 A few years ago, Major League Baseball polled its fans to
determine the greatest moment in baseball history. While the final result may seem
questionable (Cal Ripken
was a great player, but his breaking of Lou Gehrig's streak of consecutive games played ain’t baseball's greatest
moment), there can be no doubt about the most important moment in
baseball history: April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson took the field at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field and
shattered baseball’s color barrier.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson attended Pasadena City College and UCLA,
where he lettered in baseball, football, basketball,
and track. Commissioned as a second lieutenant (one of the Army's first black
officers), he was court-martialed for refusing to sit at the back of a bus, but won
acquittal and was honorably discharged in 1944.
Following stints playing football and coaching college basketball,
Robinson received an offer to play baseball for the Kansas City Monarchs, one of the top teams in the Negro Leagues, a
parallel system established to allow African-American baseball players to
compete at the highest level.
After the war, Brooklyn Dodgers president and manager Branch Rickey
was looking for a way to not only break baseball's color barrier, but to also
increase attendance at Dodger games and make his team competitive. He found
the answer in Robinson, a man who was not only a great
ballplayer, but who would also have "guts enough to not fight back" (in Rickey’s famous phrase) against the racism that
would engulf Robinson and the Dodgers from those who opposed integrating
baseball.
Robinson's arrival in the bigs was met with the expected reaction. Southern
teammates demanded Robinson be let go (they were themselves traded).
Epithets -- and even black cats -- were hurled from the stands in Philadelphia, St.
Louis, and Cincinnati, where Louisville-born Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese put his arm around Robinson’s shoulder to show his support for his teammate.
At the end of the season, Robinson had been named the league's Rookie of the Year (an award that now bears his name), gaining respect throughout the baseball world -- and
beyond.
Rickey's plans for the Dodgers and integration succeeded, as the Brooklyn
team won six pennants and a World Series over the next ten seasons. Eventually, African Americans were found on the
rosters of every major league team. (The last team to integrate was the Boston Red Sox, in 1959).
In 1957, Robinson was traded to the Dodgers' rivals, the New York Giants. He
refused to report and instead retired, becoming vice-president of a coffee company.
He continued to work for civil rights until his death at the age of 53 in 1972.
In 1997, on the 50th anniversary of his debut, his number was retired by every major league club in recognition of his
accomplishments. April 15 is celebrated throughout the majors as Jackie Robinson Day -- commemorated by every player wearing number 42 to honor the most influential player of
them all.
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