning homer in the fourteenth inning.
The Dodgers returned to the top of the National League standings in 1952 as Robinson hit .308, scored 104 runs, stole twenty-four bases, and belted nineteen homers. During the 1953 season, Jackie Robinson may have had his finest moment. He had worked hard to develop into a fine defensive second baseman. In 1951 he led National League second sackers in fielding and double plays, and had repeated as the double-play leader in 1952. But the Dodgers had a young black second baseman in their system, Jim Gilliam, who was ready for the big time.
Jackie graciously agreed to move to another position to make room for the rookie. The thirty-four-year-old veteran played seventy-six games in the outfield, and appeared fourty-four times at third base, nine times at second, and six times at first base during the 1953 campaign. He even filled in at shortstop in one game, the only time he played his original position as a major-leaguer. He hit .329, drove in ninety-five runs, and scored 109 times. Gilliam expertly filled the Dodgers' leadoff spot and was selected the National League Rookie of the Year.
The 1954 campaign was Robinson's last good season. Again shuttling between left field and third base, he batted .311, but age and accumulated injuries were starting to catch up with him. He stole only seven bases and missed thirty games.
In 1955, the year the Brooklyn Dodgers captured their first world championship, Robinson had the worst season statistically of his outstanding career. Sharing third base with light-hitting Don Hoak, he appeared in the field in fewer than 100 games and batted only .256. In the Dodgers' epic World Series victory, Robinson was at third base for six of the seven contests and though he hit poorly, he scored five times, including his shocking Game One steal of home.
Jackie rallied to hit .275 in 1956, his final season, while sharing third base with newly acquired Randy Jackson and occasionally filling in at second. Though a mere shadow of his former self, the thirty-seven-year-old veteran was still a force at the plate and on the basepaths. In the Dodgers' seven-game World Series loss to the Yankees, Jackie drew five walks, scored five times, and blasted a home run. He struck out in his last professional at-bat, but fittingly he went down fighting. Yankees catcher Yogi Berra had to throw him out at first base after dropping the third strike.
Jackie's last years with the Dodgers had not been harmonious. He disliked both manager Walt Alston and owner Walter O'Malley, whose power play forced Branch Rickey out of the Brooklyn front office in 1950. Though the Dodgers had captured the 1956 pennant, the once dominating nucleus was growing old. Robinson himself was no longer a top performer on the field and had become increasingly outspoken on racial issues both inside and outside of baseball. The Dodgers brass was hoping he'd step down gracefully, but Jackie refused to announce his retirement. Finally the club forced his hand by swapping him to the New York Giants on December 13, 1956, for journeyman hurler Dick Littlefield and $30,000 in cash.
On January 22, 1957 Robinson's retirement from baseball was announced in an exclusive article in Look magazine, in which he took a few parting shots at the remaining segregated teams in the majors. Jackie had actually decided to retire before he was dealt to the Giants, but couldn't say anything earlier because of his deal with Look. The Giants reportedly offered him $60,000 to stay, and the prospect of playing alongside Willie Mays definitely had some appeal. But when Brooklyn general manager Buzzy Bavasi publicly implied that Robinson was just trying to use the magazine article to get a better contract, he decided to prove the Dodgers wrong and declined the Giants' offer.
Though Robinson's career as a major-league baseball player was over, he wasn't about to retire from the spotlight. He joined the Chock full o'Nuts coffee company as a vice president and served as the chairman of the Board of Freedom National Bank, founded to provide loans and banking services for minority members who were largely being ignored by establishment banks. He authored several autobiographical works, wrote a weekly newspaper column, and hosted a radio show. Earlier he even tried his hand at acting, starring in the movie The Jackie Robinson Story.
Robinson remained an unofficial spokesman for African-Americans and a relentless crusader for civil rights. He became embroiled in politics. Though a strong supporter of Martin Luther King and the NAACP, he endorsed Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy for president in 1960 because he felt Kennedy had not made it "his business to know colored people." Reportedly it was an action that he later came to regret.
In 1962 Robinson was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was inducted along with former Cleveland pitching great Bob Feller, who had once predicted that Jackie's "football shoulders" would keep him from hitting big-league pitching. A few years after his retirement from baseball, Robinson acknowledged that he suffered from diabetes. His health declined under the ravages of the disease and at the age of fifty-three he suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He died on October 24, 1972, only months after his number 42 was officially retired by the Dodgers.
Although he always denied it, there's evidence that Robinson may have been the first insulin-dependent diabetic to play major-league baseball, despite his claim that it hadn't been diagnosed while he was an active player. But former tennis great Bill Talbert, a close friend of Robinson's and the first famous athlete known to perform with diabetes, believed that Jackie became insulin-dependent in midcareer. "I think Jackie felt it was a weakness. With all the publicity about blacks in baseball, he didn't want another thing to talk about," Talbert said after Robinson's death.14
More than two thousand people packed Riverside Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to hear the young Rev. Jesse Jackson deliver Jackie Robinson's eulogy. Tens of thousands lined the streets of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant to watch the passage of his mile-long funeral procession.Robinson is buried in Cyprus Hill Cemetery in Brooklyn, along with his mother-in-law Zellee Isum and his son Jack Roosevelt, Jr. He was survived by his wife Rachel, son David and daughter Sharon.
Shortly after his death Robinson's ordeals and accomplishments were the subject of a Broadway musical, The First. In 1987, on the 40th anniversary of his breaking of color barrier, the Rookie of the Year Award was redesignated as the Jackie Robinson Award in honor of its first recipient. On the fiftieth anniversary of his debut, his number 42 was permanently retired by all major-league teams, although current major leaguers already wearing the number were allowed to keep it for the remainder of their careers.
Among the adjectives often used to describe Robinson's personal makeup are fearless, courageous, dynamic, defiant, and proud. But the most frequently used descriptor is probably aggressive. It's a word that defines his public life as a tireless campaigner against discrimination as well as his history making athletic career. Jackie, who was not known for self-deprecation, made the greatest understatement of his life in 1945 at the announcement of his signing. "Maybe I'm doing something for my race," he ventured.15
Former teammate Joe Black, speaking for generations of black ballplayers, later said, "When I look at my house. I say 'Thank God for Jackie Robinson.’”16
Note: This biography is an adaptation from The Black Stars Who Made Baseball Whole: The Jackie Robinson Generation in the Major Leagues by Rick Swaine (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2006).
Sources
Frommer, Harvey. Rickey & Robinson: The Men Who Broke Baseball's Color Barrier. New York: Macmillan, 1982.
Marshall, William. Baseball's Pivotal Era 1945-51. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.
Moffi, Larry, and Jonathan Kronstadt. Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers 1947-1959. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1994.
Polner, Murray. Branch Rickey: A Biography. New York: Atheneum, 1982.
Robinson, Jackie, and Alfred Duckett. I Never Had It Made. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1972.
Rosenthal, Harold. The 10 Best Years of Baseball: An Informal History of the Fifties. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1979.
Shatzkin, Mike, and Jim Charlton. The Ballplayers: Baseball's Ultimate Biographical Reference. New York: Arbor House, William Morrow, 1990.
Tygiel, Jules. Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
_____. Extra Bases: Reflections on Jackie Robinson, Race, & Baseball History. Lincoln: Univeristy of Nebraska Press, 2002.
_____. The Jackie Robinson Reader: Perspectives of an American Hero. New York: Penguin Books, 1997.
Wilber, Cynthia J. For the Love of the Game: Baseball Memories From the Men Who Were There. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1992.
Ardolino, Frank, "Jackie Robinson and the 1941 Honolulu Bears." The National Pastime, SABR, 1995.
Jacobs, Bruce, Baseball Stars of 1953. New York: Timely Comics, 1953.
Kirk, Al and Robert Bradley. "Jackie Robinson and the L.A. Red Devils." http://www.apbr.org/reddevils.html
Notes
1. Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer, p. 358.
2. Vincent X Flaherty - Jackie Robinson Scrapbooks per Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, p. 60.
3. Vincent X Flaherty - Jackie Robinson Scrapbooks per Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, p. 60.
4. Unattributed - Jackie Robinson Scrapbooks per Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 1997, p.60.
5. Sporting News, November 1, 1945.
6. Pittsburgh Courier, November 3, 1945.
7. John Crosby, Syracuse Herald, November 12, 1972.
8. Pittsburgh Courier, April 27, 1946.
9. Joe Bostic, Amsterdam News, April 27, 1946.
10. Sam Maltin, Pittsburgh Courier, October 12, 1946.
11. Brooklyn Eagle, October 24, 1945.
12. Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, p. 64
13. Golenbock, Bums.
14. Arnold Schechter, Sports Illustrated, April 22, 1985.
15. Sporting News, November 1, 1945.
16. New York Daily News, July 20, 1972.
This article was written by Rick Swaine
Jackie Robinson is perhaps the most historically significant baseball player ever, ranking with Babe Ruth in terms of his impact on the national pastime. Ruth changed the way baseball was played; Jackie Robinson changed the way Americans thought. When Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, more than sixty years of racial segregation in major-league baseball came to an end. He was the first acknowledged black player to perform in the Major Leagues in the twentieth century and went on to be the first to win a batting title, the first to win the Most Valuable Player award, and the first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He won major-league baseball's first official Rookie of the Year award and was the first baseball player, black or white, to be featured on a United States postage stamp.
The raw statistics only scratch the surface in evaluating Jackie Robinson as a ballplayer. Because of institutionalized racism and World War II, he did not play his first big-league game until he was twenty-eight years old, and therefore his major-league career spanned only ten seasons. His lifetime batting average was a solid .311, but because of the brevity of his career, his cumulative statistics are relatively unimpressive by Hall of Fame standards.
But in what would be considered his prime years, ages twenty-eight to thirty-four, Robinson hit .319 and averaged more than 110 runs scored per season. He drove in an average of eighty-five runs, and his average of nearly fifteen home runs per season was outstanding for a middle infielder of that era. And he averaged 24 stolen bases a season for a power-laden team that didn't need him to run very often.
Colorfully described as a tiger in the field and a lion at bat, the right-handed-hitting Robinson crowded the plate and dared opposing hurlers to dust him off—a challenge they frequently accepted. He was an excellent bunter, good at the sacrifice and always a threat to lay one down for a hit. Not known as a home-run hitter, he displayed line-drive power to all fields, had a good eye for the strike zone, and rarely struck out. For his entire big-league career, he drew 740 walks and struck out only 291 times—an extremely impressive ratio.
Second base was Robinson's best position. In a 1987 "Player's Choice" survey, he was voted the greatest second baseman of his era despite having played there regularly for only five seasons. Though not a smooth glove man in the classic sense, he was sure-handed and possessed good range and instincts. He made up for an average arm by standing his ground on double plays and getting rid of the ball quickly. Robinson also displayed his versatility by playing regularly at first base, at third base, and in left field when the needs of the team dictated it.
It was running the bases, however, where Robinson's star shined brightest. He was a dynamo on the basepaths—fast, clever, daring, and rough. He was the most dangerous base runner since Ty Cobb, embarrassing and intimidating the opposition into beating themselves with mental and physical errors. Former teammate and big-league manager Bobby Bragan, who initially objected to Jackie's presence on the Dodgers, called him the best he ever saw at getting called safe after being caught in rundown situations. He created havoc by taking impossibly long leads, jockeying back and forth, and threatening to steal on every pitch. His mere presence on base was enough to upset the most steely-nerved veteran hurlers.
Robinson revived the art of stealing home, successfully making it nineteen times in his career—tied with Frankie Frisch for the most since World War I. At the age of thirty-five in 1954, he became the first National Leaguer to steal his way around the bases in twenty-six years, and a year later he became one of only twelve men to steal home in the World Series.
Throughout his career, Jackie Robinson was a fearless competitor. As Leo Durocher, first his manager and later an archrival, so elegantly phrased it, "You want a guy that comes to play. But (Robinson) didn't just come to play. He came to beat you. He came to stuff the damn bat right up your ass."1
Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, a sleepy Southern town near the Florida border. Jackie was the youngest of five children, four boys and a girl, born to impoverished sharecroppers Jerry and Mallie Robinson. Jerry Robinson deserted the family six months after Jackie was born. Mallie Robinson, a strong, devoutly religious woman, moved the struggling family across the country by rail to Pasadena, California, in 1920 when Jackie was fourteen-months old. She worked as a domestic to support her family; leftovers from the kitchens of families she worked for often constituted their daily diet.
With the help of a welfare agency, the Robinson family purchased a home in a predominantly white Pasadena neighborhood, where neighbors immediately petitioned to get rid of the newcomers and even offered to buy them out. When those ploys failed the family was harassed for several years. The Robinson boys often had to fight to defend themselves, and young Jackie was involved in his share of scrapes with white youths and had some run-ins with authorities.
Jackie's athletic talent became evident at an early age. But he wasn't the only gifted athlete in the family. His older brother Mack became a world-class track star, finishing second in the 200-yard dash to Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. But after Olympic stardom and college, the only job Mack Robinson could find was janitorial work for the City of Pasadena. It was a position he soon lost. As in most of the country at that time, Jim Crow rules prevailed in Pasadena. Black citizens were permitted to use the city's public swimming pool only one day a week. When a judge ordered full access to the pool for black citizens, the city fathers responded by firing black employees, including Mack Robinson.
After starring in baseball, football, basketball, and track at Muir Technical High School and Pasadena Junior College, Jackie declined many other offers to enroll at the University of California at Los Angeles, near his Pasadena home. Robinson gained national fame at UCLA in 1940 and 1941. He became the school's first four-letter man and was called the "Jim Thorpe of his race" for his multisport skills.2 Sharing rushing duties with Kenny Washington, who later became one of the first black men to play in the National Football League, Jackie averaged 11-plus yards per carry as a junior. Sports Weeklycalled him "the greatest ball carrier on the gridiron today."3 On the basketball court Jackie led the Pacific Coast Conference in scoring as a junior and as a senior.
Although he wasn't named to the first, second, or third all-conference teams, one coach called him "the best basketball player in the United States."4 Already the holder of the national junior college long-jump record, he captured the NCAA long-jump title and probably would have gone to the 1940 Olympics had they not been canceled by the war in Europe. In addition, he won swimming championships, reached the semifinals of the national Negro tennis tournament, and was the UCLA Bruins' regular shortstop. Baseball was probably Robinson's weakest sport at the university, although he'd been voted the most valuable player in Southern California junior college baseball.
Financial problems at home forced Robinson to drop out of college in his senior year a few credits short of graduation. He took a job as an athletic coach for the National Youth Administration and played semipro football for the Los Angeles Bulldogs. In the fall of 1941, he signed on to play professional football with the Honolulu Bears. Already a gate attraction and a hero in the black community, he got top billing as "the sensational all-American halfback."
Upon returning home from Hawaii shortly after Pearl Harbor, Robinson was drafted into the Army in 1942. Stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, he was originally denied entry into Officer Candidate School despite his college background. Intervention by a fellow soldier, boxing great Joe Louis, who was also stationed at the base, managed to get the decision reversed. Yet, Jackie was not allowed to play on the segregated camp baseball team, which infuriated him so much that he refused to play on the football team even when superior officers pressured him to do so. After OCS, Robinson was appointed morale officer for the black troops at Fort Riley and won concessions for them that predictably angered a few higher-ups in command.
Reassigned to Ford Hood, Texas, Jackie continued to be controversial. On July 6, 1944 he defied a white bus driver's orders to move to the back of the bus "where the coloreds belonged." When the base provost marshal and military police supported the driver, Robinson objected vehemently and was subject to court-martial. Facing a dishonorable discharge, Jackie prevailed at the hearing. But the Army had had enough of the controversial young black lieutenant and quickly mustered him out with an honorable discharge.
It's ironic that Jackie Robinson's difficulties with white authority in the military led directly to his rise to the top of Branch Rickey's list of candidates to break baseball's color barrier. Rickey, the orchestrator of Organized Baseball's desegregation, was the president, general manager, and a part-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey's scouts had been surreptitiously scouring the Negro Leagues for major-league talent for some time before tapping Robinson to break the unwritten, and diligently enforced, gentlemen's agreement that banned blacks from participating in Organized Baseball.
Rickey was looking for a black pioneer who—in addition to possessing the requisite talent—was educated, sober, and accustomed to competing with and against white athletes. Robinson met those conditions. He grew up in a racially mixed environment, attended school with white classmates, and matriculated at UCLA. He'd been an officer in the military. He was well-spoken, personable, and comfortable in front of crowds. He had experienced the glare of the spotlight and reveled in it. Also extremely important to the pious Rickey was the fact that Robinson was a nonsmoker and nondrinker. Nor was he a womanizer; he was planning to marry his college sweetheart, Rachel Annetta Isum. In addition, Jackie was a Methodist, as was Rickey, and he coincidentally shared a birthday with Branch Rickey Jr. Jackie and Rachel were married in Los Angeles on February 10, 1946.
Certainly there were other black ballplayers who possessed the qualifications Rickey sought. Monte Irvin and Larry Doby were two obvious candidates. But when Rickey sent his scouts to scour the nation for the best black player, Irvin and Doby were overseas, still in the armed forces. Robinson, though he was far from being considered the best player in Negro baseball, was available due to the early termination of his own military obligation.
After his discharge, Robinson had joined the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League for the 1945 season. The Monarchs, one of the most successful franchises in the Negro Leagues, had been ravaged by the manpower demands of the war, but their roster still included veteran stars Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, Hilton Smith, and Satchel Paige. Flashy-fielding veteran Jesse Williams moved over to second base to make room for Jackie at shortstop. Though Robinson hit well over .300 and showed speed and power as a rookie, he disliked the nomadic and often boisterous barnstorming life and was incensed by the Jim Crow laws that the Monarchs often encountered on the road.
On October 23, 1945, it was announced to the world that Robinson had signed a contract to play baseball for the Montreal Royals of the International League, the top minor-league team in the Dodgers organization. Robinson had actually signed a few months earlier. In that now-legendary meeting, Rickey extracted a promise that Jackie would hold his sharp tongue and quick fists in exchange for the opportunity to break Organized Baseball's color barrier.
The integration movement in general had picked up steam during World War II as black American soldiers fought and died beside whites. In fact, the decade leading up to Robinson's signing had been marked by significant progress in efforts to gain equal rights for minorities in all facets of life. Yet the moguls running Major League Baseball stubbornly resisted efforts to integrate the sport, refusing to consider black players even as the talent pool was depleted by the war and one-armed and one-legged players could be found among the old-timers, teenagers, and 4-Fs gracing big-league rosters.
But in November 1944, longtime Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was generally thought to be against integration, died of a heart attack. Landis's passing was the break Branch Rickey needed to begin implementing his plan to integrate the Dodgers.
When Robinson's signing was announced, the news was heralded in black newspapers and generally received positive reviews in national publications despite objections and attacks from predictable quarters. But Rickey and the Dodgers faced near-unanimous disapproval from the Organized Baseball establishment. After the initial furor died down, a campaign to downplay Robinson's talent and the import of the event began. The New York Daily News rated Robinson's chances of making the grade as 1,000 to 1. An editorial in The Sporting News deemed Robinson a player of Class C ability and predicted, "The waters of competition in the International League will flood far over his head."5 Star pitcher Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians said that Robinson had "football shoulders and couldn't hit an inside pitch to save his neck."6
Muscularly built with a thick neck and wide shoulders, Robinson did look more like a halfback than an infielder. He suffered from rickets as a child and walked with a pigeon-toed gait, but on the diamond he moved with amazing quickness. He stood five feet eleven and weighed 190 to 195 pounds in his prime, although he thickened noticeably in the latter stages of his career. In the decades prior to Robinson's entry into Organized Baseball, there were several major leaguers whose skin tone caused doubts about their racial background. There could be no doubt about ebony-skinned Jackie Robinson. Columnist John Crosby called him "the blackest black man, as well as one of the handsomest, I ever saw."7
Plagued by a sore arm during the Royals' 1946 spring training camp, Jackie performed poorly, generating numerous "I told you so" claims. But when Montreal opened the season on April 18, 1946, against the Jersey City Giants at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, Robinson was playing second base and hitting second in the batting order.
The first twentieth-century appearance by an acknowledged black player in Organized Baseball was a preview of things to come. In front of a packed house, Jackie lashed out four hits and scored four times to lead Montreal to a 14–1 victory. After grounding out in his first at-bat, he blasted a three-run homer over the left-field wall in the third inning. In the fifth inning he bunted for a hit, stole second, and made a daring play to take third on a grounder to the third baseman. From third base he danced far off the bag, darting back and forth and bluffing a steal until the harried pitcher balked him home. Two innings later, he singled sharply to right field and stole second base again before scoring on a triple. In the eighth Jackie again bunted safely. He once again took an extra base, advancing from first to third on an infield single, and again scored by provoking a balk by the Jersey City hurler.
The next day, the headline in the Pittsburgh Courier read: "Jackie Stole the Show."8 According to Joe Bostic of New York City's Amsterdam News, "He did everything but help the ushers seat the crowd."9
Baseball's defense for keeping the game segregated hinged primarily on two points. The first was the contention that there just weren't any black players good enough to merit a shot at the majors at the time. The second centered on financial concerns—the fear that white fans wouldn't pay to watch Negro players and didn't want to sit in the stands beside black fans. There was also much feigned concern about the financial impact on the established Negro Leagues.
But Jackie Robinson's first year in Organized Baseball emphatically dispelled those tired excuses. He was a sensation on the field, the Royals dominated the International League, and the turnstiles hummed. Thanks to Jackie, the Royals established a new attendance record in Montreal, and his impact on the road was even greater, as attendance at Royals games in other International League cities almost tripled over the previous year. More than a million people came to watch Robinson and the Royals perform that year, an amazing figure for the minor leagues at the time.
For the season Robinson led the International League with a .349 batting average and scored 113 runs in 124 games to pace the circuit in that department as well. His forty stolen bases were the second highest total in the league and he led the league's second basemen in fielding. Jackie led the Royals to the International League pennant, by a nineteen and a half game margin, and to victory in the Little World Series. After the Series, ecstatic fans wanted to hoist Jackie on their shoulders in celebration, but Jackie had a plane to catch. They chased him for three blocks, prompting a journalist to observe, "It was probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of hate on its mind."10
In preparation for the 1947 campaign the Brooklyn Dodgers and their top farm clubs set up spring training camp in Havana, Cuba. Based on his performance at Montreal it seemed a foregone conclusion that Robinson would get a chance with the parent team, but he was still listed on the Royals' roster when the workouts started. Rickey chose Havana to avoid the racial attitudes of the spring training sites in the South. His plan was to allow the Dodgers' veterans to gradually get used to having Jackie around and to see for themselves what an asset he would be to their pennant prospects. Three other black players, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Roy Partlow, were also on hand. Rickey scheduled a seven-game exhibition series between the Dodgers and the Royals to showcase Robinson's skills, and Jackie dominated the contests with a .625 batting average.
One problem that Rickey and Robinson had to overcome was that the Dodgers had Eddie Stanky playing second base. Therefore it was determined that Robinson would make his major-league debut at first base, a strange position for a man who had always been involved in the action in the middle of the diamond.
During training camp, a crisis arose when a core of Southerners on the team began to circulate a petition against Robinson. The dissenters were reportedly led by outfielder Dixie Walker, who initially dismissed the news of Robinson's signing with the comment, "As long as he isn't with the Dodgers, I'm not worried."11 Rickey and manager Leo Durocher promptly quashed the mini-rebellion. Shortly thereafter, Durocher, an avid Robinson supporter, received a one-year suspension from the commissioner's office for associating with gamblers and other “unsavory” characters. Rickey deftly took advantage of the cover provided by the resulting clamor to quietly transfer Robinson to the Brooklyn roster.
Contrary to dire predictions, Robinson's first season in the Major Leagues went fairly smoothly as the rookie steadfastly stuck by his promise to Rickey to turn the other cheek. Tension surrounding his first game was defused by a series of preseason exhibition contests against the Yankees in New York, and Jackie's Opening Day debut against the Braves was actually somewhat anticlimactic.
He received death threats when the club visited Cincinnati, but, in an oft-told but undocumented story, Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese, a native son of Kentucky, draped an arm over the shoulders of the nervous rookie infielder in a courageous public show of support. Later, a threatened strike by the St. Louis Cardinals was short-circuited by a show of force by league president Ford Frick.
Jackie's worst experience came at the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies. Led by manager Ben Chapman, the Phils baited Robinson so cruelly that he later admitted, "It brought me nearer to cracking up than I had ever been."12 But the Chapman episode actually served to strengthen support for Robinson and even converted some of his detractors. Stanky, who originally had opposed playing with Robinson, challenged the Phillies to pick on someone who could fight back. Public reaction against Chapman was so severe that he had to ask Robinson to pose for a photo with him to save his job. Jackie graciously complied.
For his rookie campaign, Robinson hit .297, led the league with twenty-nine stolen bases, and finished second in the National League with 125 runs scored. In 151 games he lashed out 175 hits, including 12 home runs. Usually hitting second in the batting order, he walked seventy-four times and led the league in sacrifice hits. On defense, his sixteen errors at first base were the second highest total in the league, but his fielding was generally considered adequate.
With Robinson the biggest addition to the lineup, the Dodgers captured the National League pennant. In the World Series, Jackie and his teammates lost to the powerful Yankees in a thrilling seven-game classic. The 1947 season was the first in which the full membership of the Baseball Writers Association of America selected a Rookie of the Year, and Robinson beat out twenty-one-game-winner Larry Jansen of the New York Giants for the award. In the National League Most Valuable Player voting, he finished fifth. At season's end, Dixie Walker admitted that "(Robinson) is everything Branch Rickey said he was when he came up from Montreal."13
The integration of major-league baseball proceeded without critical incident. Though Robinson was scorned by some of his teammates, was harassed by enemy bench jockeys, and received a steady diet of fastballs close to his head; he faithfully abided by his promise to Rickey to turn the other cheek. Even when veteran outfielder Enos "Country" Slaughter of the Cardinals appeared to deliberately try to maim him with his spikes in an August 20 game at Ebbets Field, Jackie didn't retaliate.
In fact, baseball's "Great Experiment" was a huge success. Despite the concerns of the owners, integration proved to be a financial windfall for Major League Baseball. Robinson and the Dodgers eclipsed the home attendance record they had set the previous year. They also broke single-game attendance records in every National League ballpark they played in during the 1947 season, with the exception of Cincinnati's Crosley Field, where the attendance record for the first major-league night game held up. Near the end of the season, Jackie was feted by fans with a day in his honor. At year's end, he finished runner-up to crooner Bing Crosby in a national popularity poll.
Before the 1948 season, Eddie Stanky was swapped to the Boston Braves to open up the Dodgers' second-base slot for Robinson. Jackie reported to camp out of shape and got off to a poor start. He was shifted back to first base for thirty games while utilityman Eddie Miksis manned second for the Dodgers. Eventually, Gil Hodges emerged as the club's regular first baseman, and Robinson returned to second. He finished strong at the plate, ending the year with a .296 batting mark and leading the league's regular second basemen in fielding percentage. Spending more time in the power spots in the batting order, he drove in 85 runs, tops on the disappointing third-place squad.
In 1949, Robinson enjoyed the best season of his career, establishing career highs in games played, hits, batting average, slugging, runs batted in, and stolen bases as the Dodgers captured the National League pennant by a single game. He won the batting title with a .342 mark and his major-league-leading thirty-seven steals were the highest total in the National League in nineteen years. He finished second in the league in runs batted in (124), hits (203), and on-base percentage (.432), and third in slugging average (.528), runs scored (122), doubles (38), and triples (12). His efforts were rewarded with his selection as the National League Most Valuable Player.
Robinson enjoyed two more superb seasons in 1950 and 1951, batting .328 and .338 and finishing second and third respectively in the batting race. Both years the Dodgers lost the pennant on the last day of the season, although Jackie's heroics kept them in the hunt until the bitter end. In 1951, his spectacular play forced the playoff with the Giants that would be decided by Bobby Thomson's momentous home run. In the final regular-season contest against the Phillies, Robinson prevented the winning run from scoring in the ninth inning with a sensational diving catch, and blasted a game-winning homer in the fourteenth inning.
The Dodgers returned to the top of the National League standings in 1952 as Robinson hit .308, scored 104 runs, stole twenty-four bases, and belted nineteen homers. During the 1953 season, Jackie Robinson may have had his finest moment. He had worked hard to develop into a fine defensive second baseman. In 1951 he led National League second sackers in fielding and double plays, and had repeated as the double-play leader in 1952. But the Dodgers had a young black second baseman in their system, Jim Gilliam, who was ready for the big time.
Jackie graciously agreed to move to another position to make room for the rookie. The thirty-four-year-old veteran played seventy-six games in the outfield, and appeared fourty-four times at third base, nine times at second, and six times at first base during the 1953 campaign. He even filled in at shortstop in one game, the only time he played his original position as a major-leaguer. He hit .329, drove in ninety-five runs, and scored 109 times. Gilliam expertly filled the Dodgers' leadoff spot and was selected the National League Rookie of the Year.
The 1954 campaign was Robinson's last good season. Again shuttling between left field and third base, he batted .311, but age and accumulated injuries were starting to catch up with him. He stole only seven bases and missed thirty games.
In 1955, the year the Brooklyn Dodgers captured their first world championship, Robinson had the worst season statistically of his outstanding career. Sharing third base with light-hitting Don Hoak, he appeared in the field in fewer than 100 games and batted only .256. In the Dodgers' epic World Series victory, Robinson was at third base for six of the seven contests and though he hit poorly, he scored five times, including his shocking Game One steal of home.
Jackie rallied to hit .275 in 1956, his final season, while sharing third base with newly acquired Randy Jackson and occasionally filling in at second. Though a mere shadow of his former self, the thirty-seven-year-old veteran was still a force at the plate and on the basepaths. In the Dodgers' seven-game World Series loss to the Yankees, Jackie drew five walks, scored five times, and blasted a home run. He struck out in his last professional at-bat, but fittingly he went down fighting. Yankees catcher Yogi Berra had to throw him out at first base after dropping the third strike.
Jackie's last years with the Dodgers had not been harmonious. He disliked both manager Walt Alston and owner Walter O'Malley, whose power play forced Branch Rickey out of the Brooklyn front office in 1950. Though the Dodgers had captured the 1956 pennant, the once dominating nucleus was growing old. Robinson himself was no longer a top performer on the field and had become increasingly outspoken on racial issues both inside and outside of baseball. The Dodgers brass was hoping he'd step down gracefully, but Jackie refused to announce his retirement. Finally the club forced his hand by swapping him to the New York Giants on December 13, 1956, for journeyman hurler Dick Littlefield and $30,000 in cash.
On January 22, 1957 Robinson's retirement from baseball was announced in an exclusive article in Look magazine, in which he took a few parting shots at the remaining segregated teams in the majors. Jackie had actually decided to retire before he was dealt to the Giants, but couldn't say anything earlier because of his deal with Look. The Giants reportedly offered him $60,000 to stay, and the prospect of playing alongside Willie Mays definitely had some appeal. But when Brooklyn general manager Buzzy Bavasi publicly implied that Robinson was just trying to use the magazine article to get a better contract, he decided to prove the Dodgers wrong and declined the Giants' offer.
Though Robinson's career as a major-league baseball player was over, he wasn't about to retire from the spotlight. He joined the Chock full o'Nuts coffee company as a vice president and served as the chairman of the Board of Freedom National Bank, founded to provide loans and banking services for minority members who were largely being ignored by establishment banks. He authored several autobiographical works, wrote a weekly newspaper column, and hosted a radio show. Earlier he even tried his hand at acting, starring in the movie The Jackie Robinson Story.
Robinson remained an unofficial spokesman for African-Americans and a relentless crusader for civil rights. He became embroiled in politics. Though a strong supporter of Martin Luther King and the NAACP, he endorsed Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy for president in 1960 because he felt Kennedy had not made it "his business to know colored people." Reportedly it was an action that he later came to regret.
In 1962 Robinson was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was inducted along with former Cleveland pitching great Bob Feller, who had once predicted that Jackie's "football shoulders" would keep him from hitting big-league pitching. A few years after his retirement from baseball, Robinson acknowledged that he suffered from diabetes. His health declined under the ravages of the disease and at the age of fifty-three he suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He died on October 24, 1972, only months after his number 42 was officially retired by the Dodgers.
Although he always denied it, there's evidence that Robinson may have been the first insulin-dependent diabetic to play major-league baseball, despite his claim that it hadn't been diagnosed while he was an active player. But former tennis great Bill Talbert, a close friend of Robinson's and the first famous athlete known to perform with diabetes, believed that Jackie became insulin-dependent in midcareer. "I think Jackie felt it was a weakness. With all the publicity about blacks in baseball, he didn't want another thing to talk about," Talbert said after Robinson's death.14
More than two thousand people packed Riverside Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to hear the young Rev. Jesse Jackson deliver Jackie Robinson's eulogy. Tens of thousands lined the streets of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant to watch the passage of his mile-long funeral procession.Robinson is buried in Cyprus Hill Cemetery in Brooklyn, along with his mother-in-law Zellee Isum and his son Jack Roosevelt, Jr. He was survived by his wife Rachel, son David and daughter Sharon.
Shortly after his death Robinson's ordeals and accomplishments were the subject of a Broadway musical, The First. In 1987, on the 40th anniversary of his breaking of color barrier, the Rookie of the Year Award was redesignated as the Jackie Robinson Award in honor of its first recipient. On the fiftieth anniversary of his debut, his number 42 was permanently retired by all major-league teams, although current major leaguers already wearing the number were allowed to keep it for the remainder of their careers.
Among the adjectives often used to describe Robinson's personal makeup are fearless, courageous, dynamic, defiant, and proud. But the most frequently used descriptor is probably aggressive. It's a word that defines his public life as a tireless campaigner against discrimination as well as his history making athletic career. Jackie, who was not known for self-deprecation, made the greatest understatement of his life in 1945 at the announcement of his signing. "Maybe I'm doing something for my race," he ventured.15
Former teammate Joe Black, speaking for generations of black ballplayers, later said, "When I look at my house. I say 'Thank God for Jackie Robinson.’”16
Note: This biography is an adaptation from The Black Stars Who Made Baseball Whole: The Jackie Robinson Generation in the Major Leagues by Rick Swaine (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2006).
Sources
Frommer, Harvey. Rickey & Robinson: The Men Who Broke Baseball's Color Barrier. New York: Macmillan, 1982.
Marshall, William. Baseball's Pivotal Era 1945-51. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.
Moffi, Larry, and Jonathan Kronstadt. Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers 1947-1959. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1994.
Polner, Murray. Branch Rickey: A Biography. New York: Atheneum, 1982.
Robinson, Jackie, and Alfred Duckett. I Never Had It Made. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1972.
Rosenthal, Harold. The 10 Best Years of Baseball: An Informal History of the Fifties. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1979.
Shatzkin, Mike, and Jim Charlton. The Ballplayers: Baseball's Ultimate Biographical Reference. New York: Arbor House, William Morrow, 1990.
Tygiel, Jules. Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
_____. Extra Bases: Reflections on Jackie Robinson, Race, & Baseball History. Lincoln: Univeristy of Nebraska Press, 2002.
_____. The Jackie Robinson Reader: Perspectives of an American Hero. New York: Penguin Books, 1997.
Wilber, Cynthia J. For the Love of the Game: Baseball Memories From the Men Who Were There. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1992.
Ardolino, Frank, "Jackie Robinson and the 1941 Honolulu Bears." The National Pastime, SABR, 1995.
Jacobs, Bruce, Baseball Stars of 1953. New York: Timely Comics, 1953.
Kirk, Al and Robert Bradley. "Jackie Robinson and the L.A. Red Devils." http://www.apbr.org/reddevils.html
Notes
1. Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer, p. 358.
2. Vincent X Flaherty - Jackie Robinson Scrapbooks per Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, p. 60.
3. Vincent X Flaherty - Jackie Robinson Scrapbooks per Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, p. 60.
4. Unattributed - Jackie Robinson Scrapbooks per Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 1997, p.60.
5. Sporting News, November 1, 1945.
6. Pittsburgh Courier, November 3, 1945.
7. John Crosby, Syracuse Herald, November 12, 1972.
8. Pittsburgh Courier, April 27, 1946.
9. Joe Bostic, Amsterdam News, April 27, 1946.
10. Sam Maltin, Pittsburgh Courier, October 12, 1946.
11. Brooklyn Eagle, October 24, 1945.
12. Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, p. 64
13. Golenbock, Bums.
14. Arnold Schechter, Sports Illustrated, April 22, 1985.
15. Sporting News, November 1, 1945.
16. New York Daily News, July 20, 1972.
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Wesley Branch Rickey (December 20, 1881 – December 9, 1965) was an innovative Major League Baseball (MLB) executive elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967. He was perhaps best known for breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier by signing African American player Jackie Robinson, for drafting the first Hispanic superstar, Roberto Clemente, for creating the framework for the modern minor league farm system, for encouraging the Major Leagues to add new teams through his involvement in the proposed Continental League, and for introducing the batting helmet.
Rickey played in MLB for the St. Louis Browns and New York Highlanders from 1905 through 1907. After struggling as a player, Rickey returned to college, where he learned about administration from Philip Bartelme. Returning to MLB in 1913, Rickey embarked on a successful managing and executive career with the St. Louis Browns, the St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cardinals elected him to their team Hall of Fame in 2014.
Rickey played in MLB for the St. Louis Browns and New York Highlanders from 1905 through 1907. After struggling as a player, Rickey returned to college, where he learned about administration from Philip Bartelme. Returning to MLB in 1913, Rickey embarked on a successful managing and executive career with the St. Louis Browns, the St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cardinals elected him to their team Hall of Fame in 2014.
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Trivia
In 1997, baseball commissioner Bud Selig universally retired Jackie Robinson's number, 42. The handful of players still wearing the number were allowed to keep it. As of the film's release, only Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees continued to wear 42 on a daily basis. Rivera retired at the end of the 2013 season. As of 2014, barring special requests or approval, no major league player will wear #42 again.
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Four players from the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers were still alive when this film came out: Tommy Brown, Ralph Branca, Marv Rackley, and Don Lund.
Pee Wee Reese's line that someday all Dodger players might be wearing the number 42 was actually said by Dodgers outfielder Gene Hermanski in 1951. Brian Helgeland liked the quote so much, he had Reese say it because he is a central character. Since 2004, every April 15th has been "Jackie Robinson Day" in Major League baseball, and every player wears number 42. Robinson's first day in the Major Leagues was April 15, 1947.
The film does not explore Jackie Robinson's career with the Montreal Royals, but he was hugely popular. After leading the team to the league championship, it was noted: ..."probably the only day in history, that a black man ran from a white mob that had love, not lynching, on its mind."
Branch Rickey blurts out "Judas Priest!" According to those closest to Rickey, that was the worst profanity he ever uttered.
Branch Rickey is Harrison Ford's second film role playing a real life character. The first was Capt. Alexei Vostrikov, based on Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev, in K-19: The Widowmaker (2002).
The film broke the record for highest box office opening weekend by a baseball movie. The previous record holder was The Benchwarmers (2006).
Alan Tudyk claimed that he and Chadwick Boseman deliberately avoided fraternizing while filming their scenes together, to better convey the animosity between Jackie Robinsonand Ben Chapman.
The line "No. I want a player who's got the guts *not* to fight back." was actually said by Branch Rickey to Jackie Robinson.
The movie sanitizes Leo Durocher's speech to the Dodgers on the eve of their planned strike in protest of the signing of Jackie Robinson. His actual quote was "Don't care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fucking zebra, I'm manager of this team, he plays!"
Although Chadwick Boseman underwent weeks of baseball training to prepare for his leading role, Jasha Balcom, a former minor league player, was his stuntman in some scenes.
Branch mentions that Jackie wishes he wasn't leading the league in hit by pitch. Jackie Robinson finished 1947 as the batter most hit by pitchers, with 9.
In the movie, the punishment for not agreeing to play on the same team with Jackie Robinson was being "traded to Pittsburgh". Branch Rickey left the Dodgers in 1950, and become general Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1953. Bobby Bragan, who said he wanted to be traded but then asked not to be, ended up managing the Pirates in 1956.
Howard Baldwin and wife Karen Elise Baldwin developed this project after Ray (2004). They commented on how hard it was to get an African-American bio pic made.
The role of Branch Rickey was originally intended for Robert Redford.
The Birmingham (Alabama) News reported that Birmingham's Rickwood Field, the oldest surviving professional baseball field in the US, "played" three different roles in this movie. It doubled for Franklin D. Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which no longer exist. It also appeared as "itself" in a scene recreating the 1945 season when Jackie Robinson was a member of the Kansas City Monarchs.
When calling the catch of a fly ball in the movie, broadcaster Red Barber says "Back, back, back..." In another play-by-play call, he exclaims "Oh, Doctor!" Contrary to popular belief, Barber didn't use either line regularly. Barber said the only time he used those lines in a broadcast was when he called Al Gionfriddo's dramatic, game-saving catch off of Joe DiMaggio in the 1947 World Series. Since recordings of that Barber call became so famous, many people assumed they were trademark calls.
For the scenes when Ben Chapman taunts Robinson, Alan Tudyk got into character by watching videos of street fighting before each take.
The last scene of the movie takes place at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. As Jackie Robinson rounds the bases for his home run, one shot includes the Cathedral of Learning, a famous building at the University of Pittsburgh. In real life, Forbes Field was right next to the university. Forbes Field was torn down after the Pirates moved to Three Rivers Stadium in 1970, and the university kept home plate in its exact location. Forbes Field's home plate is encased in the ground at the same location as in the movie, in William Posvar Hall at the University of Pittsburgh.
While it is true that Jackie Robinson didn't get a hit in his first game, he did get on base via a throwing error by Bob Elliott, third baseman for Boston. He scored later, when Pete Resier hit a double.
T.R. Knight and James Pickens Jr.. use to star together on Grey's Anatomy (2005).
Nicole Beharie also starred in The Express (2008) as Ernie Davis's girlfriend. Chadwick Boseman (Jackie Robinson) had a brief, minor role in that movie, but shared no scenes with Beharie.
Harrison Ford purposely played Branch Rickey wearing prosthetics and talked in a different voice so that people wouldn't know it was him.
Jack Nicholson was considered to play Branch Rickey.
In the movie, Branch Rickey punishes some of his rebelling players by trading them, or threatening to trade them, to the Pittsburgh Pirates, in that they were one of the worst teams in the National League. Coincidently, in 2013, the same year the movie was released, the Pirates ended a streak of 20 straight losing seasons, going 94-68 and making the playoffs where they beat the Cincinnati Reds in the Wild Card Game but lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Division Series.
In the second game, when Robinson is on first, then steals second then third base, Rieser strikes out on only one pitch.
Robinson was not the first black major league baseball player, but the first in the 20th century. The first black major league player was Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884 on the Toledo Blue Stockings. He was followed by his brother Weldy. There is some good evidence the Walkers may have even been preceded by yet another player named William White.
Cameo
Kelley Jakle: the babysitter. Jakle is Branch Rickey's great-granddaughter.
In 1997, baseball commissioner Bud Selig universally retired Jackie Robinson's number, 42. The handful of players still wearing the number were allowed to keep it. As of the film's release, only Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees continued to wear 42 on a daily basis. Rivera retired at the end of the 2013 season. As of 2014, barring special requests or approval, no major league player will wear #42 again.
\
Four players from the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers were still alive when this film came out: Tommy Brown, Ralph Branca, Marv Rackley, and Don Lund.
Pee Wee Reese's line that someday all Dodger players might be wearing the number 42 was actually said by Dodgers outfielder Gene Hermanski in 1951. Brian Helgeland liked the quote so much, he had Reese say it because he is a central character. Since 2004, every April 15th has been "Jackie Robinson Day" in Major League baseball, and every player wears number 42. Robinson's first day in the Major Leagues was April 15, 1947.
The film does not explore Jackie Robinson's career with the Montreal Royals, but he was hugely popular. After leading the team to the league championship, it was noted: ..."probably the only day in history, that a black man ran from a white mob that had love, not lynching, on its mind."
Branch Rickey blurts out "Judas Priest!" According to those closest to Rickey, that was the worst profanity he ever uttered.
Branch Rickey is Harrison Ford's second film role playing a real life character. The first was Capt. Alexei Vostrikov, based on Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev, in K-19: The Widowmaker (2002).
The film broke the record for highest box office opening weekend by a baseball movie. The previous record holder was The Benchwarmers (2006).
Alan Tudyk claimed that he and Chadwick Boseman deliberately avoided fraternizing while filming their scenes together, to better convey the animosity between Jackie Robinsonand Ben Chapman.
The line "No. I want a player who's got the guts *not* to fight back." was actually said by Branch Rickey to Jackie Robinson.
The movie sanitizes Leo Durocher's speech to the Dodgers on the eve of their planned strike in protest of the signing of Jackie Robinson. His actual quote was "Don't care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fucking zebra, I'm manager of this team, he plays!"
Although Chadwick Boseman underwent weeks of baseball training to prepare for his leading role, Jasha Balcom, a former minor league player, was his stuntman in some scenes.
Branch mentions that Jackie wishes he wasn't leading the league in hit by pitch. Jackie Robinson finished 1947 as the batter most hit by pitchers, with 9.
In the movie, the punishment for not agreeing to play on the same team with Jackie Robinson was being "traded to Pittsburgh". Branch Rickey left the Dodgers in 1950, and become general Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1953. Bobby Bragan, who said he wanted to be traded but then asked not to be, ended up managing the Pirates in 1956.
Howard Baldwin and wife Karen Elise Baldwin developed this project after Ray (2004). They commented on how hard it was to get an African-American bio pic made.
The role of Branch Rickey was originally intended for Robert Redford.
The Birmingham (Alabama) News reported that Birmingham's Rickwood Field, the oldest surviving professional baseball field in the US, "played" three different roles in this movie. It doubled for Franklin D. Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which no longer exist. It also appeared as "itself" in a scene recreating the 1945 season when Jackie Robinson was a member of the Kansas City Monarchs.
When calling the catch of a fly ball in the movie, broadcaster Red Barber says "Back, back, back..." In another play-by-play call, he exclaims "Oh, Doctor!" Contrary to popular belief, Barber didn't use either line regularly. Barber said the only time he used those lines in a broadcast was when he called Al Gionfriddo's dramatic, game-saving catch off of Joe DiMaggio in the 1947 World Series. Since recordings of that Barber call became so famous, many people assumed they were trademark calls.
For the scenes when Ben Chapman taunts Robinson, Alan Tudyk got into character by watching videos of street fighting before each take.
The last scene of the movie takes place at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. As Jackie Robinson rounds the bases for his home run, one shot includes the Cathedral of Learning, a famous building at the University of Pittsburgh. In real life, Forbes Field was right next to the university. Forbes Field was torn down after the Pirates moved to Three Rivers Stadium in 1970, and the university kept home plate in its exact location. Forbes Field's home plate is encased in the ground at the same location as in the movie, in William Posvar Hall at the University of Pittsburgh.
While it is true that Jackie Robinson didn't get a hit in his first game, he did get on base via a throwing error by Bob Elliott, third baseman for Boston. He scored later, when Pete Resier hit a double.
T.R. Knight and James Pickens Jr.. use to star together on Grey's Anatomy (2005).
Nicole Beharie also starred in The Express (2008) as Ernie Davis's girlfriend. Chadwick Boseman (Jackie Robinson) had a brief, minor role in that movie, but shared no scenes with Beharie.
Harrison Ford purposely played Branch Rickey wearing prosthetics and talked in a different voice so that people wouldn't know it was him.
Jack Nicholson was considered to play Branch Rickey.
In the movie, Branch Rickey punishes some of his rebelling players by trading them, or threatening to trade them, to the Pittsburgh Pirates, in that they were one of the worst teams in the National League. Coincidently, in 2013, the same year the movie was released, the Pirates ended a streak of 20 straight losing seasons, going 94-68 and making the playoffs where they beat the Cincinnati Reds in the Wild Card Game but lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Division Series.
In the second game, when Robinson is on first, then steals second then third base, Rieser strikes out on only one pitch.
Robinson was not the first black major league baseball player, but the first in the 20th century. The first black major league player was Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884 on the Toledo Blue Stockings. He was followed by his brother Weldy. There is some good evidence the Walkers may have even been preceded by yet another player named William White.
Cameo
Kelley Jakle: the babysitter. Jakle is Branch Rickey's great-granddaughter.
Below: Pictures of my grandfather Paul R McCoy before he moved to the Los Angeles Angeles in The Pacific Coast League...Some game stats below.
Regular Season Standings Los Angeles Angels00
Mission Bells00
Oakland Oaks00
Portland Beavers00
Sacramento Senators00
San Francisco Seals00
Seattle Indians00
Mission Bells00
Oakland Oaks00
Portland Beavers00
Sacramento Senators00
San Francisco Seals00
Seattle Indians00
Paul McCoy was a 17 year old from Prescott Arizona. He was in his second year of organized ball with Lincoln. He also played for Beatrice during the year. He averaged .261 in 100 games. He played in Beatrice and Salina in 1924, Los Angeles in the PCL in 1927 and Pomona in 1929.
Beatrice Baseball
After finishing fourth in 1922 the Beatrice Blues hoped to improve in 1923. Opening game was scheduled for May 4th with Fairbury as the opponent. A street parade at 3:30 was followed by the game at 4:00 P.M. The Blues looked strong in the field but "Pop" Willetts, manager was concerned about the strength of the pitching staff. His concerns were affirmed as the Blues lost their first two games to Fairbury. In the opener over 1,200 fans saw the Fairbury Coyotes defeating the Blues 7-6. It is interesting that many sources called Fairbury the "Jeffersons" however the Beatrice paper consistently listed them as the "Coyotes". Beatrice wound up being last in the league in batting with a .241 average and
The Blues went through a lot of players in the beginning of the year. Lon Jackman was traded to Grand Island but jumped his contract leading to a number of problems for the Blues.
Although the Blues stayed around .500 ball all year they were unable to move up in the standings. Like most state league teams the Blues were in constant financial difficulty. In August the team had a special "Boosters" day. A newspaper report of the day states:
"Free air has been provided for those with voices suitable for rooting and all are invited to use as much of it as they may wish."
In August the Beatrice team tried out various young town team pitchers in league games. Malicky from Barneston and Oliver from Syracuse Nebraska were given try outs with the Blues.
Beatrice played games at both the "Driving Park" and at the "Athletic Park". Any details about the location/description of these parks would be appreciated.
The Beatrice uniform for the year were white with a dark stripe. The name Blues was printed across the front of the shirts.
Beatrice Baseball
Photo courtesy Steven UngerRoster:
Boyd who was also a pitcher, played in 57 games and had a .290 average to lead Beatrice for the year.
Fred Bowman who played in 127 games for Beatrice and Grand Island. He started the year with Beatrice, but by August he was playing for Grand Island in the outfield. He averaged .294 for the year.
Eugene Suggs played in the middle of the infield for Beatrice. The second sacker played in 125 games and had a .288 average.
T. Speaker was a regular in the right field garden for the Blues. He played in 132 games and was their cleanup hitter with a .284 average and eleven home runs.
William Quinn was the regular shortstop for the Blues in 1923. He played in 132 games and had a .281 average. He was sold to Kansas City at the end of the season. He was in the Eastern Shore League in 1924.
W. Schaefer anchored the third base spot for Beatrice. He played in 84 games and had a .259 average.
Harold Stanley Unger, the Blues catcher played in 108 games and had a .218 average.
McGrath was the Blues first baseman for 72 games and had a .217 average.
Paul McCoy was a 17 year old prospect from Prescott Arizona. He played in 100 games and averaged .243. He started his stint in professional ball as a 16 year old playing for Lincoln in 1922. He played for Salina Kansas in 1924 after the Beatrice team disbanded. In 1927 he played for Los Angeles in the Pacific Coast League.
Mike O'Leary was the leadoff hitter for the Blues. He played center field. He played in 125 games and had a .191 average.
William Novak played in mainly in the outfield. He also played backup catcher behind Unger. He played in 42 games and had a .234 average.
Pitchers:
Pop Willetts managed the Blues and pitched in 20 games. He wound up with an 8-6 record with the Blues.
Boyd pitched 25 games and had a 14-8 record.
Clyde Kettenbeil was a 23 year old pitcher from Michigan. He had a 13-7 record.
Edward Kutina was 7-4 in 14 games for Beatrice.
Demarest started the opening game for Beatrice. For the season he was 5-5 in the 10 games he pitched. His contract was bought by Pittsburg. He wound up in Williamsport in 1924 and 1925.
A Prejean managed a 12-6 record.
Farnum was 4-4.
W. Miller was 3-3.
Oliver the young man from Syracuse Nebraska was given a chance at the end of the year. He pitched in 2 games and had a 0-1 record.
After finishing fourth in 1922 the Beatrice Blues hoped to improve in 1923. Opening game was scheduled for May 4th with Fairbury as the opponent. A street parade at 3:30 was followed by the game at 4:00 P.M. The Blues looked strong in the field but "Pop" Willetts, manager was concerned about the strength of the pitching staff. His concerns were affirmed as the Blues lost their first two games to Fairbury. In the opener over 1,200 fans saw the Fairbury Coyotes defeating the Blues 7-6. It is interesting that many sources called Fairbury the "Jeffersons" however the Beatrice paper consistently listed them as the "Coyotes". Beatrice wound up being last in the league in batting with a .241 average and
The Blues went through a lot of players in the beginning of the year. Lon Jackman was traded to Grand Island but jumped his contract leading to a number of problems for the Blues.
Although the Blues stayed around .500 ball all year they were unable to move up in the standings. Like most state league teams the Blues were in constant financial difficulty. In August the team had a special "Boosters" day. A newspaper report of the day states:
"Free air has been provided for those with voices suitable for rooting and all are invited to use as much of it as they may wish."
In August the Beatrice team tried out various young town team pitchers in league games. Malicky from Barneston and Oliver from Syracuse Nebraska were given try outs with the Blues.
Beatrice played games at both the "Driving Park" and at the "Athletic Park". Any details about the location/description of these parks would be appreciated.
The Beatrice uniform for the year were white with a dark stripe. The name Blues was printed across the front of the shirts.
Beatrice Baseball
Photo courtesy Steven UngerRoster:
Boyd who was also a pitcher, played in 57 games and had a .290 average to lead Beatrice for the year.
Fred Bowman who played in 127 games for Beatrice and Grand Island. He started the year with Beatrice, but by August he was playing for Grand Island in the outfield. He averaged .294 for the year.
Eugene Suggs played in the middle of the infield for Beatrice. The second sacker played in 125 games and had a .288 average.
T. Speaker was a regular in the right field garden for the Blues. He played in 132 games and was their cleanup hitter with a .284 average and eleven home runs.
William Quinn was the regular shortstop for the Blues in 1923. He played in 132 games and had a .281 average. He was sold to Kansas City at the end of the season. He was in the Eastern Shore League in 1924.
W. Schaefer anchored the third base spot for Beatrice. He played in 84 games and had a .259 average.
Harold Stanley Unger, the Blues catcher played in 108 games and had a .218 average.
McGrath was the Blues first baseman for 72 games and had a .217 average.
Paul McCoy was a 17 year old prospect from Prescott Arizona. He played in 100 games and averaged .243. He started his stint in professional ball as a 16 year old playing for Lincoln in 1922. He played for Salina Kansas in 1924 after the Beatrice team disbanded. In 1927 he played for Los Angeles in the Pacific Coast League.
Mike O'Leary was the leadoff hitter for the Blues. He played center field. He played in 125 games and had a .191 average.
William Novak played in mainly in the outfield. He also played backup catcher behind Unger. He played in 42 games and had a .234 average.
Pitchers:
Pop Willetts managed the Blues and pitched in 20 games. He wound up with an 8-6 record with the Blues.
Boyd pitched 25 games and had a 14-8 record.
Clyde Kettenbeil was a 23 year old pitcher from Michigan. He had a 13-7 record.
Edward Kutina was 7-4 in 14 games for Beatrice.
Demarest started the opening game for Beatrice. For the season he was 5-5 in the 10 games he pitched. His contract was bought by Pittsburg. He wound up in Williamsport in 1924 and 1925.
A Prejean managed a 12-6 record.
Farnum was 4-4.
W. Miller was 3-3.
Oliver the young man from Syracuse Nebraska was given a chance at the end of the year. He pitched in 2 games and had a 0-1 record.
The departure of Lincoln for the Western League left the Nebraska State League without its largest city. Fairbury dropped out of the league leaving four teams. The league reorganized with Sioux City and Sioux Falls joining in making up the Tri-State League. Sioux City was in the Western League in 1923 and the fans were not happy about Lincoln replacing them in the Western League.
Beatrice was one of the better teams in the league and they were near the top of the league. The league was never on firm financial ground and disbanded on July 17th with Beatrice and Sioux Falls tied for the league lead. Many of the better players in the league were picked up by Western League teams.
Season:
Ray Dixon of Lincoln took over as part owner and manager of the Blues for 1924. Dixon was a unique individual. He put up $1,000 in cash to acquire part ownership of the team. He was a scholar, holding a degree from the University of Florida and a Masters degree in Speculative Philosophy from Columbia. He was a member of a number of honorary scholastic societies. He was a pitcher in the Dakota League and he managed the Johnson City Tennessee club in the Appalacian league.
Local boy Pid Purdy returned from college in Beloit to play for the Blues. He had played for Lincoln in the NSL in 1923. With Lincoln moving to the Western League he was lost in the shuffle and did not receive a contract from Lincoln. He was arguably the league's top player. When the league disbanded he was leading the league in hits and runs scored. He moved to the Western League for the rest of the season where he averaged .351.
Early exhibition games were played at the "Driving Park" as the high school track season was not complete.
Opening day saw 350 fans in the stands as Beatrice defeated Norfolk 2-0. The lineup for Beatrice in the opening game included Pid Purdy(rf), Suggs(2b), Roger Beall(lf), McCoy(1b), Ed Reichle(cf), Schaefer(3b), Garner(ss), Harold Stanley Unger(c) and Anderson (p). Dewey Bondurant was scheduled to open at short but an injury in an exhibition game resulted in Garner taking his place at the start of the season.
In July things went downhill for the league. Sioux City fans did not support the new class "D" team. A last minute attempt to move the team to Aberdeen was not successful and the league folded. Pid Purdy moved to Lincoln in the Western League and finished out the season with the Links. Roger Beall returned to Wichita, his home town and found a position with their Western League franchise.
Roster:
Rosters for the teams of 1924 are pretty incomplete. The Spalding Guide for 1925 does not list the league as it folded during the season. Newspaper accounts from the various cities sometimes included box scores but many times they only had line scores for the various games. Recreation of regulars is inexact and any information would be appreciated.
Harold Unger returned for the 1924 season and was the catcher for the Blues and averaged .214 in 51 games.
Ed Reichle was a regular for Fairbury in 1922, Norfolk in 1923 and Beatrice in 1924. The 41 year old averaged .299 in 51 games. He started playing baseball in Sioux City Iowa. His first pro job was with Keokuk in the Iowa State League. He was bought by Pittsburg, but assigned to Utica in 1912. His career included stints in Wilkes Barre, Harrisburg and Hartford. From 1925-1928 he managed Burlington. In 1929 he managed Davenport in the Mississippi Valley league.
Eugene Suggs averaged .244 in 51 games.
Edward Zink managed an 8-4 record.
Beall played in 51 games and averaged .309.
Bondurant played in 20 games and averaged .224
Paul McCoy was an 18 year old from Prescott Arizona. He averaged .287 in 50 games.
W. Schaefer averaged .236 in 35 games.
Anderson was 7-3, Goode was 3-2, Hostetter was 8-2, Houtz was 1-1 and Prejean was 6-6.
1928
1929
1927 Los AngelesPCL AA
1928 PocatelloUTID C
1929 Santa Ana/Pomona/CoronadoCASL D
1927Los Angeles AngelsPacific Coast League AA
1928 Pocatello BannocksUtah-Idaho League C
1929 Santa Ana/Pomona/Coronado Orange Countians/ArabsCalifornia State League D
Beatrice was one of the better teams in the league and they were near the top of the league. The league was never on firm financial ground and disbanded on July 17th with Beatrice and Sioux Falls tied for the league lead. Many of the better players in the league were picked up by Western League teams.
Season:
Ray Dixon of Lincoln took over as part owner and manager of the Blues for 1924. Dixon was a unique individual. He put up $1,000 in cash to acquire part ownership of the team. He was a scholar, holding a degree from the University of Florida and a Masters degree in Speculative Philosophy from Columbia. He was a member of a number of honorary scholastic societies. He was a pitcher in the Dakota League and he managed the Johnson City Tennessee club in the Appalacian league.
Local boy Pid Purdy returned from college in Beloit to play for the Blues. He had played for Lincoln in the NSL in 1923. With Lincoln moving to the Western League he was lost in the shuffle and did not receive a contract from Lincoln. He was arguably the league's top player. When the league disbanded he was leading the league in hits and runs scored. He moved to the Western League for the rest of the season where he averaged .351.
Early exhibition games were played at the "Driving Park" as the high school track season was not complete.
Opening day saw 350 fans in the stands as Beatrice defeated Norfolk 2-0. The lineup for Beatrice in the opening game included Pid Purdy(rf), Suggs(2b), Roger Beall(lf), McCoy(1b), Ed Reichle(cf), Schaefer(3b), Garner(ss), Harold Stanley Unger(c) and Anderson (p). Dewey Bondurant was scheduled to open at short but an injury in an exhibition game resulted in Garner taking his place at the start of the season.
In July things went downhill for the league. Sioux City fans did not support the new class "D" team. A last minute attempt to move the team to Aberdeen was not successful and the league folded. Pid Purdy moved to Lincoln in the Western League and finished out the season with the Links. Roger Beall returned to Wichita, his home town and found a position with their Western League franchise.
Roster:
Rosters for the teams of 1924 are pretty incomplete. The Spalding Guide for 1925 does not list the league as it folded during the season. Newspaper accounts from the various cities sometimes included box scores but many times they only had line scores for the various games. Recreation of regulars is inexact and any information would be appreciated.
Harold Unger returned for the 1924 season and was the catcher for the Blues and averaged .214 in 51 games.
Ed Reichle was a regular for Fairbury in 1922, Norfolk in 1923 and Beatrice in 1924. The 41 year old averaged .299 in 51 games. He started playing baseball in Sioux City Iowa. His first pro job was with Keokuk in the Iowa State League. He was bought by Pittsburg, but assigned to Utica in 1912. His career included stints in Wilkes Barre, Harrisburg and Hartford. From 1925-1928 he managed Burlington. In 1929 he managed Davenport in the Mississippi Valley league.
Eugene Suggs averaged .244 in 51 games.
Edward Zink managed an 8-4 record.
Beall played in 51 games and averaged .309.
Bondurant played in 20 games and averaged .224
Paul McCoy was an 18 year old from Prescott Arizona. He averaged .287 in 50 games.
W. Schaefer averaged .236 in 35 games.
Anderson was 7-3, Goode was 3-2, Hostetter was 8-2, Houtz was 1-1 and Prejean was 6-6.
1928
1929
1927 Los AngelesPCL AA
1928 PocatelloUTID C
1929 Santa Ana/Pomona/CoronadoCASL D
1927Los Angeles AngelsPacific Coast League AA
1928 Pocatello BannocksUtah-Idaho League C
1929 Santa Ana/Pomona/Coronado Orange Countians/ArabsCalifornia State League D
42 The Jackie Robinson Story
The story of Jackie Robinson from his signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1945 to his historic 1947 rookie season when he broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
Director:
Brian Helgeland
Writer:
Brian Helgeland
Partial Cast:
Chadwick Boseman...Jackie Robinson
Harrison Ford...Branch Rickey
Nicole Beharie...Rachel Robinson
Christopher Meloni...Leo Durocher
Ryan Merriman...Dixie Walker
Lucas Black...Pee Wee Reese
André Holland...Wendell Smith (as Andre Holland)
Alan Tudyk...Ben Chapman
Hamish Linklater...Ralph Branca
T.R. Knight...Harold Parrott
John C. McGinley...Red Barber
Toby Huss...Clyde Sukeforth
Max Gail...Burt Shotton
Director:
Brian Helgeland
Writer:
Brian Helgeland
Partial Cast:
Chadwick Boseman...Jackie Robinson
Harrison Ford...Branch Rickey
Nicole Beharie...Rachel Robinson
Christopher Meloni...Leo Durocher
Ryan Merriman...Dixie Walker
Lucas Black...Pee Wee Reese
André Holland...Wendell Smith (as Andre Holland)
Alan Tudyk...Ben Chapman
Hamish Linklater...Ralph Branca
T.R. Knight...Harold Parrott
John C. McGinley...Red Barber
Toby Huss...Clyde Sukeforth
Max Gail...Burt Shotton
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50 FAST FACTS ON JACKIE ROBINSON
1. Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo (pronounced KAY-ro), Georgia, on Hadley Ferry Road, a blue-collar town of about 10,000 folks. Cairo is the hometown of four-time Olympic basketball player Teresa Edwards, 1990 High School State Football champions and of course Jackie Robinson. Recently, the Cairo High School Syrupmakers renamed its baseball grounds, “Jackie Robinson Field.”
2. At UCLA, Robinson led the Southern Division of Pacific Coast Conference in scoring twice, as a basketball player, in 1940 and 1941. He later played professional basketball with the Los Angeles Red Devils in 1947.
3. In 1940, before 98,203 fans at Soldier Field, Robinson scores a touchdown, on a pass from Boston College’s Charlie O’Rourke, against the Chicago Bears. The College All-Stars lost to the world champions, 37-13. This was the same Bear team that demolished the Washington Redskins, 73-0, in the NFL championship game. At UCLA, Robinson had led the nation in punt returns with a 21-yard average and he also averaged 12.2 yards rushing.
4. Robinson’s first encounter with major league baseball was on March 13, 1938, in Pasadena. The Pasadena Sox, the city’s recreational team, played the Chicago White Sox in a fund-raiser. White Sox manager Jimmie Dykes spoke of the 19-year-old shortstop, “If that Robinson kid was white, I’d sign him right now. No one in the American League could make plays like that.”
5. In March of 1942, Robinson, 23, and pitcher Nate Moreland, 25, had their first major league tryouts with manager Jimmie Dykes and the Chicago White Sox of the American League. They were not offered contracts.
6. Three years later, 1945, Robinson, along with outfielders Marvin Williams, 23, and Sam Jethroe, 28, tried out for the Boston Red Sox. Red Sox manager and future American League president Joe Cronin did not attend the try out.
7. Robinson’s official Negro League stats with the Kansas City Monarchs are: In 47 games, he had 63 hits in 163 at bats. He hit 14 doubles, 4 triples, 5 home runs, 13 stolen bases, and compiled a .387 batting average.
8. Robinson batted second in the line-up and played first base on his first day in the majors. Robinson made 11 putouts without an error. Hall of Fame umpire Al Barlick officiated at first. The first major league pitcher he faced was Boston Braves’ 21-game winner, Johnny Sain. Robinson went hitless in three at bats.
9. Although hitless in his first major league game, Robinson scored the winning run against the Braves. After Eddie Stanky drew a walk, Robinson laid down a bunt. First baseman Earl Torgeson fielded the ball cleanly, but his throw bounced off of Jackie’s back. Jackie was credited with a sacrifice, Torgeson an error. Stanky and Robinson later scored the tying and winning runs on a double by Pete Reiser. The Dodgers won 5-3. The winning pitcher was Hal Gregg.
10. 26,623 chilly fans attended Jackie Robinson’s first major league game, more than 6,000 shy of stadium capacity in the double-decked Ebbets Field.
11. On April 18, 1947, Robinson hit his first M.L. home run off of New York Giants’ southpaw Dave Koslo at the Polo Grounds. It was reported, when Robinson returned to the dugout, no Dodger shook his hand.
12. In his first major league season, Robinson led the National League in Stolen Bases with 29 thefts, that included three steals of home.
13. Jackie Robinson’s longest batting streak came during his rookie season when he hit safely in 21 consecutive games.
14. In Robinson’s initial season, the Brooklyn Dodgers set road attendance records in every National League park, except Cincinnati’s Crosley Field.
15. On May 18, 1947, when Robinson made his first appearance at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, 46,572 fans attended. Fifty years later, this figure is still the record attendance at Wrigley Field.
16. In his rookie season, Jackie bunted 46 times and registered 14 hits and 28 sacrifices, a phenomenal 91 percent success rate.
17. On September 22, 1947, Jackie Robinson appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
18. At the end of the 1947 season, an Associated Press poll ranked Robinson second to singer Bing Crosby as the country’s “Most Admired Man.”
19. Robinson hit two grand slam home runs in his career; on June 24, 1948, and two years later on the same date.
20. On August 29, 1948, Robinson hit for the cycle against the St. Louis Cardinals, in a 12-7 Dodger win. He homered, tripled, doubled and after flying out, he singled.
21. As a second baseman, Robinson led the league in fielding in 1948, 1950 and 1951.
22. On July 12, 1949, Robinson with teammates Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella, along with Cleveland Indian outfielder Larry Doby became the first blacks to integrate the all-star game.
23. On May 10, 1950, Robinson became the first African American to grace the cover of Life magazine.
24. In 1950, Jackie starred as himself in the movie The Jackie Robinson Story. Actress Ruby Dee, played his wife Rachel.
25. In 1950 and 1951, Robinson lead the National League in the most Double Plays Made by a second baseman with 133 and 137 respectively.
26. On August 30, 1953, after two days on the injury list (bad leg), Robinson is struck out twice by Cardinal pitchers Eddie Erautt and Willard Schmidt, in the third inning.
27. On April 23, 1954, Robinson stole second, third base and home plate in the same game. Robinson steal of home sent the game into extra innings. He later doubles in the 13th inning to score Junior Gilliam with the decisive run.
28. Robinson’s most productive day at the plate was on June 17, 1954, when he hit two home runs and two doubles. He also stole a base against the Milwaukee Braves.
29. In the ‘55 World Series, Robinson’s steal of home plate is given as the motivational spark that propelled the Brooklyn Dodgers to their first and only world championship. The steal came off of Yankee Hall of Famers, pitcher Whitey Ford and catcher Yogi Berra, with Bill Summers officiating.
30. In 1956, Robinson earned his highest salary of $42,500 (about $250,000 in 1997 dollars). This was about nine times as much as the average family salary. In comparison, a salary of $5 million for 1997's superstars is 180 times the average household income.
31. In the 1956 World Series, Robinson drove in Brooklyn’s first and last runs. They were his only RBI’s of the series and both came at Ebbets Field.
32. From 1948 to 1956, there have been 33 players to pinch-run for Robinson, including Joe Black on July 27, 1952.
33. Only six (6) players have ever pinched-hit for Jackie Robinson. They are Bobby Morgan (in 1950), Rocky Bridges (1951), Wayne Terwilliger (1951), Dick Williams (1954), Rocky Nelson (1956), and Randy Jackson (1956).
34. Robinson produced his highest batting average in the clean-up position. He batted .329 in 2,483 at bats. In the fourth slot he compiled a slugging percentage of .514 and an on-base average of .426. In 4,877 lifetime at bats, he batted in the clean-up spot 51 percent of the time.
35. Robinson compiled his highest team batting averages against Pittsburgh and St. Louis. He batted .342 against the Pirates, and .341 against the Cardinals.
36. Robinson highest park batting averages came at Forbes Field with a .342 average. He also hit .326 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, and .317 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.
37. In the homely confines of Ebbet Fields, Robinson hit .314, with an on base percentage of .411, and a slugging percentage of .492.
38. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, from 1947-56, Jackie Robinson is one of only two players with 125 steals and a slugging percentage over .425. He had 197 steals and .474 slugging percentage. Former New York Cuban and Chicago White Sox great, Minnie Minoso, with 127 steals and .479 percentage, is the other player.
39. Hall of Famer Robin Roberts gave up the most hits, most home runs and most RBIs to Robinson, with 45, nine and 22, respectively. The most triples given up to Robinson are three, by Dave Koslo; most doubles are 10, by Howie Pollet. Robinson worked Herm Wehmeier for the most walks with 20. And Stu Miller hit Robinson with the most pitches, five times, in only 12 plate appearances.
40. Robinson’s lifetime on base percentage of .410 is ranked 25th on the all-time list.
41. Jackie Robinson is one of 15 players who won the Rookie of the Year Award and later won the Most Valuable Player Award. In 1987, Peter Ueberroth, then baseball commissioner, renamed the Rookie of the Year Award in Jackie’s honor, The Jackie Robinson Award.
42. Robinson won batting titles in both the minor and major leagues. He batted .349 with Montreal of the International League in 1946, and hit .342 with the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League in 1949.
43. Retired players who started their careers after 1947, and played more than ten years, with a lifetime batting average of .311 or higher include Jackie Robinson, Rod Carew, Roberto Clemente and Kirby Puckett.
44. In his first eight seasons, Robinson led the National League in getting hit by pitches once, was second four times and third twice. In fact, in 1951, three of the four most-often-hit National League players were black. Jackie was hit-by-pitches a total of 72 times during his career.
45. Robinson stole home plate trice in 1947, five times in 1948 and 1949, once in 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955 and 1956. A total of 19 steals of home plate. Russ Meyer was the only pitcher victimized twice.
46. Robinson was caught stealing home 12 times in his career. Preacher Roe, Johnny Sain, and knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm were notables who caught the larcenist Robinson.
47. Robinson, along with Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller, were inducted in the National Hall of Fame on July 23, 1962, his first year of eligibility. Robinson garnered 78 percent of the votes, getting 124 of 160 votes, making the Hall by a slim margin of four votes.
48. On October 15, 1972, Jackie Robinson threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the World Series, between the Cincinnati Reds and the Oakland Athletics at Riverfront Stadium. He was the guest of commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Robinson voiced his concerns about blacks in management stating, “One day I’d like to look over at third base and see a black man managing the ball club.”
49. In 1982, Robinson became the first baseball player, black or white, to have a U.S. postage stamp issued in his honor.
50. In 1997, Jackie became the first athlete to appear on three different Wheaties boxes at the same time, regular Wheaties, Honey Frosted Wheaties and Crispy Wheaties ‘n Raisins.
1. Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo (pronounced KAY-ro), Georgia, on Hadley Ferry Road, a blue-collar town of about 10,000 folks. Cairo is the hometown of four-time Olympic basketball player Teresa Edwards, 1990 High School State Football champions and of course Jackie Robinson. Recently, the Cairo High School Syrupmakers renamed its baseball grounds, “Jackie Robinson Field.”
2. At UCLA, Robinson led the Southern Division of Pacific Coast Conference in scoring twice, as a basketball player, in 1940 and 1941. He later played professional basketball with the Los Angeles Red Devils in 1947.
3. In 1940, before 98,203 fans at Soldier Field, Robinson scores a touchdown, on a pass from Boston College’s Charlie O’Rourke, against the Chicago Bears. The College All-Stars lost to the world champions, 37-13. This was the same Bear team that demolished the Washington Redskins, 73-0, in the NFL championship game. At UCLA, Robinson had led the nation in punt returns with a 21-yard average and he also averaged 12.2 yards rushing.
4. Robinson’s first encounter with major league baseball was on March 13, 1938, in Pasadena. The Pasadena Sox, the city’s recreational team, played the Chicago White Sox in a fund-raiser. White Sox manager Jimmie Dykes spoke of the 19-year-old shortstop, “If that Robinson kid was white, I’d sign him right now. No one in the American League could make plays like that.”
5. In March of 1942, Robinson, 23, and pitcher Nate Moreland, 25, had their first major league tryouts with manager Jimmie Dykes and the Chicago White Sox of the American League. They were not offered contracts.
6. Three years later, 1945, Robinson, along with outfielders Marvin Williams, 23, and Sam Jethroe, 28, tried out for the Boston Red Sox. Red Sox manager and future American League president Joe Cronin did not attend the try out.
7. Robinson’s official Negro League stats with the Kansas City Monarchs are: In 47 games, he had 63 hits in 163 at bats. He hit 14 doubles, 4 triples, 5 home runs, 13 stolen bases, and compiled a .387 batting average.
8. Robinson batted second in the line-up and played first base on his first day in the majors. Robinson made 11 putouts without an error. Hall of Fame umpire Al Barlick officiated at first. The first major league pitcher he faced was Boston Braves’ 21-game winner, Johnny Sain. Robinson went hitless in three at bats.
9. Although hitless in his first major league game, Robinson scored the winning run against the Braves. After Eddie Stanky drew a walk, Robinson laid down a bunt. First baseman Earl Torgeson fielded the ball cleanly, but his throw bounced off of Jackie’s back. Jackie was credited with a sacrifice, Torgeson an error. Stanky and Robinson later scored the tying and winning runs on a double by Pete Reiser. The Dodgers won 5-3. The winning pitcher was Hal Gregg.
10. 26,623 chilly fans attended Jackie Robinson’s first major league game, more than 6,000 shy of stadium capacity in the double-decked Ebbets Field.
11. On April 18, 1947, Robinson hit his first M.L. home run off of New York Giants’ southpaw Dave Koslo at the Polo Grounds. It was reported, when Robinson returned to the dugout, no Dodger shook his hand.
12. In his first major league season, Robinson led the National League in Stolen Bases with 29 thefts, that included three steals of home.
13. Jackie Robinson’s longest batting streak came during his rookie season when he hit safely in 21 consecutive games.
14. In Robinson’s initial season, the Brooklyn Dodgers set road attendance records in every National League park, except Cincinnati’s Crosley Field.
15. On May 18, 1947, when Robinson made his first appearance at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, 46,572 fans attended. Fifty years later, this figure is still the record attendance at Wrigley Field.
16. In his rookie season, Jackie bunted 46 times and registered 14 hits and 28 sacrifices, a phenomenal 91 percent success rate.
17. On September 22, 1947, Jackie Robinson appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
18. At the end of the 1947 season, an Associated Press poll ranked Robinson second to singer Bing Crosby as the country’s “Most Admired Man.”
19. Robinson hit two grand slam home runs in his career; on June 24, 1948, and two years later on the same date.
20. On August 29, 1948, Robinson hit for the cycle against the St. Louis Cardinals, in a 12-7 Dodger win. He homered, tripled, doubled and after flying out, he singled.
21. As a second baseman, Robinson led the league in fielding in 1948, 1950 and 1951.
22. On July 12, 1949, Robinson with teammates Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella, along with Cleveland Indian outfielder Larry Doby became the first blacks to integrate the all-star game.
23. On May 10, 1950, Robinson became the first African American to grace the cover of Life magazine.
24. In 1950, Jackie starred as himself in the movie The Jackie Robinson Story. Actress Ruby Dee, played his wife Rachel.
25. In 1950 and 1951, Robinson lead the National League in the most Double Plays Made by a second baseman with 133 and 137 respectively.
26. On August 30, 1953, after two days on the injury list (bad leg), Robinson is struck out twice by Cardinal pitchers Eddie Erautt and Willard Schmidt, in the third inning.
27. On April 23, 1954, Robinson stole second, third base and home plate in the same game. Robinson steal of home sent the game into extra innings. He later doubles in the 13th inning to score Junior Gilliam with the decisive run.
28. Robinson’s most productive day at the plate was on June 17, 1954, when he hit two home runs and two doubles. He also stole a base against the Milwaukee Braves.
29. In the ‘55 World Series, Robinson’s steal of home plate is given as the motivational spark that propelled the Brooklyn Dodgers to their first and only world championship. The steal came off of Yankee Hall of Famers, pitcher Whitey Ford and catcher Yogi Berra, with Bill Summers officiating.
30. In 1956, Robinson earned his highest salary of $42,500 (about $250,000 in 1997 dollars). This was about nine times as much as the average family salary. In comparison, a salary of $5 million for 1997's superstars is 180 times the average household income.
31. In the 1956 World Series, Robinson drove in Brooklyn’s first and last runs. They were his only RBI’s of the series and both came at Ebbets Field.
32. From 1948 to 1956, there have been 33 players to pinch-run for Robinson, including Joe Black on July 27, 1952.
33. Only six (6) players have ever pinched-hit for Jackie Robinson. They are Bobby Morgan (in 1950), Rocky Bridges (1951), Wayne Terwilliger (1951), Dick Williams (1954), Rocky Nelson (1956), and Randy Jackson (1956).
34. Robinson produced his highest batting average in the clean-up position. He batted .329 in 2,483 at bats. In the fourth slot he compiled a slugging percentage of .514 and an on-base average of .426. In 4,877 lifetime at bats, he batted in the clean-up spot 51 percent of the time.
35. Robinson compiled his highest team batting averages against Pittsburgh and St. Louis. He batted .342 against the Pirates, and .341 against the Cardinals.
36. Robinson highest park batting averages came at Forbes Field with a .342 average. He also hit .326 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, and .317 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.
37. In the homely confines of Ebbet Fields, Robinson hit .314, with an on base percentage of .411, and a slugging percentage of .492.
38. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, from 1947-56, Jackie Robinson is one of only two players with 125 steals and a slugging percentage over .425. He had 197 steals and .474 slugging percentage. Former New York Cuban and Chicago White Sox great, Minnie Minoso, with 127 steals and .479 percentage, is the other player.
39. Hall of Famer Robin Roberts gave up the most hits, most home runs and most RBIs to Robinson, with 45, nine and 22, respectively. The most triples given up to Robinson are three, by Dave Koslo; most doubles are 10, by Howie Pollet. Robinson worked Herm Wehmeier for the most walks with 20. And Stu Miller hit Robinson with the most pitches, five times, in only 12 plate appearances.
40. Robinson’s lifetime on base percentage of .410 is ranked 25th on the all-time list.
41. Jackie Robinson is one of 15 players who won the Rookie of the Year Award and later won the Most Valuable Player Award. In 1987, Peter Ueberroth, then baseball commissioner, renamed the Rookie of the Year Award in Jackie’s honor, The Jackie Robinson Award.
42. Robinson won batting titles in both the minor and major leagues. He batted .349 with Montreal of the International League in 1946, and hit .342 with the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League in 1949.
43. Retired players who started their careers after 1947, and played more than ten years, with a lifetime batting average of .311 or higher include Jackie Robinson, Rod Carew, Roberto Clemente and Kirby Puckett.
44. In his first eight seasons, Robinson led the National League in getting hit by pitches once, was second four times and third twice. In fact, in 1951, three of the four most-often-hit National League players were black. Jackie was hit-by-pitches a total of 72 times during his career.
45. Robinson stole home plate trice in 1947, five times in 1948 and 1949, once in 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955 and 1956. A total of 19 steals of home plate. Russ Meyer was the only pitcher victimized twice.
46. Robinson was caught stealing home 12 times in his career. Preacher Roe, Johnny Sain, and knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm were notables who caught the larcenist Robinson.
47. Robinson, along with Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller, were inducted in the National Hall of Fame on July 23, 1962, his first year of eligibility. Robinson garnered 78 percent of the votes, getting 124 of 160 votes, making the Hall by a slim margin of four votes.
48. On October 15, 1972, Jackie Robinson threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the World Series, between the Cincinnati Reds and the Oakland Athletics at Riverfront Stadium. He was the guest of commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Robinson voiced his concerns about blacks in management stating, “One day I’d like to look over at third base and see a black man managing the ball club.”
49. In 1982, Robinson became the first baseball player, black or white, to have a U.S. postage stamp issued in his honor.
50. In 1997, Jackie became the first athlete to appear on three different Wheaties boxes at the same time, regular Wheaties, Honey Frosted Wheaties and Crispy Wheaties ‘n Raisins.
42 The Jackie Robinson Story
Name:_________________________________ Date:___________________
42 - The Jackie Robinson Story
Class Discussion Questions
Film Studies/McCoy
1. What does Branch Rickey tell his associates is his primary motivation for bringing a black player into the Brooklyn Dodgers organization? Throughout the film it becomes clear that Jackie Robinson means a great deal more to Rickey than he initially suggests - please describe some of the scenes that depict this. At the end of the film, Branch Rickey tells Robinson he is able to love the game of baseball again - why do you think he says this?
2. Branch Rickey tells Jackie Robinson he is looking for a player with the courage not to fight back if he is persecuted, insulted, abused, and hated by players, officials, and fans. How can having a “thick skin” can be an advantage in life? How might things have turned out differently if Jackie had given in and lost his temper on the field? For example…
3. Success often results from adapting to change. How do the various players of the Brooklyn Dodgers and other members of the league adapt differently to the addition of Jackie Robinson to the team? What happens to those who do not adapt?
4. 42 is a story of personal courage, of people with the guts to stand up against a situation that is both wrong and accepted by the masses. Do situations like this exist today? Do we all face these situations, even if on a smaller stage, in our own lives? Have you ever experienced a situation similar to Robinson’s? What did you do? Was there something you would have done differently, if, like Branch Rickey, you had the chance to go back and right an old wrong?
5. Jackie Robinson tells Wendell Smith he doesn’t like, “needing anyone”. What does Smith say to Robinson that makes him realize their situations are not all that different and it’s probably ok to “need” the help of his friend? Do you think Jackie would have made it through the season if he hadn’t had the support of Wendell Smith, Branch Rickey, his wife, and eventually teammates like Pee Wee Reese? How can finding the right people to support us increase our ability to stand up for what we believe in?
6. Are Jackie’s teammates, who at first do nothing when Jackie is ridiculed on the field, as guilty as the people who yell racial slurs? When we pretend not to see bad behavior or injustice are we, in actually, saying it is okay?
7. It was obviously hard to watch the scene in which the Phillies manager, Ben Chapman, yells racial slurs at Jackie Robinson on the field. What thoughts did you have during this scene? How did you feel when Jackie’s teammate came out of the dugout to stand up against the Phillies manager’s racism? How can being “under fire” sometimes propel us to heroism we did not know we were capable of?
8. After showing support for Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese receives a threatening letter, but when he takes the letter to Branch Rickey’s office, he soon learns that Jackie has received hundreds of mail threats. Can we ever really understand what another person may be enduring without walking in their shoes? How did you feel when Reese stood beside Jackie on the field as a demonstration of support? Why did he choose to do this?
9. Why is April 15, 1947 such a significant date? What does Major League Baseball do annually to recognize this historic day?
42 - The Jackie Robinson Story
Class Discussion Questions
Film Studies/McCoy
1. What does Branch Rickey tell his associates is his primary motivation for bringing a black player into the Brooklyn Dodgers organization? Throughout the film it becomes clear that Jackie Robinson means a great deal more to Rickey than he initially suggests - please describe some of the scenes that depict this. At the end of the film, Branch Rickey tells Robinson he is able to love the game of baseball again - why do you think he says this?
2. Branch Rickey tells Jackie Robinson he is looking for a player with the courage not to fight back if he is persecuted, insulted, abused, and hated by players, officials, and fans. How can having a “thick skin” can be an advantage in life? How might things have turned out differently if Jackie had given in and lost his temper on the field? For example…
3. Success often results from adapting to change. How do the various players of the Brooklyn Dodgers and other members of the league adapt differently to the addition of Jackie Robinson to the team? What happens to those who do not adapt?
4. 42 is a story of personal courage, of people with the guts to stand up against a situation that is both wrong and accepted by the masses. Do situations like this exist today? Do we all face these situations, even if on a smaller stage, in our own lives? Have you ever experienced a situation similar to Robinson’s? What did you do? Was there something you would have done differently, if, like Branch Rickey, you had the chance to go back and right an old wrong?
5. Jackie Robinson tells Wendell Smith he doesn’t like, “needing anyone”. What does Smith say to Robinson that makes him realize their situations are not all that different and it’s probably ok to “need” the help of his friend? Do you think Jackie would have made it through the season if he hadn’t had the support of Wendell Smith, Branch Rickey, his wife, and eventually teammates like Pee Wee Reese? How can finding the right people to support us increase our ability to stand up for what we believe in?
6. Are Jackie’s teammates, who at first do nothing when Jackie is ridiculed on the field, as guilty as the people who yell racial slurs? When we pretend not to see bad behavior or injustice are we, in actually, saying it is okay?
7. It was obviously hard to watch the scene in which the Phillies manager, Ben Chapman, yells racial slurs at Jackie Robinson on the field. What thoughts did you have during this scene? How did you feel when Jackie’s teammate came out of the dugout to stand up against the Phillies manager’s racism? How can being “under fire” sometimes propel us to heroism we did not know we were capable of?
8. After showing support for Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese receives a threatening letter, but when he takes the letter to Branch Rickey’s office, he soon learns that Jackie has received hundreds of mail threats. Can we ever really understand what another person may be enduring without walking in their shoes? How did you feel when Reese stood beside Jackie on the field as a demonstration of support? Why did he choose to do this?
9. Why is April 15, 1947 such a significant date? What does Major League Baseball do annually to recognize this historic day?
42 Trivia
In 1997, baseball commissioner Bud Selig universally retired Jackie Robinson's number, 42. The handful of players still wearing the number were allowed to keep it. As of the film's release, only Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees continued to wear 42 on a daily basis. Rivera retired at the end of the 2013 season. As of 2014 (barring special requests or approval), no major league player will wear #42 again.
Branch Rickey is Harrison Ford's first film role playing a real life character.
Pee Wee Reese's line that someday all Dodger players might be wearing the number 42 was actually said by Dodgers outfielder Gene Hermanski in 1951. Brian Helgeland liked the quote so much, he had Reese say it because he is a central character. Since 2004, every April 15th has been "Jackie Robinson Day" in Major League baseball, and every player wears number 42. Robinson's first day in the Major Leagues was April 15, 1947.
Four players from the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers were still alive when this film came out: Tommy Brown, Ralph Branca, Marv Rackley, and Don Lund.
Branch Rickey blurts out "Judas Priest!" According to those closest to Rickey, that was the worst profanity he ever uttered.
The film broke the record for highest box office opening weekend by a baseball movie. The previous record holder was The Benchwarmers (2006).
The movie sanitizes Leo Durocher's speech to the Dodgers on the eve of their planned strike in protest of the signing of Jackie Robinson. His actual quote was "Don't care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fucking zebra, I'm manager of this team, he plays!"
Alan Tudyk claimed that he and Chadwick Boseman deliberately avoided fraternizing while filming their scenes together, to better convey the animosity between Jackie Robinson and Ben Chapman.
While his career with the Montreal Royals is not explored, Jackie Robinson was a hugely popular player with Montreal fans and after leading the team to the league championship it was noted: ..."probably the only day in history, that a black man ran from a white mob that had love, not lynching, on its mind."
Although Chadwick Boseman underwent weeks of baseball training to prepare for his leading role, Jasha Balcom, a former minor league player, was his stuntman in some scenes.
In the movie, the punishment for not agreeing to play on the same team with Jackie Robinson was being "traded to Pittsburgh". Branch Rickey left the Dodgers in 1950, and become general Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1953. Bobby Bragan, who said he wanted to be traded but then asked not to be, ended up managing the Pirates in 1956.
When calling the catch of a fly ball in the movie, broadcaster Red Barber says "Back, back, back..." In another play-by-play call, he exclaims "Oh, Doctor!" Contrary to popular belief, Barber didn't use either line regularly. Barber said the only time he used those lines in a broadcast was when he called Al Gionfriddo's dramatic, game-saving catch off of Joe DiMaggio in the 1947 World Series. Since recordings of that Barber call became so famous, many people assumed they were trademark calls.
The Birmingham (Alabama) News reported that Birmingham's Rickwood Field, the oldest surviving professional baseball field in the US, "played" three different roles in this movie. It doubled for Franklin D. Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which no longer exist. It also appeared as "itself" in a scene recreating the 1945 season when Jackie Robinson was a member of the Kansas City Monarchs.
Howard Baldwin and wife Karen Elise Baldwin developed this project after Ray (2004). They commented on how hard it was to get an African-American bio pic made.
The line "No. I want a player who's got the guts *not* to fight back." was actually said by Branch Rickey to Jackie Robinson.
Branch mentions that Jackie wishes he wasn't leading the league in hit by pitch. Jackie Robinson did indeed finish 1947 as the batter most hit by pitchers, with 9.
The role of Branch Rickey was originally intended for Robert Redford.
The last scene of the movie takes place at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The stadium was not used after 1970 when the Pirates moved to Three Rivers Stadium. Within this last scene, as Jackie rounds the bases for his home run a shot of the Cathedral of Learning is shown. The Cathedral of Learning is the famous building for the University of Pittsburgh. Forbes Field was located right next to the university in real life. After Forbes Field was torn down, the university kept home plate at the field in its exact location. The home plate of Forbes Field is encased in the ground at the same location as it was in the movie in William Posvar Hall at the University of Pittsburgh.
For the scenes when Ben Chapman taunts Robinson, Alan Tudyk got into character by watching videos of street fighting before each take.
While it is true that Jackie Robinson did not get a hit in his first game, he did get on base via a throwing error by Bob Elliott, third baseman for Boston. He would later score when Pete Resier hit a double.
Nicole Beharie, who plays Rachel Robinson, also starred in the sports biography of Ernie Davis "The Express" as the main character's girlfriend. Chadwick Bozeman (Jackie Robinson) also had a brief, minor role in The Express but shared no scenes with Nicole.
T.R. Knight and James Pickens Jr. used to star together on Greys Anatomy.
In the second game when Robinson is on first, when he steals second then third base. Rieser strikes out on only one pitch.
Cameo
Kelley Jakle: babysitter is played by the great-granddaughter of Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers.