The Brooklyn Dodgers aren't going to change our way of life.

Rating: 8/10 (23 May 2013)

The Second World War over and the professional baseball players were coming back home to play but a new war was about to begin that at the time no one expected. The war to brake the color barrier in baseball that's been in effect for at least the last 50 years. And it was returning US Army veteran Let. Jackie Roosevelt Robinson, Chadwick Boseman, who was the person chosen by Brooklyn Dodger owner Branch "Rick-a-Dink" Rickey, Harrison Ford,to do it!
Rickey who although was a part, as a player manager and owner, of the segregated baseball's Major Leagues for some 40 years was deep down inside a true not phony liberal at heart and always wanted to tap the reservoir of fine black baseball players from the then Negro league and bring them into the majors. Now in late 1945 it now seemed the right time for Rickey to do it. And the person he chose was 26 year old Negro League's Kansas City Monarch infielder Jackie Robinson. As history was soon to prove Rickey couldn't have been more right in whom he choose.
Jackie given a chance to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers' top minor league club the Montreal Royals in 1946 tore up the league winning the batting title with a .344 average and it's MVP, Most Valuable Player, award. What was even far more of an accomplishment for Jackie is that he was able to withstand all the racial slurs as well as threats to him and his wife Rachal, Nicole Beharie, and family members to achieve that feat. At first not at all that sure to be on the 1947 Dodger roster Jackie did in fact make it, he ended up batting over .600 in spring training, an on baseballs opening day of that year April 15 Jackie stepped up to the plate against the Boston Barves and history was made: The color barrier in Baseball was not only broken that day but forever after.
The film "42" depicts the 1947 Brooklyn Dodger season with Jackie Robinson not only trying to win the National League Pennant for his team those "Loveable Bums" the Brooklyn Dogeres but also win over his teammates who, with many of them from the south, not all that eager to be on the same baseball field, much less team, together with him. As for the Dodgers' opponents it was the Philadelphia Phillies managed by the ex-Brooklyn Dodger infielder Ben Chapman, Alan Tudyk, who gave Jackie most of his troubles with his racial heckling and even at times tried to have Jackie criminally assault, in front of thousands witnesses or fans, him by having his teams pitchers throwing at Jackie's skull! That before the introduction of batting helmets in professional baseball.
It took far more courage on Jackie's part to keep his cool and not take matters into his own hands then batter those, who both mentally and physically abused him, over their heads with a baseball bat. Which in one case in the film he broke against the clubhouse wall.Jackie, who was named rookie of the year in 1947, did together with his team the Brooklyn Dodgers bring the National League pennant to Brooklyn in 1947 beating out the previous pennant winners the Saint Louis Cardinals. But far more then that Jackie proved Branch Rickey's experiment of bringing black and later Latino ballplayers into the Major leagues to be not only be a total success but the right thing to do as well.
P.S "42" the title of the movie was the uniform number that Jackie Robinson wore during his entire 10 seasons as a Brooklyn Dodger; He wore uniform #9 as a Montreal Royal in 1946. Since 1997 the 50th anniversary of Jackie breaking the color barrier in baseball uniform #42 has the distinction of being the only number retired from all of professional baseball.Almost but not quite as big a feat as Jackie stepping up to the plate on that sunny April afternoon in Brooklyn's Ebbets Field and changing the course of professional baseball history forever.