Been watching Ken Burns's documentary on Jackie Robinson for the last two nights. Tomorrow, April 15, will be the 69th anniversary of his first game in the major leagues. Burns, of course, details the indignities he suffered that first year, and Branch Rickey's stern admonition that he not respond in kind (Robinson: "Mr Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who's afraid to fight back?" Rickey: "I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back!") I've never really understood why it was so important that Robinson just take the pain. If he had charged the mound, then what? For some reason, it would have been a disaster. The idea seems to be that Robinson had to be unobjectionable, and no one likes a black guy who complains about injustice, let alone takes a swing at a bigot.
Anyway, Robinson was an odd choice if the object was to find someone who would keep his mouth shut. I think I was reading aloud a Junie B Jones book when the film might have been covering the court martial that followed upon Robinson's refusal to move to the back of an Army bus on July 6, 1944, at Fort Hood in Texas. He seems to have been quite a bit less polite than the sainted Rosa Parks, for the charges against him included two counts of insubordination during questioning. He was acquitted by an all-white jury.
If however Rickey's goal had been the prosaic one of merely improving the team, he could hardly have done better than signing Robinson, who in 1947 did more than just endure racial abuse. The Dodgers won the pennant, and Robinson was indisputably their best player. He led the team in doubles, home runs, and total bases. His batting average was .297. He led the National League in stolen bases. He was voted Rookie of the Year and was fifth in the MVP balloting. In 1949, he won the MVP award after posting a batting average of .342, with 16 homers, 124 RBI, 122 runs scored, and 37 stolen bases.
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