• 22 •
On August 2, 1945, 2nd Lt. Jack R. Robinson, 0-1031586, assigned to a segregated tank battalion, appeared before an army court-martial that threatened to dismiss him from the army and place him in a military prison for his actions in refusing to go to the back of a bus. Less than two years later, on April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson, wearing Brooklyn Dodger number 42, stepped out on Ebbets Field to start a Major League Baseball game against the Boston Braves. In the stands were 26,623 fans, about 14,000 of whom where African Americans. Jackie not only broke the color barrier, he shattered the bigoted traditions of Major League Baseball that dated back to its early organization. The sport, and even race relations, would never be the same.
Times were good for all Americans. Servicemen and women were home from World War II, rationing had ended, the United States was working to rebuild Europe with the Marshall Plan, and American military superiority with the atomic bomb promised at least some period of peace. Baseball had survived as America’s pastime and its popularity became even larger in the post-war years with the increase in prosperity and the introduction of television that brought games to the living rooms of fans. African Americans continued their quest for equality and Jackie’s step on the diamond was symbolic as well as solid progress. Rachel wrote, “Jack and I began to realize how important we were to black America and how much we symbolized its hunger for opportunity and its determination to make dreams long deferred possible.”
The crowd greeted Jackie and the team mostly with cheers. Brooklyn was a close community within a large city and its citizens heartily supported their “bums.” A few boos were directed at Jackie at first base but overall he was welcomed as a Dodger rather than being rejected as a black man.
Boston pitcher Johnny Sain took the mound, and Jackie ground out in his first Major League at bat. Sain—a naval air cadet in 1943—had been the last pitcher to face an all-star team featuring the aging Babe Ruth. Sain said, “Then in 1947, I was the first pitcher to face Jackie Robinson, so I made history again, the first to face Jackie and the last to face the Babe.” Sain added, “I don’t remember any commotion that first day. It was like any other opener.”
In a newspaper interview, Jackie said, “I was nervous in the first play of my first game at Ebbets Field, but nothing has bothered me since.”
After the series with the Braves, the Dodgers moved to the Polo Grounds to face their rival Giants. More than 90,000 fans filled the stands for the two-game series—the largest in their history. The Dodger radio announcer, Red Barber, said, “They came to see Jackie Robinson. He became the biggest attraction in baseball since Babe Ruth.”
After the games, hundreds of fans gathered in hopes of getting Jackie’s autograph. Thousands of letters arrived at Dodger headquarters. A few notes made negative racial comments, but most writers congratulated and encouraged Jackie. He also received many invitations to speak and to appear at all kinds of events. Rickey, ever vigilant, acted as he always did with Jackie: he carefully determined just when and to whom Jackie would speak.
Jackie did not face extraordinary racism until they returned to Ebbets Field on April 22 for a three-game series with the Philadelphia Phillies who were revved up on “bench jockeying”—a baseball practice of taunting opposing players to “take them off their game” and to entertain themselves to pass the time. No subject—appearance, ethnicity, personal problems, or any other distinction small or large—was off limits. Dugout shouts called players Dagos, Wops, and Jew boys. Bald or bullet heads were noted as were large ears, noses, and lips. Bad plays or wide strikes received laughter as well as jokes. With Jackie on the field, the Phillies’ bench added “nigger” to their individual list of insults and “nigger lovers” as their taunt to the entire Dodger team.
Manager Ben Chapman, who had grown up in Birmingham, Alabama, not only encouraged his Philadelphia players to shout at Jackie, but he also joined in their racial taunts. What followed came from racism as well as personal insecurities on the part of the players who knew that Jackie was only the first of many African Americans who would soon be challenging them for their positions on the roster.
Jackie wrote, “Starting to the plate in the first inning, I could scarcely believe my ears. Almost as if it had been synchronized by some master conductor, hate poured forth from the Phillies dugout.”
“Hey, nigger, why don’t you go back to the cotton field where you belong?”
“They’re waiting for you in the jungles, black boy.”
“Hey, snowflake, which one of those white boys’ wives are you dating tonight.”
“We don’t want you here, nigger.”
“Go back to the bushes.”
Chapman and the Phillies players also shouted insults at Jackie’s Dodger teammates. “Carpetbaggers” and “nigger lovers” were just a few of their epithets.
To the public and press, Jackie said that the shouts did not bother him. A column in the Pittsburgh Courier quoted him as saying, “The things the Phillies shouted at me from their bench have been shouted at me from other benches and I am not worried about it. They sound just the same in the big league as they did in the minor league.”
Outside the public eye, Jackie felt differently. He held most of his emotions until much later when he wrote his autobiography in 1972. He wrote, “I felt tortured and I tried to play ball and ignore the insults. But it was really getting to me. What did the Phillies want from me? What, indeed, did Mr. Rickey expect from me? I was, after all, a human being. What was I doing here turning the other cheek as though I weren’t a man? In college days I had the reputation as a black man who never tolerated affronts to his dignity. I had defied prejudice in the Army. How could I have thought that barriers would fall, that, indeed, my talent could triumph over bigotry?”
Jackie continued, “For one wild rage-crazed minute I thought, to hell with Mr. Rickey’s ‘Great Experiment.’ It’s clear it won’t succeed. I have made every effort to work hard, to get myself into shape. My best is not enough for them. I thought what glorious, cleansing thing it would be to let go. To hell with the image of the patient black freak I was supposed to create. I could throw down my bat, stride over to the Phillies dugout, grab one of those white sons of bitches and smash his teeth in with my despised black fist. Then I could walk away from it all. I’d never become a sports star. But my son could tell his son someday what his daddy could have been if he hadn’t been too much a man.”
Jackie did not physically retaliate. He continued in his story, “Then I thought of Mr. Rickey—how his family and friends had begged him not to fight for me and my people. I thought of all his predictions, which had come true. Mr. Rickey had come to a crossroads and made a lonely decision. I was at a crossroads. I would make mine. I would stay.”
Early in the game, the torment from the Phillies bench bothered Jackie into making easy outs. However, in the bottom of the eighth inning, he singled, stole second, went to third on wide throw, and scored the winning run on a teammate’s single.
The Phillies manager and players continued their verbal abuse for the remainder of the three-game series. By the time the final game wound to an end, both the Dodgers and the press were tiring of—if not angry about—the Philadelphia team’s behavior. Some of the Dodgers began to shout back, defending Jackie. One called the Phillies “yellow-bellied cowards.”
Dan Parker, sports editor at the New York Mirror also disliked the treatment of the hometown ball player. He wrote, “During the recent series between the Phils and the Dodgers, Chapman and three of his players poured a stream of abuse at Jackie Robinson. Jackie, with admirable restraint, ignored the guttersnipe language coming from the Phils dugout, thus stamping himself as the only gentleman among those involved in the incident.”
Branch Rickey said, “Chapman did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers. When he poured out that string of unconscionable abuse, he solidified and united thirty men, not one of whom was willing to sit by and see anyone kick around a man who had his hands tied behind his back—Chapman made Jackie a real member of the Dodgers.”
Things were a bit easier for Jackie after the Philadelphia series but occasional taunts from the opponent’s dugout and from the stands, especially on the road, continued. In May, the St. Louis Cardinals threatened to strike if Jackie played. National League President Ford Frick took immediate action. He said, “If you do this you will be suspended from the league. You will find that the friends you think you have in the press box will not support you, that you will be outcasts. I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do it will encounter quick retribution. They will be suspended and I don’t care if it wrecks the National League for five years. This is the United States of America, and one citizen has as much right to play as another. The National League will go down the line with Robinson whatever the consequence. You will find if you go through with your intention that you have been guilty of complete madness.”
The St. Louis protestors backed down. Although Jackie’s treatment by the players and fans continued to improve, some conditions and incidents did not change. Hotels on the road refused to admit Jackie and restaurants would not serve him. Along with fan mail came hate letters and death threats against Jackie and his family. On the field, opponent runners spiked him on the base lines and pitchers threw at his head when he was at the plate.
Good things happened as well. In Boston when spectators heckled Pee Wee Reese for playing ball with a black man, Jackie later wrote, “Pee Wee didn’t answer them. Without a glance he left his position and walked over to me. He put his hand on my shoulder and began talking to me. His words weren’t important. I don’t even remember what he said. It was the gesture of comradeship and support that counted. As he stood talking with me with a friendly arm around my shoulder, he was saying loud and clear, ‘Yell. Heckle. Do anything you want. We came here to play baseball.’ The jeering stopped, and a close lasting friendship began between Reese and me.”
Although this is Jackie’s recollection, there is no television film or video tape to confirm the story. Other accounts say that the incident occurred in Cincinnati, and Jackie, at times, remembered the story happening in 1948 rather than 1947. Whenever and wherever the gesture occurred, it has become a major part of the Robinson, as well as the Reese, legacy.
Jackie earned that legacy as much by controlling his temper as he did by making astounding plays on the field. One example involved Phillies manager Ben Chapman. The man had received so much bad publicity after his racial tantrum in their first meeting that he and the Philadelphia club owner attempted to revive his reputation. They approached Rickey with their request. According to Jackie, Rickey thought “it would be gracious and generous if I posed for a picture shaking hands with Chapman. The idea was also promoted by the baseball commissioner. I was somewhat sold—but not altogether—on the concept that a display of such harmony would be ‘good for the game.’ I have to admit, though, that having my picture taken with this man was one of the most difficult things I had to make myself do.”
The consolatory Chapman told the press, “Jackie has been accepted in baseball and we of the Philadelphia organization have no objections to his playing and wish him all the luck we can.”
Even in quieter times awkward moments arose with teammates with whom he had a good relationship. Atlanta native Hugh Casey was one of the earliest Dodgers to befriend Jackie. He spent hours hitting balls to him to improve his fielding and gave him tips from a pitcher’s point of view. Casey, like many of his teammates, was insensitive—or perhaps just ignorant—about what they said to Jackie. During a poker game on the road, Casey, who had been having bad luck at the table as well as on the mound as a relief pitcher, said, “You know what I used to do down in Georgia when I ran into bad luck? I used to go out and find me the biggest, blackest nigger woman I could find and rub her teats to change my luck.”
Jackie wrote, “I don’t believe that there was a man in that game, including me, who thought that I could take that. I had to force back my anger. I had the memory of Mr. Rickey’s words about looking for a man ‘with guts not to fight back.’ Finally, I made myself turn to the dealer and told him to deal the cards.”
Jackie’s success and acceptance opened the way for other black players to ease through the now broken barrier of segregated Major League Baseball. On July 3, the Cleveland Indians signed Larry Doby from the Newark Eagles in the Negro Leagues to become the first black player in the American League. Later in the season, the Boston Braves, also in the American League, signed two more African American players.
Near the end of the year, Jackie later wrote, “I had started the season as a lonely man, often feeling like a black Don Quixote tilting at a lot of white windmills. I ended it feeling like a member of a solid team.”
Some owners and players had only reluctantly or superficially accepted Jackie, but they were more than happy with the results. Whenever Jackie and the Dodgers came to town, they could be sure of their grandstands being full of whites as well as blacks. At home Brooklyn drew 1,828,215 paying fans for the season—a club record. Wendell Smith, sports editor for the Pittsburgh Courier, best summed the profits brought in by Robinson, “Jackie’s nimble, Jackie’s quick, Jackie’s making the turnstiles click.”
On September 23, a day after the Dodgers had secured the National League Pennant, Brooklyn held “Jackie Robinson Day” at Ebbets Field. In addition to a Tiffany’s gold watch, a television set, and other gifts, a grateful Brooklyn presented Jackie a new Cadillac. Both Jackie and Rachel later commented that they were so happy that they would now no longer have to ride buses and the subway. They were also extremely pleased that Jackie’s mother Mallie had taken her first airplane ride in order to attend the festivities.
Three days later the Sporting News awarded Jackie “Rookie of the Year” honors. The editor of the News wrote, “In selecting the outstanding rookie of 1947, the Sporting News sifted and weighed only stark baseball values. That Jackie Robinson might have had more obstacles than his first-year competitors, and that he perhaps had a harder fight to gain even Major League recognition, was no concern of this publication. The sociological experiment that Robinson represented, the trail-blazing that he did, the barriers he broke down, did not enter into the decision. He was rated and examined solely as a freshman player in the Big Leagues—on the basis of his hitting, his running, his defensive play, his team value.”
Jackie’s stats certainly merited the award. He led the National League in stolen bases, batted .297 while appearing in 151 of the 154 games, and scored 125 runs.
The Dodgers took the New York Yankees to seven games before losing the 1947 World Series. Jackie played well, hitting .296 and playing error-free in the field. Baseball’s great experiment had come to an end—or to a beginning. Jackie, the sport, and the country were changed forever.