April 15, 2007
The Start of Something Big
On the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in the major leagues, it seems appropriate to review Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season
. Jonathan Eig presents a narrative tough to put down. I like to skim books to get a feel for the story, but I found myself reading page after page and letting the time slip away.
Eig provides not only the story of Robinson in that year, but of the struggle for civil rights as a whole in the mid 1940s. Huge demographic shifts took place at that time as soldiers returned from the war, and black Americans among them pushed for eqaul treatment. A wave of relocation brought many black southerners north looking for better jobs, and created an atmosphere in New York City where integration on the baseball diamond would soon become forced. Branch Rickey was stayed ahead of the curve, which allowed him to integrate on his terms.
Eig delves deeply into Robinson the man. We get a clear portrait of Robinson's willingness to fight for his rights on two bus ride stories. One, in which he refuses to go to the back of the bus while in the army, led to his court martial. The other, in which he used the power of the purse to persuade a gas station owner to allow the players to use the washroom. Those incidents stand in stark contrast to his first trip to spring training. Airlines found excuses not to fly Robinson and his wife Rachael all the way to Daytona. They ended up on a bus, sitting in the penultimate row. But the driver demanded they move all the way to the back, and Jackie did without argument. It was the first case of him following Rickey's orders to have the strength not to fight back and thanks to the author's prose, we feel Robinsons' struggle with those moments.
Eig takes us through the cheers and catcalls, the worries and the triumphs of that amazing season. He describes the scene when the Dodgers returned home from a western road trip in September that won them the pennant:
As the Dodgers stepped down onto the train platform along Track Thirteen, some of the less recognizable players mixed with the crowd and escaped, their hats pulled over their faces. Not Robinson. As he walked toward a phone booth, eager to call his wife, some five hundred people -- most of them men, most of them white -- moved with him. He took off running, got to the phone booth ahead of the crowd, and slammed shut the accordion door. When he finished his call, half a dozen policemen rescued him, forming a circle, and, like the front line of the UCLA football team, clearing a path. Robinson took off for the IND subway line, where several pursuing fans begged for the privilege of paying his five-cent fare. At last, he reached his train and climbed aboard. And still, dozens of giddy admirers trailed him. They squeezed into his subway car, their destination of little matter, happy enough just to be along for the ride.
Robinson didn't mind. The Dodgers were winners. He was going home to his wife and son.
"I'm tickled silly," he said.
This season, think about honoring Jackie Robinson by reading this fine story of his great 1947 season. It reminds us how lucky we and the game are that Robinson succeeded.
Posted by David Pinto at
09:36 AM
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Imagine a day when baseball players rode subways!
Olerud took the subway to Shea when he was a Met.
Did he wear his batting helmet when he took the subway?