Jackie Robinson

The Integration of Major League Baseball & Other Barriers

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Growing up a Hero

The Beginning

•  Jackie Robinson broke barriers, on and off the field. Robinson was a pioneer in the game of baseball. He became one of the first black baseball players to play major league  baseball. Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia in 1919. His mother, Mallie Robinson, single-handedly raised Jackie and her four other children. His father and mother had an off and on marriage for several years and so Mallie would become a strong and inspirational person in Jackie's upbringing. They were the only black family on their block, and the prejudice they encountered only strengthened their bond. From this humble beginning would grow the first baseball player to break Major League Baseball's color barrier that segregated the sport for more than 50 years.

• College Years 

• Robinson would attend UCLA and become one of the finest athletes that the school would ever have. He excelled in any and all sports he tried for; tennis, track, basketball, football and baseball. He loved college at UCLA because the classes and dorms were segregated and this fit right in with Jackie's preference but the separation between whites and blacks and could still be found in the school system. Blacks were free to attend the college and classes but were unable to apply for such as things as an individual. But this would not have a crushing impact on Robinson but kept him stronger. Robinson was a race-man, that is, someone who is proud of their race and their people and want the best for them. Jack Robinson was an intellectual man and used his intellect on and off the playing fields. Coaches and Professors alike knew that Robinson was an outgoing person and that he would become the best in which ever road he decided to take. 

• War

•       In 1942, Robinson was drafted and sent to  Fort Riley, Kansas. The Army was still segregated at the time and would have a long lasting impression on him that would help him become stronger in his future baseball integration. Robinson saw the military as another chance to become the best and decided to join the OSC (Officer Candidate School). The leaders of this division of the Army have racial problems with this request, even though the OSC advertised themselves as a racially neutral part of the Army, Robinson's request was buried in paper work to extended his application review. This common military experience spawned a personal friendship between Robinson and his other fellow black soldiers; including 1937 to 1949 heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis.Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in January 1943.

•     An incident on July 6, 1944 altered Robinson's military career. Robinson was waiting on results on hospital results about his ankle that he had injured in college. Robinson boarded an Army bus and the driver ordered Robinson to move to the back of the bus. The Army had commissioned its own unsegregated bus line but this was not the case on July 6. Robinson refused and the driver backed down. Robinson was a tall, strong, army officer, and imitating to the bus driver. Robinson sat where he wanted to.  Once they reach their destination, the driver found military police, who took Robinson into custody. When Robinson later confronted the investigating duty officer about racist questioning by the officer and his assistant, the officer recommended Robinson be Court Martial. Robinson's commander refused to authorize this legal action, Robinson was transferred to another base where he was brought up on false drunk charges because the other officers at the new base disapproved of his race and being a black officer too.

•     In August 1944, the charges against Robinson had been reduced to two counts of insubordination during questioning.Robinson was acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers. Robinson's court-martial proceedings prohibited him from being deployed overseas. After his acquittal, he transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky.  He decided to serve as a coach for army athletics, since it was specialty until receiving an honorable discharge in November 1944. While in Kentucky, Robinson met an ex-player for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League, who encouraged Robinson to write the Monarchs and ask for a tryout.

Number 42

• The Negro League

           The first successful organized Negro League was established on February 13, 1920, at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri. Andrew "Rube" Foster was the driving force behind the organization of this league and served as its president. The league would create seven teams to start with but would expand to 28 teams in the leagues history. Teams would begin forming in the South and Midwest. The depression years were especially difficult times for black baseball. In 1932, the East-West League was formed, but folded before the season ended. As in the white major leagues, the Negro leagues had their own World Series.  Over the years, eleven inter-league Black World Series were held.

•  Robinson would join the league in 1945 and would begin playing short stop for the Kansas City Monarch and accepted a contract for $400 per month. Robinson was a man of order, which he learned in through his life and while playing for the Monarchs, Robinson became frustrated with the experience because he enjoyed a structured playing environment. He would only find this sort of organization in 'organized baseball' aka MLB. Robinson saw the Negro leagues as disorganization and hated that the league embraced gambling, which appalled him. In the mid-1940s, Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, began to scout the Negro Leagues for new players for the Spring roster. When Ricky met Robinson, it would become a moment in history that would eventually change the industry and the culture forever. Rickey agreed to sign Robinson to a contract for $600 a month. 

• Robinson would officially sign a contract in  November 1, 1945. He would continue to play for the Monarchs for two more seasons.  During such time, he would help take the Monarchs to a league title in 1946. 

•  The Major Leagues
•  In the Spring of 1947 Jack Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers with a crowd of 26,000, black fans would make up half of that crowd.  Robinson was the first African American to join the major league baseball in over 65 years. He was given $5,000 to play for the first year. Robinson had the greatest first season than anyone, white-players & spectators, had expected. He was awarded the MVP award and Rookie of the Year in '47. After his performance  in the first year, he was offered, and accepted, a $12,000 salary. His performance over the next ten years with the Brooklyn Dodgers (See below) would prove his greatness and place him into the baseball record books as a legend. Robinson was known as symbol of a great athlete and not just a black player. Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese once came to Robinson's defense with the famous line, "You can hate a man for many reasons. Color is not one of them." after his first year playing was over in 1948.  His final game would be on September 30, 1956. Below are Robinson's stats for his 10 years with the Dodgers.

Year                      Age            Tm            Lg    G   PA   AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  SB CS  BB  SO   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS OPS+   TB GDP HBP  SH SF IBB   Pos     Awards
1947                       28           BRO            NL  151  701  590 125  175  31  5  12  48     29  74  36 .297 .383 .427 .810  111  252   5   9         28    *3 MVP-5RoY-1
1948                       29           BRO            NL  147  646  574 108  170  38  8  12  85     22  57  37 .296 .367 .453 .820  117  260   7   7          8 *43/5     MVP-15
1949                       30           BRO            NL  156  704  593 122  203  38 12  16 124     37  86  27 .342 .432 .528 .960  151  313  22   8         17    *4    ASMVP-1
1950                       31           BRO            NL  144  613  518  99  170  39  4  14  81     12  80  24 .328 .423 .500 .923  139  259  11   5         10    *4   ASMVP-15
1951                       32           BRO            NL  153  642  548 106  185  33  7  19  88  25  8  79  27 .338 .429 .527 .957  154  289  10   9          6    *4    ASMVP-6
1952                       33           BRO            NL  149  636  510 104  157  17  3  19  75  24  7 106  40 .308 .440 .465 .904  149  237  16  14          6    *4    ASMVP-7
1953                       34           BRO            NL  136  574  484 109  159  34  7  12  95  17  4  74  30 .329 .425 .502 .927  137  243  12   7          9 5/436   ASMVP-12
1954                       35           BRO            NL  124  465  386  62  120  22  4  15  59   7  3  63  20 .311 .413 .505 .918  135  195  13   7   5      4 75/49         AS
1955                       36           BRO            NL  105  390  317  51   81   6  2   8  36  12  3  61  18 .256 .378 .363 .740   95  115   8   3   6  3   5            57/34
1956                       37           BRO            NL  117  431  357  61   98  15  2  10  43  12  5  60  32 .275 .382 .412 .793  106  147   9   3   9  2   2 54/37     MVP-16
10 Seasons         10 Seasons    10 Seasons    10 Seasons 1382 5802 4877 947 1518 273 54 137 734 197 30 740 291 .311 .409 .474 .883  131 2310 113  72 104  9                    7
162 Game Avg.   162 Game Avg. 162 Game Avg. 162 Game Avg.  162  680  572 111  178  32  6  16  86     23  87  34 .311 .409 .474 .883  131  271  13   8                          12

Index Glossary:

• His Legend Lives On

• Jack Roosevelt Robinson was inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. Beginning his major league career at the relatively advanced age of twenty-eight, he played only ten seasons, all of them for the Brooklyn Dodgers. During his career, the Dodgers played in six World Series, and Robinson himself played in six All-Star Games. During his years at the Dodgers, it would recently be seen as the best Major League Baseball All-Century Team.  He created the term of the "long ball" era in baseball, in which a reliance on raw power-hitting gave way to balanced offensive strategies that used footspeed to create runs through aggressive base running. He would single handily raise the bar for a new generation of ball players that all players would hope to reach but fall short.

• In 1965, Robinson was the first black analyst for ABC's Major League Baseball Game of the Week telecasts.

• On June 4, 1972, the Dodgers retired his uniform number, 42

•  From 1957 to 1964, Robinson was vice president of the Chock Full o' Nuts corporation; he was the first black person to serve as vice president of a major American corporation, and knew that it was another step forward for the race.

• October 15, 1972, Robinson made his final public appearance by throwing the ceremonial first pitch before game 2 of the World Series, Cincinnati versus Oakland. He was 53.

• In one of his final public statements, while asking him about his 25th anniversary of entering the Majors and how he felt, he remarked "I'm going to be tremendously more pleased and more proud when I look at that third base coaching line one day and see a black face managing in baseball." 

                   Robinson would miss that day in 1974 when the Cleveland Indians appointed Frank Robinson (no relation) the position of manager, making him the first black managing coach.   

•  On October 24, 1972, Jackie Robinson, husband,father, leader, hero, and an American Icon, died of a heart attack his home in Stamford, Connecticut at the aged 53.

•  Robinson's home in Brooklyn was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976.  

•   In 1987, both the National and American League Rookie of the Year Awards were renamed to the "Jackie Robinson Award".

•  In November 2006 at the new ballpark for the New York Mets the main entrance, modeled after Ebbets Field where the Dodgers played before moving to Los Angeles, would be called the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. It honors Robinson with large quotations spanning the inner curve of the entrance and features a large freestanding statue of his Number 42. (See Top for Photograph)

Sources:

Cohen, Stanley. "A New Frontier." Dodgers!: the First 100 Years. New York, NY: Carol Pub. Group, 1990. 

Jennings, Jay. "A League of His Own." New York Times [New York City] 03 June 2007, New York Times Book Review 

Lanctot, Neil. "Breakthrough and Setback, The Golden Era Has Passed." Negro League Baseball: the Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2004..

Rampersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson: a Biography. New York: Ballantine, 1998. Print.

Robinson, Frazier, and Paul Bauer. "The Color Line Falls,." Catching Dreams: My Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1999. 103-27. Print.

Robinson, Rachel, and Lee Daniels. Jackie Robinson: an Intimate Portrait. New York: Abrams, 1996. Print.

Wilson, John R. M. "Ricky, Robinson and the Royals, Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, Robinson Unbound." Jackie Robinson and the American Dilemma. New York: Longman, 2010.

Links:

http://www.jackierobinson.com/

http://www.nlbpa.com/kansas_city_monarchs.html

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/robinja02.shtml

http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/nl/bdodgers/brooklyn.html