Today is Jackie
Robinson Day. On this day in 1947 Robinson took a big step onto Brooklyn’s field as a
Dodger.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson
was not only the man who was the subject of
“baseball’s greatest experiment”, who put a face on the color change in
baseball, he also changed the chemistry of America’s pastime as well as its
color. Sports writer Mike Lupica says of Robinson: “He played with flash and
arrogance and made ferocity an art. Baseball did not look the same after Jackie
Robinson.”
But we have to
remember that history rarely happens in big events and single moments. There
were other people who were critical to Robinson’s being able to do take those
courageous steps on April 15, 1947.
Jackie Robinson was not the first black to
play professional baseball. It might be more correct to say that he was the
first black to cross the color line who
was allowed to stay. The very first
black to play professional baseball in America was Moses Fleetwood Walker.
Walker holds the dubious honor of being the first black to play pro ball and
the last to still be playing before the final shut out of blacks in baseball by
Jim Crow laws. Walker, a catcher from
Ohio, was educated at Oberlin College and the University of Michigan and played
ball at both schools before joining Toledo’s professional team in 1884. Moses Fleetwood Walker set a precedent.
The refusal to
allow blacks in pro ball meant that black ball players had to form their own
teams and their own leagues. This formation of all black teams led to one of
the most glorious periods in baseball history.
There is a tendency I think for baseball fans
to look at the Negro Leagues as the poor cousin to “real” baseball. Stories of
barnstorming days give the sense that black baseball was an inferior game and
organization. This could not be farther from the truth. Most of the bad
conditions for Negro leaguers came after integration of the game. In their
prime The Negro Leagues were multi-million dollar operations, among the largest
black businesses in the United States, which sent millions of dollars into and
through the community. .
Negro League
star Josh Gibson was the greatest player of that time. He is now considered by
most baseball historians to be the greatest baseball player of all time. One of
the games most natural hitters, Gibson played for Pittsburgh’s Homestead Grays.
Gibson’s hitting prowess outshined Babe Ruth. In one season Gibson hit 89 home
runs, 29 more than Ruth’s record. And Gibson is the only player to ever hit a
home run out of Yankee Stadium.
Without Josh
Gibson Jackie Robinson’s moment would never have come. Josh Gibson showed fans
what black ball players could do and he showed major league owners what black
fans could mean to the business of baseball.
The Homestead Grays, who played in any town that had a ballpark
available for rent, set attendance records in most of the big league parks
along the east coast and through the mid west. Josh Gibson was the hot draw and
fans- black and white -- came from all over and sold out every game to see him
play.
Those sold out
houses were not lost on another important baseball man, Branch Rickey,
president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey had been managing
baseball teams all of his adult life, and when he came to the Dodgers he
inherited an aging team and declining audience. He wanted to win a pennant and
he knew that the hottest talent in the game was in the Negro Leagues.
Rickey knew that
the draw for those games while mostly black included white fans who loved the
more energetic brand of baseball played by the all black teams. Rickey spent
more than two years orchestrating Robinson’s first step onto Ebbets Field.
Rickey was willing to endure the scorn of all of the other major league owners
and managers.
But ultimately
it was Jackie Robinson who had to step onto that field, and who agreed to
Rickey’s offer and Rickey’s terms. And the terms were tough: Robinson promised,
“no reaction, no matter what” for three years. That was not easy for Jackie. He
had to put up with bean balls aimed at his head, spikes aimed at his shins and
the ugly names aimed at him and at his family.
Rickey admitted
later that, “Jackie had to turn the other cheek so often that he had no other
cheek left – both were beaten off.” But Jackie Robinson was not Jesus and not
Gandhi. It is unfair to characterize him as a man of superior spiritual
character who took his enemies racist hatred and returned compassion and
forgiveness. He did not. Robinson swallowed a lot of that hatred. He was smart
enough to know that this was the only way the “experiment” would work and he
was wise enough to know that the men waiting behind him in the Negro Leagues
depended on his fitting in.
Robinson was the
man who took the risk, who played the game and who changed its play in so many
ways. But Branch Rickey can also be a role model for showing us that winning
and making a profit do not have to be separate from making important social
change.
Looking at these
others who set the stage for Jackie Robinson doesn’t take anything away from
him on this special day. Rather it may let us take away something that we can
apply to our lives. There are many parts to play in making great social change.
Most of them come without recognition and they can, like Rickey’s, come with
very mixed motivations.
Few of us will
have the opportunity to be the man or woman of the moment, to publicly enact
history in such a dramatic way, but we all have opportunities to be one of the
unnamed others, who, though unrecognized, are necessary to building the
momentum and critical mass that allows the historical moment to happen.
