Athletes - Jackie Robinson

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	Athletes - Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972), became the first African American Major League Baseball player of the modern era in 1947. Robinson's achievement has been recognized by the retirement by each Major League team of his uniform number, 42.

He was the subject of a 1950 film biography, The Jackie Robinson Story, in which he played himself.

Before the Major Leagues

Born in Cairo, Georgia on January 31 1919. He moved with his mother Mallie Robinson and siblings Willie Mae, Mack, Frank, and Edgar to Pasadena, California in 1920, after his father deserted the family. At the University of California, Los Angeles, he was a star player of football, basketball, track, and baseball; the first athlete in UCLA history to letter in four different sports. He played with Kenny Washington, who would become one of the first black players in the National Football League since the early 1930s. Robinson also met his future wife, Rachel, at UCLA. His brother Matthew "Mack" Robinson (1912-2000) competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics, finishing second in the 200-meter sprint behind Jesse Owens. In 1941, Jackie played professional football for a team in Honolulu.

After leaving UCLA his senior year, Robinson enlisted in the US Army during World War II. He enlisted with a segregated Battalion, the U.S. 761st Tank Battalion. He was initially refused acceptance to Officer Candidate School, he fought for it and eventually was accepted, graduating as a first lieutenant. While training in the army at Fort Hood, Texas, Robinson refused to go to the back of a public bus. He was court-martialed for insubordination, and therefore never made it to Europe with his troup. He later received an honorable discharge in 1944, after being pardoned of all charges at the court-martial.

Jackie played baseball in 1944 for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro American League, where he was noticed by Clyde Sukeforth, a scout working for Branch Rickey.

The Dodgers

Branch Rickey was the club president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and had the secret goal of signing the Negro Leagues' top players to the team. Although there was no official ban on blacks in organized baseball, previous attempts at signing black baseball players had been thwarted by league officials and rival clubs in the past, and so Rickey operated undercover. His scouts were told that they were seeking players for a new all-black league Rickey was forming; not even the scouts knew his true objective

Robinson drew national attention when Rickey selected him from a list of promising candidates and signed him. In 1946, Robinson was assigned to play for the Dodgers' minor league affiliate in Montreal, the Montreal Royals. Although that season was very tiring emotionally for Robinson, it was also a spectacular success in a city that treated him with all the wild fan support that made the Canadian city a welcome refuge from the hateful harassment he experienced elsewhere.

Robinson was a slightly curious candidate to be the first black Major Leaguer in fifty-seven years (see Moses Fleetwood Walker). Not only was he 27 (relatively old for a prospect), he also had a fiery temperament. While some felt his more laid-back future teammate Roy Campanella might have been a better candidate to face the expected abuse, Rickey chose Robinson, knowing that Jackie's outspoken nature would, in the long run, be more beneficial for their cause than Campanella's relative docility. However, to ease the transition, Rickey asked Robinson to work hard to restrain his temper and his outspokenness for the first couple years, and to moderate his natural reaction to the abuse, testing him by raining racial insults on him in order to get him to understand the kind of abuse he would suffer. Aware of what was at stake, Robinson agreed.

Robinson's debut at first base with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947 (he batted 0 for 3) was one of the most eagerly-awaited events in baseball history, and one of the most profound in the history of the U.S. civil rights movement. Although he played his entire rookie year at first base, Robinson spent most of his career as a second baseman. He also played many games at third base and in the outfield.

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Athletes - Jackie Robinson

Before the Major Leagues

The Dodgers

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