num_pages: 288
description: Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the YearTrue is a probing richly-detailed unique biography of Jackie Robinson one of baseball'sand America'smost significant figures.For players fans managers and executives Jackie Robinson remains baseballs singular figure the person who most profoundly extended and continues to extend the reach of the game. Beyond Ruth. Beyond Clemente. Beyond Aaron. Beyond the heroes of today. Now a half-century since Robinsons death letters come to his widow Rachel by the score. But Robinsons impact extended far beyond baseball: he opened the door for Black Americans to participate in other sports and was a national figure who spoke and wrote eloquently about inequality.True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson by Kostya Kennedy is an unconventional biography focusing on four transformative years in Robinson's athletic and public life: 1946 his first year playing in the essentially all-white minor leagues for the Montreal Royals; 1949 when he won the Most Valuable Player Award in his third season as a Brooklyn Dodger; 1956 his final season in major league baseball when he played valiantly despite his increasing health struggles; and 1972 the year of his untimely death. Through it all Robinson remained true to the effort and the mission true to his convictions and contradictions.Kennedy examines each of these years through details not reported in previous biographies bringing them to life in vivid prose and through interviews with fans and players who witnessed his impact as well as with Robinson's surviving family. These four crucial years offer a unique vision of Robinson as a player a father and husband and a civil rights heroa new window on a complex man tied to the 50th anniversary of his passing and the 75th anniversary of his professional baseball debut.
language: English
title: True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson
publisher: St. Martin's Press