75 years ago today, Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier when he walked onto the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15th, 1947.
Today Robinson will be honored for what he did for baseball and how he fostered change in a game that was once Black America’s pastime.
But today we should honor him for being a man many knew on the field but didn’t really know off of it. A man much bigger than baseball, a game that didn’t even want him at one time.
Jackie Robinson was born in 1919 in Cairo, Georgia to a sharecropping family but was raised in California.
He was a high school sports star and became UCLA’s first four-sport star in football, basketball, baseball and track.
After his college career was over, he briefly played for the Los Angeles Bulldogs, a pro team competing in the American Football League.
In 1942, he was drafted into the US Army. After finishing officer candidate school, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and assigned to Fort Hood, Texas in 1943.
That much most people know.
The Jackie Most Don’t Know
What most don’t know is that Robinson was a phys ed teacher and player-coach at Samuel Huston College in Austin, Texas (now known as Huston-Tillotson University) from 1944-45.
The college didn’t really have an athletic program at the time. During basketball tryouts, only seven players showed up, which led to Robinson becoming both coach and player.
Even more interesting is the fact that the school competed in the SWAC against HBCU programs like Grambling, Southern and Prairie View A&M.
While the team didn’t garner success, Jackie’s athletic talents did and they caught the attention of the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues. The Monarchs liked what they saw and, according to MLB.com’s Bill Ladson, offered Robison $250 per month and a $500 bonus to play for them.
Robinson was an instant success in his one season with the team, batting .414 in 58 plate appearances.
His performance caught the eyes of Major League Baseball and in 1946 the Dodgers signed him to their minor league team, the Montreal Royals.
A year later, on April 10th, 1947, Robinson signed his contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers and five days later, he made history.
Jackie’s ascent to, and success in, Major League Baseball is well documented and celebrated.
During his 10 years with the Dodgers, he was a 6x All Star, the 1947 Rookie of the Year, and the 1949 NL MVP, a year in which he also won the Batting Title with a .349 BA. He was a career .311 hitter and helped the Dodgers win six pennants and one World Series title in 1955. In 1962, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
But what’s often glanced over is Jackie Robinson’s role as a bringer of change.
Everyone knows he brought change to Major League Baseball, but he also brought change for Black players, the Negro Leagues and Black America.
His pro success resulted in MLB teams poaching Black talent from thriving Negro League teams, which eventually led to the end of the Negro Leagues.
Jackie was the original Sam “Bam” Cunningham (ironically, another California native and star), who helped bring integration to the SEC after he and USC demolished Alabama, 42-21, at Legion Field in Birmingham on September 12th, 1970.
Two years after that game, on October 15th, 1972, Jackie appeared at Game 2 of the World Series in honor of the 25th anniversary of his breaking of baseball’s color barrier.
In his speech, he thanked people like Branch Rickey and Pee Wee Reese and shared a bigger hope with all in attendance.
“I 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,” said Robinson.
In October of 1974, the then Cleveland Indians named Frank Robinson their manager, becoming the first Black manager in MLB history. Roughly six months later, on April 8th, 1975, Robinson made his managerial debut with the Indians as a player/manager and punctuated the history-making event with a home run.
Be Like Jackie
Robinson brought change and stood proudly and unapologetic in standing up for himself and others like him.
While with the Monarchs, he was ready to deny the small-town gas station a sale if the attendant didn’t let him use the “whites only” bathroom.
While in the army at Fort Hood, he refused to move to the back of the army bus when a driver told him to, despite buses officially being desegregated on military bases. They tried to have him court martialed but he was ultimately acquitted.
After he retired from baseball in 1956, baseball didn’t want him anymore, so he channeled his fight for equal rights off the field.
Robinson fought for corporate integration as an executive with the Chock Full o’ Nuts restaurant chain.
He supported small businesses, including a Black-owned bank in Harlem, and joined the fight for affordable housing.
In 1969, he refused an offer to play in the Old Timers game because of baseball’s refusal to hire Black managers.
Robinson got involved in politics.
He supported both Republican and Democratic candidates and participated in the national Civil Rights movement.
He backed the Teamsters after they supported Black communities and the fight for equal rights.
But now, 75 years after his historic moment, we seem to have disregarded the change Jackie helped foster.
Today Black players account for only 7% of the league, a significant decrease from the 1970s when it was as high as 24%.
Even more alarming is that Major League Baseball only has two Black managers- Dave Roberts of the Dodgers and Dusty Baker of the Nationals.
Baseball’s dismal diversity stands at a time when the country is being torn apart by authoritarian, ignorant and extremist forces that want to corral, oppress and divide through racism, gerrymandering and the suppression of the right to vote and the right to choose.
So instead of simply celebrating the significance of April 15th, 1947 in baseball, let’s remember the change Jackie Robinson fought for and participate in the fight he fearlessly fought.
For that’s the Jackie Robinson the man that we should all remember and honor.
This story is brought to you by First and Pen in collaboration with Vanderbilt Sports & Society Initiative. The Vanderbilt Sports & Society Initiative was founded in 2018 by the late Vanderbilt Athletic Director David Williams to study the intersection of sports, race, gender, and politics. Follow the Initiative on Twitter @SportsSocietyVU and subscribe to the weekly e-newsletter by emailing Andrew.J.Maraniss@
