Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt Robinson walked onto Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, and the game split into before and after. He was not the best Black ballplayer available. He was the one Branch Rickey believed could absorb hatred without retaliating, and Rickey was right. Robinson endured death threats, beanballs, spiked slides, and segregated hotels while playing at an All-Star level from his first season to his last. The restraint was strategic, not passive. He had agreed to hold his temper for two years, and after those two years expired, he held nothing back.

Before Brooklyn

Robinson grew up in Pasadena, California, and became the first athlete at UCLA to letter in four sports: baseball, basketball, football, and track. He was drafted into the Army in 1942 and commissioned as a second lieutenant at Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1944, he was court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a military bus at Fort Hood, Texas. He was acquitted, but the incident revealed the combative will that Rickey would later channel.

After the Army, Robinson played one season for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues before Rickey signed him to a contract with the Montreal Royals, Brooklyn's top minor league affiliate, in October 1945. Robinson led the International League in batting average in 1946 and was promoted to Brooklyn the following spring.

The First Season

Robinson played first base in 1947, a position he had never played before, because the Dodgers already had an established second baseman in Eddie Stanky. He hit .297, led the league in stolen bases with 29, and was named the inaugural Rookie of the Year. Several Dodgers had initially petitioned against his presence on the team. By September, most had come around, in part because Robinson was helping them win a pennant.

The abuse came from everywhere. Phillies manager Ben Chapman orchestrated a sustained campaign of racial slurs from the dugout during a series in April. Cardinals players threatened to strike rather than share a field with Robinson, a plan that collapsed after National League president Ford Frick warned he would suspend every player involved. Pee Wee Reese, the Dodgers' shortstop from Louisville, Kentucky, put his arm around Robinson's shoulders during a game in Cincinnati, and the gesture became one of the sport's most enduring images.

MVP and Beyond

Robinson moved to second base in 1948, his natural position, and became one of the best players in the National League. In 1949, he hit .342 to win the batting title, drove in 124 runs, stole 37 bases, and was named the league's Most Valuable Player. He was a six-time All-Star. His career on-base percentage was .409, and he was one of the most aggressive baserunners the game had ever seen, famous for rattling pitchers by dancing off third base and threatening to steal home. He stole home 19 times in his career.

The Dodgers won six pennants in Robinson's ten seasons. They won their only World Series in Brooklyn in 1955, beating the Yankees in seven games. Robinson retired after the 1956 season rather than accept a trade to the Giants. He was 37.

The Weight of the Pioneer

Robinson aged fast. His hair turned white in his forties. He developed diabetes and heart disease. He used his post-baseball years to push for civil rights, campaigning for political candidates, writing a newspaper column, and serving as vice president of the Chock full o'Nuts restaurant chain. He remained outspoken about baseball's slow progress in hiring Black managers and front office executives.

He died of a heart attack on October 24, 1972, at age 53. His number, 42, was retired across all of Major League Baseball in 1997, the only number so honored in any American professional sport. Every April 15, every player on every team wears 42. The gesture would probably have made Robinson impatient. He wanted structural change, not ceremony. But the ceremony keeps his name in front of people who might not otherwise learn the story, and the story still has work to do.