Jackie Robinson - April 15th

Spring is here and the Major League Baseball (MLB) season has begun.

In 2004 a special day was launched to honour Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s colour barrier in 1947.  On April 15^th every major league player and umpire wears the number #42.

 Other than Robinson himself, Branch Rickey, a baseball executive, was the person most responsible for that breakthrough. I read about Rickey in Pulitzer Prize Columnist Jimmy Breslin’s last published book Branch Rickey.  Breslin’s book took a lot from Arthur Mann’s earlier work on Rickey that had formed the basis of The Jackie Robinson Story, a 1950 film (starring Robinson himself and Sandra Dee).

Robinson was some athlete. It is arguable that baseball wasn’t even his best sport.  In his rookie season on July 26^th at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field he stole home and hit a home run.  Achieving that feat in the same game is perhaps a good indicator of his athleticism.  In his rookie season with the Dodgers he had a .297 batting average, an on base percentage of .383, twenty-nine stolen bases and twelve home runs.  He retired with a lifetime .311 batting average and a 409 OBP. 

1956 World Series.  Robinson stole home. 

I have vague memories of Robinson at the end of his career but certainly didn’t fully appreciate what he had to endure in order to break into the league and then excel over 10 seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Rickey and Robinson faced incredible bigotry.  Significant portions of white America at large, sportswriters and the other owners weren’t interested in change.

MacPhail Report 

The owners, for example, issued a statement in the summer of 1946, the year that Robinson was tearing up the International League playing second base with the Montreal Royals. 

"Certain groups in this country including political and social-minded drumbeaters, are conducting pressure campaigns in an attempt to force major league clubs to sign Negro players. Members of these groups are not primarily interested in Professional Baseball. They are not campaigning to provide a better opportunity for thousands of Negro boys who want to play baseball. . .. They know little about baseball -- and nothing about the business end of its operation. They single out Professional Baseball for attack because it offers a good publicity medium…."Signing a few Negro players for the major leagues would be a gesture -- but it would contribute little or nothing towards a solution of the real problem."

The report went on to say:

"A major league player must have something besides great natural ability. He must possess the technique, the coordination, the competitive attitude, and the discipline, which is usually acquired only after years of seasoning in the minor leagues

That required seven years in the minor leagues, according to the owners.

“The young Negro player never has had a good chance in baseball. Comparatively few good young Negro players are being developed. This is the reason there are not more players who meet major league standards in the Negro Leagues."

Fifteen of sixteen owners voted for this declaration.  Rickey’s was the only opposition.  I guess you could call him a social-minded drumbeater.

This particular statement the owners issued was in response to the Ives-Quinn Act of 1945.  Sponsored by the New York Republican Irving Ives, it was the first state law to prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin. Rickey, a Republican, had lobbied hard for this legislation.  Its passage meant that the Dodger boss had the legal backing to bring Robinson up to the majors.

 Rickey earned a law degree, practiced for a day or so before returning to his alma mater to coach baseball.  And baseball was where he stayed. Branch Rickey invented the baseball farm system changing the “look of baseball long before he ever heard of Jackie Robinson.”

 Rickey understood better than anyone that there was a business case for Negro League players to play in the major leagues.

 He did a great thing in American life, says Breslin.  Later in the McCarthy era, together with Robinson, he got caught up in attacking actor/singer Paul Robeson’s alleged communist views and later threw in with Richard Nixon. Breslin would have told them that “the wise shoemaker sticks to his trade and maintains a mouth filled with nails.”

 Rickey argued that, “ethnic prejudice has no place in sports, and baseball must recognize that truth if it is to maintain stature as a national game.” 

 That was a tough case to make and he made it.  It would seem though that case still needs to be made. Afro-American participation in the national pastime has declined. After reaching its peak in 1991 when 18% of big leaguers were black now only 7% are.   There are many reasons suspected for the decline but lack of access to facilites and rising costs of registration are two barriers often cited.

 On the other hand, stats from the seven Negro leagues have recently been merged with  

Baseball’s historical records - “long overdue” say MLB officials.  Josh Gibson, who played in the Negro Leagues mainly from the Homestead Grays, has replaced Ty Cobb as the greatest hitter.  Cobb’s great grandson approved calling the development “exciting.”

Not sure what his great grandfather, the Georgia Peach, would have thought.

 In 1952 he told the Sporting News that “The n**** has the right to compete in sports and who’s to say they have not?”

 Baseball – its the American Pastime.