Historical Spotlight: Jackie Robinson
Over the last four years or so, baseball has rapidly become one of my favorite sports. It’s really entertaining to watch the battle between pitchers and hitters. Black Americans didn’t always have the opportunity to make a name for themselves in the big leagues. It took courage from outstanding people to break barriers and change the norm. Join me as we shine a historical spotlight on the legendary Jackie Robinson and the impact he had on baseball.
Jackie was born on January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia to his parents Mallie and Jerry Robinson. He was the youngest of five children born to his parents who were sharecroppers. About a year after he was born, the family moved to Pasadena, California.
He grew up relatively poor and didn’t have many opportunities to participate in recreational activities. Despite this, he had interests in sports and had natural athletic talent from an early age. While in school, he played football, basketball, track and field, and baseball at the varsity level. He initially played shortstop and catcher before eventually transitioning over to a first baseman.
It was during his time at Pasadena Junior College where he first gained his confidence to speak out against racial injustices he noticed. On January 25, 1938, he was arrested after vocally protesting the detention of a black friend by police. He received a two-year suspended sentence but the incident gave him the reputation for fighting against racial targeting.
Jackie enrolled at UCLA in 1939 and became the school’s first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, football, basketball, and track and field. At the time, he was one of four black players on the football team, making UCLA the most integrated college football team in the nation.
The team went undefeated with four ties at 6-0-4. Jackie finished the season with 12.2 yards per attempt on 42 carries, setting the school’s record for highest yards per carry in a season. He also led the NCAA in punt return average in the 1939 and 1940 seasons.
In track and field, he won the 1940 NCAA long jump championship at 24 feet 10 ¼ inches. Baseball was his “worst” sport at UCLA since he only hit for .097 in his only season. Despite his batting average, he went 4 for 4 and stole home twice in his first game. During his senior year, he also met his future wife, Rachel, who was familiar with his athletic career at Pasadena Junior College. They were eventually wed on February 10, 1946.
He left college before graduating and took a job as an assistant athletic director with the government’s National Youth Administration. After that organization was dissolved, he bounced around from Honolulu to Los Angeles to pursue his football career. Unfortunately, the start of World War II hindered his progress and in 1942 he was drafted and assigned to a segregated Army unit at Fort Riley, Kansas.
Jackie applied to the Officer Candidate School, a program that trained, assessed, evaluated, and developed second lieutenants for the U.S. Army. Even though the initial guidelines for the program were race-neutral, very few black applicants were actually admitted. Jackie’s application was delayed for several months until the outcry by Joe Louis and help of Truman Gibson sped the process along. He was officially commissioned as a second lieutenant in January 1943 after completing the program.
On July 6, 1944, Jackie was arrested by military police after refusing to move to the back of an unsegregated bus. He was recommended to be court-martialed, which prevented him from being deployed overseas and facing combat. Despite receiving multiple false charges like public drunkenness, he was ultimately acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers.
He was transferred to a camp in Kentucky where he served as a coach for army athletics until receiving an honorable discharge in November 1944. While there, he met a former player for the Kansas City Monarchs, who encouraged Jackie to write the team and ask for a tryout.
In early 1945, the Monarchs responded with a written offer to play baseball professionally in the Negro leagues. He accepted a contract for $400 per month but quickly grew frustrated with the disorganization of the league. He played 47 games at shortstop for the Monarchs and hit .387 with five home runs and 13 stolen bases before pursuing other major league teams.
At the time, Moses Fleetwood Walker was the only black man to play in the major leagues since 1884 and it was extremely difficult getting an organization to bring Jackie on. He was invited to a sham of a tryout by the Boston Red Sox where management degraded and humiliated him with racial epithets.
The Brooklyn Dodgers were one of the teams that were more serious in increasing their talent pool through integration. General manager, Branch Rickey, was committed to finding an addition to their roster who could handle the racial slurs and taunting that would surely come. Robinson agreed to “turn the other cheek” and signed a contract for $600 a month with the Montreal Royals, the minor league farm affiliate of the Dodgers. On October 23, 1945, his formal contract to the Royals for the 1946 season was signed and publicly announced.
His participation in spring training was controversial as he set out to break the color barrier in the sport. He was not allowed to stay with his white teammates at the team hotel, and instead had to stay with prominent members of the Black community. There were also multiple attempts to stop him from playing like padlocked stadiums, canceled games, and much more.
He made his Royals debut on March 17, 1946 in an exhibition game against the Dodgers and was eventually moved from shortstop to second base to improve his performance before the regular season started. He made his professional debut on April 18, 1946 during the season opener against the Jersey City Giants.
Over the course of the season, he had a .349 batting average, a .985 fielding percentage, and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player. Even though he faced hostility while on road trips, the Montreal fan base consistently supported him. Over one million people went to games he played in, providing a major boost to attendance.
In 1947, the Dodgers called Jackie up to the major leagues six days before the start of the season. He made his debut in the majors as a first baseman in a preseason exhibition game against the New York Yankees on April 11, 1947 and chose to wear his iconic number 42.
He faced racial tension not only from the fans and other players, but from his teammates as well. Some even went as far as threatening to sit out instead of playing alongside him. The Dodgers management had to take a stand for Jackie and insist that the team put their differences aside for the betterment of the organization. Other teams also targeted him for rough play and would yell racial slurs at any and every chance they got.
He finished his first season in the major leagues with a .297 batting average, a .383 on-base percentage, a .427 slugging percentage, 175 hits, and 12 home runs across 151 games. He earned the MLB Rookie of the Year Award and became the first black player to play in the World Series.
After chasing a World Series Championship for multiple years, he finally won his only one in 1955 when the Dodgers defeated the Yankees. He ended his major league career just one year later when he struck out to end Game 7 of the 1956 World Series. He played for only ten seasons from 1947 to 1956, made it to six World Series, and played in six All-Star Games. He officially retired on January 5, 1957 at only 37 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
Jackie continued speaking out against the injustices he witnessed well after his baseball career was over. Not only did he call out the segregated hotels and restaurants that served the Dodger organization, but he also provided support for certain political ideologies and initiatives. His outspokenness led to a number of establishments integrating as a result.
After announcing his retirement, he was diagnosed with diabetes shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, medicine at that time could not prevent the continued deterioration of his physical condition from the disease, and he faced complications from it later in life.
He died at his home in Connecticut on October 24, 1972 from a heart attack. Complications from heart disease and diabetes weakened him and made him almost blind by middle age. He was only 53 years old.
After his death, Rachel founded the Jackie Robinson Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to giving scholarships to minority youth for higher education as well as preserving Jackie’s legacy. Both the Dodgers and the MLB have retired his number 42 and have declared April 15th as Jackie Robinson Day.
He fought hard to challenge the societal norms of segregation and faced a lot of racial tension not only from the fans who didn’t want to see the sport integrated, but from rival teams and even his very own teammates as well. Despite the struggle, he didn’t give up chasing excellence. He not only influenced the culture of baseball, but he also contributed significantly to the civil rights movement to create change.
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Signed,
Jessica Marie
