Jackie Robinson: Difference between revisions

For the basketball player, see Jackie Robinson (basketball). For the footballer, see Jackie Robinson (footballer).

Template:Infobox MLB retired Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) became the first African-American major league baseball player of the modern era in 1947.^[1] While not the first African American professional baseball player in United States history, his Major League debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers ended approximately eighty years of baseball segregation, also known as the baseball color line, or color barrier. In the United States at this time, many white people believed that blacks and whites should be segregated or kept apart in many phases of life, including sports and daily life.

The Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Robinson in 1962 and he was a member of six World Series teams. He earned six consecutive All-Star Game nominations and won several awards during his career. In 1947, Robinson won The Sporting News Rookie of the Year Award and the first Rookie of the Year Award. Two years later, he was awarded the National League MVP Award. In addition to his accomplishments on the field, Jackie Robinson was also a forerunner of the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1960s, he was a key figure in the establishment and growth of the Freedom National Bank, an African-American owned and controlled entity based in Harlem, New York. ^[2] He also wrote a syndicated newspaper column for a number of years, in which he was an outspoken supporter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.^[3]

Robinson engaged in political campaigning for a number of politicians, including the Democrat Hubert Humphrey and the Republican Richard Nixon.

In recognition of his accomplishments, Robinson was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.^[3]

On April 15, 1997, the 50 year anniversary of his debut, Major League Baseball retired the number 42, the number Robinson wore, in recognition of his accomplishments both on and off the field in a ceremony at Shea Stadium.^[4] In 1950, he was the subject of a film biography, The Jackie Robinson Story, in which he played himself. He became a political activist in his post-playing days.

In 1946, Robinson married Rachel Annetta Isum. In 1973, after Jackie died, Rachel founded the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

In 1919, Jackie Robinson, the youngest of five children,^[5] was born in Cairo, Georgia during a Spanish flu and smallpox epidemic.^[6] His middle name was in honor of former President Theodore Roosevelt ^[7] who had died 25 days before Jackie was born. In 1920, his family who were sharecroppers^[8] moved to Pasadena, California^[6] after his father abandoned them.^[9]

Robinson grew up in relative poverty by a single mother^[10] and even joined a local neighborhood gang in his youth. Eventually, his friend Carl Anderson persuaded Robinson to abandon the gang.^[11]

In 1935, Robinson graduated from Dakota Junior High School and enrolled in John Muir High School ("Muir Tech").^[12] There he played on various Muir Tech sport teams, and lettered in four of them: football, basketball, track, and baseball. Robinson's older brother, Matthew Robinson, inspired Jackie to pursue his talent and love for athletics.^[13]

He was a shortstop and catcher on the baseball team, a quarterback on the football team, a guard on the basketball team, and a member of the tennis team and the track and field squad. He won awards in the broad jump.^[14]

In 1936, he captured the junior boys singles championship in the annual Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament, starred as quarterback, and earned a place on the annual Pomona baseball tournament all-star team, which included future Baseball Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Bob Lemon.^[15] The next year, Jackie played for the high school's basketball team. That year, the Pasadena Star-News newspaper reported on the young Robinson.^[16]

After leaving Muir, Jackie attended Pasadena Junior College and played basketball, football, and baseball.^[17] He played quarterback and safety for the football team, shortstop and leadoff batter for the baseball team, and participated in the broad jump.

While at PJC, he was elected to the "Lancers,” a student run police organization responsible for patrolling various school activities.^[18] He dated and made friends. However, on January 25, 1938, he was arrested for questionable reasons and sentenced to two years probation.^[19]

In 1938, he was elected to the All-Southland Junior College (baseball) Team and selected as the region's Most Valuable Player.^[20] On February 4, 1939, he played his last basketball game at Pasadena Junior College. Thereupon Robinson was awarded a gold pin and was named to the school's "Order of the Mast and Dagger" (Omicron Mu Delta).”^[21]

After leaving PJC, Robinson chose to attend the nearby University of California, Los Angeles, where became the school's first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football and track.^[8] He was one of four African American players on the 1939 UCLA Bruins football team, the others being Woody Strode, Kenny Washington and Ray Bartlett. Washington, Strode, and Robinson starred on the 1939 UCLA Bruins football team, in which they made up three of the four backfield players.^[22] This was a rarity to have so many African Americans when only a few dozen at all played on college football teams.^[23] They played eventual conference and national champion USC to a 0-0 tie with the 1940 Rose Bowl on the line. It was the first game in the history of the rivalry with national implications.

Despite many athletic achievements and having nearly completed the requirements for his degree, he withdrew from the university for financial reasons in 1941.

He then briefly worked as an athletic director for the National Youth Administration before going to Honolulu that fall to play football for the semi-professional, racially integrated Honolulu Bears. The season was brief, and he returned that December, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into World War II.^[24] He was drafted the following year.

In 1946, Jackie Robinson came to Daytona Beach, FL for spring training with the Montreal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers Triple-A farm club. He was banned from playing in Jacksonville and Sanford, but not in Daytona. He played his first integrated game for a team in Organized Ball on March 17, 1946. His first plate appearance came in an exhibition game against the Royals' parent club, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson then became the first African-American player in the Major Leagues.

From 1942 to 1944, after the Pearl Harbor surprise attack, Jackie Robinson was drafted to serve as a second lieutenant in the United States Army. During his training in Texas with what would later become the first black tank unit to see combat, the 761st "Black Panthers" Tank Battalion, Robinson was ordered by a white bus driver to move to the back of the segregated bus, which he refused to do. Robinson was then arrested by MPs and transferred to the 758th Battalion by the base commander, because his white battalion commander rejected the court-martial charges against Robinson. While the commander of the 758th consented to the insubordination charges, Robinson was later acquitted by a white military jury. Shortly thereafter, he received an honorable discharge.^[25] As such, Robinson never saw combat action during World War II.

Robinson's actions during his military service not only presaged his breaking of the color line in baseball, but some people may believe that he may also have influenced, however indirectly, President Harry S. Truman’s decision to integrate U.S. Armed forces in 1948.

In the late 1940s, Branch Rickey was club president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Dodgers began to scout Robinson who had joined the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs in 1945 after his discharge from the Army. He played shortstop and had a batting average of .387. Rickey eventually selected him from a list of promising African-American players. Robinson became the first player in fifty-seven years to break the Baseball color line, a segregation practice dating to the nineteenth century.

Rickey wanted a man who could restrain himself from responding to the ugliness of the racial hatred that was certain to come.^[26] He reminded Robinson that he would face tremendous racial animus, and insisted that he not take the bait and react angrily. Robinson was aghast: "Do you want a player afraid to fight back?" Rickey replied that he needed a Negro player "with the guts not to fight back." Robinson agreed to abide by Rickey's terms for his first year.

In 1946, the Dodgers assigned Jackie Robinson to the Montreal Royals. Jackie proceeded to lead the International League in batting average with a .349 average, and fielding percentage with a .985 percentage.^[27] That winter he also married Rachel Isum, his former UCLA classmate.^[24] Although the season was emotionally arduous for Robinson with the racist abuse he faced during the team's away games, he also deeply appreciated the enthusiastic support by the Montreal fans who followed his performance with intense interest. Because of Jackie's play in 1946, the Dodgers called him up to play for the major league club in 1947. Robinson made his Major League debut on April 15, 1947, playing first base when he went 0 for 3 against the Boston Braves.

Throughout the season, Robinson experienced harassment at the hands of both players and fans. He was verbally abused by both his own teammates and by members of opposing teams. Some Dodger players insinuated they would sit out rather than play alongside Robinson. The brewing mutiny ended when Dodger management took a stand for Robinson. Manager Leo Durocher informed the team, "I don't care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fuckin' zebra. I'm the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What's more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you can't use the money, I'll see that you are all traded."^[28] When other teams, notably the Cardinals, threatened to strike if Robinson played, NL President Ford Frick let it be known that they would be suspended.^[29]

On April 22, 1947, during a game between the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies, Phillies players called Jackie a "nigger" from their dugout, and yelled that he should "go back to the cotton fields."^[30] Rickey would later recall that the Phillies' manager, Ben Chapman, "did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers. When he poured out that string of unconscionable abuse, he solidified and united thirty men."^[31] Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler admonished the Phillies and asked Chapman to pose for photographs with Robinson as a conciliatory gesture.

Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who would be a teammate of Robinson's for the better part of a decade, was one of the few players who publicly stood up for Robinson during his rookie season. During the team's first road trip, in Cincinnati, Ohio, during pre-game practice, Robinson was being heckled by fans when Reese, the Dodgers team captain, walked over and put his arm around Robinson in a gesture of support that quieted the fans and has now gained near-legendary status. Reese was once quoted saying about Robinson "You can hate a man for many reasons; color is not one of them." In addition, the Jewish baseball star Hank Greenberg, who understood the rookie's difficulties considering he himself faced considerable anti-Semitism earlier in his career, made a point of welcoming Robinson to the major leagues. In the October 1948 issue of SPORT magazine, Robinson said he didn't expect to see baseball's color barrier fall in his lifetime. "I thought it would take another war," he said.

For his services, Jackie earned the major-league minimum salary of $5,000, which was standard for many rookies at the time. That year, he played in 151 games, hit .297, led the National League in stolen bases and won the first-ever Rookie of the Year Award. Although Jackie played every game that season at first base, Robinson spent most of his career as a second baseman.

Two years later, Robinson won the 1949 Most Valuable Player award for the National League, leading the league in batting average and stolen bases. By this point, he had galvanized fan support to the point that a popular song, Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?, reached the national Billboard R&B chart. By 1950, he had septupled his salary, being paid the highest amount to that point in Dodgers history: $35,000. His promised silence had also elapsed, and by July 1949, Robinson was testifying on discrimination before the House Unamerican Activities Committee. In 1952, he blasted the Yankees as a racist organization for not having broken the color line five years after his own crosstown debut.

Robinson was a crucial component of the 1951 "Miracle of Coogan's Bluff" pennant race. On the final day of the season, and with the Giants having already won their game, the Dodgers needed to beat the Phillies just to force a playoff. The game went into extra innings, and in the bottom of the 12th inning, Philadelphia loaded the bases with one out. Robinson made a season-saving defensive play: diving for a soft liner to his right, he injured his elbow but was able to convert the catch into a double play. Robinson then hit a game-winning home run in the 14th inning.

Despite his regular season heroics, the Dodgers lost the pennant on Bobby Thomson's famous home run. Film footage of the home run trot and celebration shows Robinson, observantly but dourly watching Thomson's feet in case he failed to touch all of the bases.

Robinson would win his only championship ring when the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series. (Coincidentally, he did not play in the seventh and deciding game of this Series—the only Fall Classic game he did not play in during his career.) After the 1956 season, Robinson was traded by the Dodgers to the New York Giants for Dick Littlefield and $30,000 cash. Robinson announced his retirement shortly after the trade; when asked, he made it clear that he had planned to retire before the trade was made, citing his own physical health and family commitments as his main reasons.

Robinson was a disciplined hitter and a versatile fielder. He had a .311 career batting average, a .409 career on base percentage and substantially more walks than strikeouts. He was a truly outstanding baserunner. No other player since World War I has stolen home more than Robinson, who did it 19 times in his career.^[32] Recent statistical analysis has also indicated that Robinson was an outstanding defensive player throughout his career.^[33][34] During his career, the Dodgers played in six World Series and Jackie played in six All-Star games. He is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a member of the All-Century Team.

Assessing himself, Robinson said "I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... all I ask is that you respect me as a human being."^[35]

Robinson retired on January 5, 1957. He became a vice-president for the Chock Full O' Nuts corporation instead, and served on the board of the NAACP until 1967, when he resigned.

Beyond his many and stellar baseball feats, Jackie Robinson went on to champion the cause of civil rights when he retired from the game.

In 1964 he became one of six national directors for Nelson Rockefeller's Republican presidential campaign and later became special assistant for community affairs when Rockefeller was re-elected governor of New York in 1966. ^[36]

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, his first year of eligibility, becoming the first African-American so honored. In 1965, Robinson served as an analyst for ABC's Game of the Week telecasts. On June 4, 1972, the Dodgers retired his uniform number 42 alongside Roy Campanella (39) and Sandy Koufax (32).

In 1970, he established the Jackie Robinson Construction Company to build housing for families with low incomes. ^[37]

Robinson made his final public appearance on October 14, 1972, before Game 2 of the World Series. He used this chance to express his wish for a black manager to be hired by a Major League Baseball team.^[38]

This wish was granted two years later, following the 1974 season, when the Cleveland Indians gave their managerial post to Frank Robinson, a Hall of Fame bound slugger who was then still an active player, and no relation to Jackie Robinson. At the press conference announcing his hiring, Frank expressed his wish that Jackie had lived to see the moment.^[39] In 1971, his oldest son, Jackie, Jr., who had beaten back drug problems and was working as a Daytop Village counselor, was killed in an automobile accident. Also, Jackie suffered from diabetes, virtually went blind, and suffered heart problems.

Jackie's body, which had served him well as an athlete, gave out early. Diabetes and heart disease complications weakened him and he was almost blind in middle age. On October 24, 1972, he died of a heart attack at 53 in Stamford, Connecticut and was interred in the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.^[40] The highway that goes through the cemetery (previously known as the Interborough Parkway) was renamed the Jackie Robinson Parkway in 1997.^[41]

• According to a poll conducted by Jimmie Fidler in 1947, Robinson was the second most popular man in the country, behind Bing Crosby.^[42]

• In December 1956, the NAACP recognized Robinson with the Spingarn Medal, which it awards annually for the highest achievement by an African American. ^[43]
• In 1976, his home in Brooklyn, the Jackie Robinson House, was declared a National Historic Landmark
• In March 1984, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

• Dorsey High School, in Los Angeles, also named the football stadium they play in after the late Robinson.

• The homes of the Daytona Cubs, Jackie Robinson Ballpark, and the UCLA Bruins Baseball team, Jackie Robinson Stadium, are named after Robinson.

• The Chicago Public School system has named an elementary school after Jackie Robinson. It is in the Kenwood neighbourhood on Chicago's south side.^[44]

• In 1987, Major League Baseball renamed the Rookie of the Year Award the Jackie Robinson Award in his honor.

• On April 15, 1997, Jackie Robinson's #42 was retired by Major League Baseball, meaning that no future player on any major league team could wear it. Players wearing #42 at the time, some of whom said they did so as a tribute to Robinson, were allowed to continue wearing it, thereby grandfathering the number's retirement. The last player currently wearing the number is New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera.

• In 1999, he was named by Time Magazine on its list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.^[45]

• In 2000, he ranked number 44 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

• Baseball writer Bill James in the "The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract" ranked Robinson as the 32nd greatest player of all time based strictly on his performance on the field, noting that he was one of the top players in the league throughout his career.

• On October 29, 2003, the United States Congress posthumously awarded Robinson the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award the Congress can bestow. Robinson's widow accepted the award in a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda on March 2, 2005.

• At the November 2006 groundbreaking for a new New York Mets ballpark, Citi Field, scheduled to open in 2009, it was announced that the main entrance, modeled on the one in Brooklyn's old Ebbets Field, will be called the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. Additionally, Mets owner Fred Wilpon said that the Mets and Citigroup would work with the Jackie Robinson Foundation to create a Jackie Robinson Museum and Learning Center in lower Manhattan, as well as fund scholarships for "young people who live by and embody Jackie's ideals."^[46]

• On August 20, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced that Jackie Robinson would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame on December 5, 2007 located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento.

On April 15, 2007, the 60th anniversary of Robinson's major league debut, Major League Baseball invited players to wear the number 42 just for that day to commemorate Robinson. The gesture was the idea of Cincinnati Reds outfielder Ken Griffey, Jr., who first sought Rachel Robinson's permission, and, after receiving it, asked Commissioner Bud Selig for permission. Selig extended the invitation to all major league teams.^[47] Ultimately, more than 200 players wore number 42, including the entire rosters of the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Houston Astros, Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers, and Pittsburgh Pirates.^[48]

The tribute was continued the following year, when, during the April 15 games, all members of the New York Mets, Washington Nationals, and Tampa Bay Rays wore Robinson's # 42.

• Jackie Robinson is a major character in Dan Gutman's novel Jackie & Me.
• In 1997, Jackie Robinson was used in Apple Computer’s Think Different advertising campaign that highlighted important individuals who made a change in history.

• List of first black Major League Baseball players by team and date
• DHL Hometown Heroes
• List of African-American firsts
• List of top 500 Major League Baseball home run hitters
• Hitting for the cycle
• List of Major League Baseball batting champions
• List of Major League Baseball stolen base champions

• Bigelow, Barbara Carlisle, ed. Contemporary Black Biography vol. 6. Gale Research Inc. 1994. ISBN 0-8103-8558-9
• Eig, Jonathan. Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007. ISBN 978-07432-9460-7
• Frommer, Harvey. Jackie Robinson Watts Press, 1984.
• Journal of Sports History - http://thejournalofsportshistory.org/history-of-baseball/jackie-robinson-a-triple-threat.html
• Kirwin, Bill. Out of the Shadows: African American Baseball from the Cuban Giants to Jackie Robinson. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. ISBN 978-08032-7825-7
• MLB.com - http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/nyy/history/retired_numbers.jsp
• Moritz, Charles, ed. Current Biography Yearbook 1972, H.W. Wilson Co, New York, 1972. ISBN 0-8242-0493-X
• Rampersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson, a Biography, Alfred A. Knopf (New York), 1997. ISBN 0-679-44495-5
• Robinson, Jackie. I Never Had It Made. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1972
• Robinson, Sharon. Promises To Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America Scholastic, 2004.
• Rothe, Anna, ed. Current Biography, Who's News and Why 1947, H.W. Wilson Co, New York, 1948.
• SPORT magazine, October 1948.
• Thorn, John. "Our Game" pp1-10 In Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball 7th ed. John Thorn et al eds. Total Sports Publishing, New York, 1992
• Tygiel, Jules. Baseball's Great Experiment, Oxford (USA), New York, ISBN 0195106199
• Williams, Michael W.- Ed. An African American Encyclopedia 1993.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Jackie Robinson.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jackie Robinson.

• archives.gov Correspondences with the White House
• Jackie Robinson at the Baseball Hall of Fame
• Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference
• Jackie Robinson at Find a Grave Retrieved on 2008-03-19
• jackierobinson.com Official Website
• jackierobinson.org Jackie Robinson Foundation Website
• Fangraphs stats
• Baseball Library
• New Georgia Encyclopedia Entry on Robinson

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