Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier - Apr 15, 1947 - HISTORY.com On this day in history in 1947, Jackie Robinson, age 28, becomes the first African-American player in Major League Baseball when he steps onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to compete for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Lead Story Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier Share this: Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier Author Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1947, Jackie Robinson, age 28, becomes the first African-American player in Major League Baseball when he steps onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to compete for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson broke the color barrier in a sport that had been segregated for more than 50 years. Exactly 50 years later, on April 15, 1997, Robinson’s groundbreaking career was honored and his uniform number, 42, was retired from Major League Baseball by Commissioner Bud Selig in a ceremony attended by over 50,000 fans at New York City’s Shea Stadium. Robinson’s was the first-ever number retired by all teams in the league.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, to a family of sharecroppers. Growing up, he excelled at sports and attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where he was the first athlete to letter in four varsity sports: baseball, basketball, football and track. After financial difficulties forced Robinson to drop out of UCLA, he joined the army in 1942 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. After protesting instances of racial discrimination during his military service, Robinson was court-martialed in 1944. Ultimately, though, he was honorably discharged. After the army, Robinson played for a season in the Negro American League. In 1945, Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, recruited Robinson, who was known for his integrity and intelligence as well as his talent, to join one of the club’s farm teams. In 1947, Robinson was called up to the Majors and soon became a star infielder and outfielder for the Dodgers, as well as the National League’s Rookie of the Year.

In 1949, the right-hander was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player and league batting champ. Robinson played on the National League All-Star team from 1949 through 1954 and led the Dodgers to six National League pennants and one World Series, in 1955. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, his first year of eligibility. Despite his talent and success as a player, Robinson faced tremendous racial discrimination throughout his career, from baseball fans and some fellow players. Additionally, Jim Crow laws prevented Robinson from using the same hotels and restaurants as his teammates while playing in the South. After retiring from baseball in 1957, Robinson became a businessman and civil rights activist. He died October 24, 1972, at age 53, in Stamford, Connecticut. Related Videos Jackie Robinson | Society for American Baseball Research If you can help us improve this player's biography, contact us . Jackie Robinson This article was written by Rick Swaine Jackie Robinson is perhaps the most historically significant baseball player ever, ranking with Babe Ruth in terms of his impact on the national pastime.

Ruth changed the way baseball was played; Jackie Robinson changed the way Americans thought. When Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, more than sixty years of racial segregation in major-league baseball came to an end. He was the first acknowledged black player to perform in the Major Leagues in the twentieth century and went on to be the first to win a batting title, the first to win the Most Valuable Player award, and the first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He won major-league baseball's first official Rookie of the Year award and was the first baseball player, black or white, to be featured on a United States postage stamp. The raw statistics only scratch the surface in evaluating Jackie Robinson as a ballplayer. Because of institutionalized racism and World War II, he did not play his first big-league game until he was twenty-eight years old, and therefore his major-league career spanned only ten seasons. His lifetime batting average was a solid .311, but because of the brevity of his career, his cumulative statistics are relatively unimpressive by Hall of Fame standards.

But in what would be considered his prime years, ages twenty-eight to thirty-four, Robinson hit .319 and averaged more than 110 runs scored per season. He drove in an average of eighty-five runs, and his average of nearly fifteen home runs per season was outstanding for a middle infielder of that era. And he averaged 24 stolen bases a season for a power-laden team that didn't need him to run very often. Colorfully described as a tiger in the field and a lion at bat, the right-handed-hitting Robinson crowded the plate and dared opposing hurlers to dust him off—a challenge they frequently accepted. He was an excellent bunter, good at the sacrifice and always a threat to lay one down for a hit. Not known as a home-run hitter, he displayed line-drive power to all fields, had a good eye for the strike zone, and rarely struck out. For his entire big-league career, he drew 740 walks and struck out only 291 times—an extremely impressive ratio. Second base was Robinson's best position. In a 1987 "Player's Choice" survey, he was voted the greatest second baseman of his era despite having played there regularly for only five seasons.

Though not a smooth glove man in the classic sense, he was sure-handed and possessed good range and instincts. He made up for an average arm by standing his ground on double plays and getting rid of the ball quickly. Robinson also displayed his versatility by playing regularly at first base, at third base, and in left field when the needs of the team dictated it. It was running the bases, however, where Robinson's star shined brightest. He was a dynamo on the basepaths—fast, clever, daring, and rough. He was the most dangerous base runner since Ty Cobb, embarrassing and intimidating the opposition into beating themselves with mental and physical errors. Former teammate and big-league manager Bobby Bragan, who initially objected to Jackie's presence on the Dodgers, called him the best he ever saw at getting called safe after being caught in rundown situations. He created havoc by taking impossibly long leads, jockeying back and forth, and threatening to steal on every pitch. His mere presence on base was enough to upset the most steely-nerved veteran hurlers. Robinson revived the art of stealing home, successfully making it nineteen times in his career—tied with Frankie Frisch for the most since World War I.

At the age of thirty-five in 1954, he became the first National Leaguer to steal his way around the bases in twenty-six years, and a year later he became one of only twelve men to steal home in the World Series. Throughout his career, Jackie Robinson was a fearless competitor. As Leo Durocher, first his manager and later an archrival, so elegantly phrased it, "You want a guy that comes to play. But (Robinson) didn't just come to play. He came to beat you. He came to stuff the damn bat right up your ass."1 Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, a sleepy Southern town near the Florida border. Jackie was the youngest of five children, four boys and a girl, born to impoverished sharecroppers Jerry and Mallie Robinson. Jerry Robinson deserted the family six months after Jackie was born. Mallie Robinson, a strong, devoutly religious woman, moved the struggling family across the country by rail to Pasadena, California, in 1920 when Jackie was fourteen-months old.

She worked as a domestic to support her family; leftovers from the kitchens of families she worked for often constituted their daily diet. With the help of a welfare agency, the Robinson family purchased a home in a predominantly white Pasadena neighborhood, where neighbors immediately petitioned to get rid of the newcomers and even offered to buy them out. When those ploys failed the family was harassed for several years. The Robinson boys often had to fight to defend themselves, and young Jackie was involved in his share of scrapes with white youths and had some run-ins with authorities. Jackie's athletic talent became evident at an early age. But he wasn't the only gifted athlete in the family. His older brother Mack became a world-class track star, finishing second in the 200-yard dash to Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. But after Olympic stardom and college, the only job Mack Robinson could find was janitorial work for the City of Pasadena. It was a position he soon lost. As in most of the country at that time, Jim Crow rules prevailed in Pasadena. Black citizens were permitted to use the city's public swimming pool only one day a week.

When a judge ordered full access to the pool for black citizens, the city fathers responded by firing black employees, including Mack Robinson. After starring in baseball, football, basketball, and track at Muir Technical High School and Pasadena Junior College, Jackie declined many other offers to enroll at the University of California at Los Angeles, near his Pasadena home. Robinson gained national fame at UCLA in 1940 and 1941. He became the school's first four-letter man and was called the "Jim Thorpe of his race" for his multisport skills.2 Sharing rushing duties with Kenny Washington, who later became one of the first black men to play in the National Football League, Jackie averaged 11-plus yards per carry as a junior. Sports Weekly called him "the greatest ball carrier on the gridiron today."3 On the basketball court Jackie led the Pacific Coast Conference in scoring as a junior and as a senior.

Although he wasn't named to the first, second, or third all-conference teams, one coach called him "the best basketball player in the United States."4 Already the holder of the national junior college long-jump record, he captured the NCAA long-jump title and probably would have gone to the 1940 Olympics had they not been canceled by the war in Europe. In addition, he won swimming championships, reached the semifinals of the national Negro tennis tournament, and was the UCLA Bruins' regular shortstop. Baseball was probably Robinson's weakest sport at the university, although he'd been voted the most valuable player in Southern California junior college baseball. Financial problems at home forced Robinson to drop out of college in his senior year a few credits short of graduation. He took a job as an athletic coach for the National Youth Administration and played semipro football for the Los Angeles Bulldogs. In the fall of 1941, he signed on to play professional football with the Honolulu Bears. Already a gate attraction and a hero in the black community, he got top billing as "the sensational all-American halfback." Upon returning home from Hawaii shortly after Pearl Harbor, Robinson was drafted into the Army in 1942.

Stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, he was originally denied entry into Officer Candidate School despite his college background. Intervention by a fellow soldier, boxing great Joe Louis, who was also stationed at the base, managed to get the decision reversed. Yet, Jackie was not allowed to play on the segregated camp baseball team, which infuriated him so much that he refused to play on the football team even when superior officers pressured him to do so. After OCS, Robinson was appointed morale officer for the black troops at Fort Riley and won concessions for them that predictably angered a few higher-ups in command. Reassigned to Ford Hood, Texas, Jackie continued to be controversial. On July 6, 1944 he defied a white bus driver's orders to move to the back of the bus "where the coloreds belonged." When the base provost marshal and military police supported the driver, Robinson objected vehemently and was subject to court-martial. Facing a dishonorable discharge, Jackie prevailed at the hearing. But the Army had had enough of the controversial young black lieutenant and quickly mustered him out with an honorable discharge.

It's ironic that Jackie Robinson's difficulties with white authority in the military led directly to his rise to the top of Branch Rickey's list of candidates to break baseball's color barrier. Rickey, the orchestrator of Organized Baseball's desegregation, was the president, general manager, and a part-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey's scouts had been surreptitiously scouring the Negro Leagues for major-league talent for some time before tapping Robinson to break the unwritten, and diligently enforced, gentlemen's agreement that banned blacks from participating in Organized Baseball. Rickey was looking for a black pioneer who—in addition to possessing the requisite talent—was educated, sober, and accustomed to competing with and against white athletes. Robinson met those conditions. He grew up in a racially mixed environment, attended school with white classmates, and matriculated at UCLA. He'd been an officer in the military. He was well-spoken, personable, and comfortable in front of crowds. He had experienced the glare of the spotlight and reveled in it. Also extremely important to the pious Rickey was the fact that Robinson was a nonsmoker and nondrinker.

Nor was he a womanizer; he was planning to marry his college sweetheart, Rachel Annetta Isum. In addition, Jackie was a Methodist, as was Rickey, and he coincidentally shared a birthday with Branch Rickey Jr. Jackie and Rachel were married in Los Angeles on February 10, 1946. Certainly there were other black ballplayers who possessed the qualifications Rickey sought. Monte Irvin and Larry Doby were two obvious candidates. But when Rickey sent his scouts to scour the nation for the best black player, Irvin and Doby were overseas, still in the armed forces. Robinson, though he was far from being considered the best player in Negro baseball, was available due to the early termination of his own military obligation. After his discharge, Robinson had joined the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League for the 1945 season. The Monarchs, one of the most successful franchises in the Negro Leagues, had been ravaged by the manpower demands of the war, but their roster still included veteran stars Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, Hilton Smith, and Satchel Paige.

Flashy-fielding veteran Jesse Williams moved over to second base to make room for Jackie at shortstop. Though Robinson hit well over .300 and showed speed and power as a rookie, he disliked the nomadic and often boisterous barnstorming life and was incensed by the Jim Crow laws that the Monarchs often encountered on the road. On October 23, 1945, it was announced to the world that Robinson had signed a contract to play baseball for the Montreal Royals of the International League, the top minor-league team in the Dodgers organization. Robinson had actually signed a few months earlier. In that now-legendary meeting, Rickey extracted a promise that Jackie would hold his sharp tongue and quick fists in exchange for the opportunity to break Organized Baseball's color barrier. The integration movement in general had picked up steam during World War II as black American soldiers fought and died beside whites. In fact, the decade leading up to Robinson's signing had been marked by significant progress in efforts to gain equal rights for minorities in all facets of life.

Yet the moguls running Major League Baseball stubbornly resisted efforts to integrate the sport, refusing to consider black players even as the talent pool was depleted by the war and one-armed and one-legged players could be found among the old-timers, teenagers, and 4-Fs gracing big-league rosters. But in November 1944, longtime Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was generally thought to be against integration, died of a heart attack. Landis's passing was the break Branch Rickey needed to begin implementing his plan to integrate the Dodgers. When Robinson's signing was announced, the news was heralded in black newspapers and generally received positive reviews in national publications despite objections and attacks from predictable quarters. But Rickey and the Dodgers faced near-unanimous disapproval from the Organized Baseball establishment. After the initial furor died down, a campaign to downplay Robinson's talent and the import of the event began. The New York Daily News rated Robinson's chances of making the grade as 1,000 to 1.

An editorial in The Sporting News deemed Robinson a player of Class C ability and predicted, "The waters of competition in the International League will flood far over his head."5 Star pitcher Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians said that Robinson had "football shoulders and couldn't hit an inside pitch to save his neck."6 Muscularly built with a thick neck and wide shoulders, Robinson did look more like a halfback than an infielder. He suffered from rickets as a child and walked with a pigeon-toed gait, but on the diamond he moved with amazing quickness. He stood five feet eleven and weighed 190 to 195 pounds in his prime, although he thickened noticeably in the latter stages of his career. In the decades prior to Robinson's entry into Organized Baseball, there were several major leaguers whose skin tone caused doubts about their racial background. There could be no doubt about ebony-skinned Jackie Robinson. Columnist John Crosby called him "the blackest black man, as well as one of the handsomest, I ever saw."7 Plagued by a sore arm during the Royals' 1946 spring training camp, Jackie performed poorly, generating numerous "I told you so" claims.

But when Montreal opened the season on April 18, 1946, against the Jersey City Giants at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, Robinson was playing second base and hitting second in the batting order. The first twentieth-century appearance by an acknowledged black player in Organized Baseball was a preview of things to come. In front of a packed house, Jackie lashed out four hits and scored four times to lead Montreal to a 14–1 victory. After grounding out in his first at-bat, he blasted a three-run homer over the left-field wall in the third inning. In the fifth inning he bunted for a hit, stole second, and made a daring play to take third on a grounder to the third baseman. From third base he danced far off the bag, darting back and forth and bluffing a steal until the harried pitcher balked him home. Two innings later, he singled sharply to right field and stole second base again before scoring on a triple. In the eighth Jackie again bunted safely. He once again took an extra base, advancing from first to third on an infield single, and again scored by provoking a balk by the Jersey City hurler.

The next day, the headline in the Pittsburgh Courier read: "Jackie Stole the Show."8 According to Joe Bostic of New York City's Amsterdam News, "He did everything but help the ushers seat the crowd."9 Baseball's defense for keeping the game segregated hinged primarily on two points. The first was the contention that there just weren't any black players good enough to merit a shot at the majors at the time. The second centered on financial concerns—the fear that white fans wouldn't pay to watch Negro players and didn't want to sit in the stands beside black fans. There was also much feigned concern about the financial impact on the established Negro Leagues. But Jackie Robinson's first year in Organized Baseball emphatically dispelled those tired excuses. He was a sensation on the field, the Royals dominated the International League, and the turnstiles hummed. Thanks to Jackie, the Royals established a new attendance record in Montreal, and his impact on the road was even greater, as attendance at Royals games in other International League cities almost tripled over the previous year. More than a million people came to watch Robinson and the Royals perform that year, an amazing figure for the minor leagues at the time.

For the season Robinson led the International League with a .349 batting average and scored 113 runs in 124 games to pace the circuit in that department as well. His forty stolen bases were the second highest total in the league and he led the league's second basemen in fielding. Jackie led the Royals to the International League pennant, by a nineteen and a half game margin, and to victory in the Little World Series. After the Series, ecstatic fans wanted to hoist Jackie on their shoulders in celebration, but Jackie had a plane to catch. They chased him for three blocks, prompting a journalist to observe, "It was probably the only day in history that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of hate on its mind."10 In preparation for the 1947 campaign the Brooklyn Dodgers and their top farm clubs set up spring training camp in Havana, Cuba. Based on his performance at Montreal it seemed a foregone conclusion that Robinson would get a chance with the parent team, but he was still listed on the Royals' roster when the workouts started. Rickey chose Havana to avoid the racial attitudes of the spring training sites in the South.

His plan was to allow the Dodgers' veterans to gradually get used to having Jackie around and to see for themselves what an asset he would be to their pennant prospects. Three other black players, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Roy Partlow, were also on hand. Rickey scheduled a seven-game exhibition series between the Dodgers and the Royals to showcase Robinson's skills, and Jackie dominated the contests with a .625 batting average. One problem that Rickey and Robinson had to overcome was that the Dodgers had Eddie Stanky playing second base. Therefore it was determined that Robinson would make his major-league debut at first base, a strange position for a man who had always been involved in the action in the middle of the diamond. During training camp, a crisis arose when a core of Southerners on the team began to circulate a petition against Robinson. The dissenters were reportedly led by outfielder Dixie Walker, who initially dismissed the news of Robinson's signing with the comment, "As long as he isn't with the Dodgers, I'm not worried."11 Rickey and manager Leo Durocher promptly quashed the mini-rebellion.

Shortly thereafter, Durocher, an avid Robinson supporter, received a one-year suspension from the commissioner's office for associating with gamblers and other “unsavory” characters. Rickey deftly took advantage of the cover provided by the resulting clamor to quietly transfer Robinson to the Brooklyn roster. Contrary to dire predictions, Robinson's first season in the Major Leagues went fairly smoothly as the rookie steadfastly stuck by his promise to Rickey to turn the other cheek. Tension surrounding his first game was defused by a series of preseason exhibition contests against the Yankees in New York, and Jackie's Opening Day debut against the Braves was actually somewhat anticlimactic. He received death threats when the club visited Cincinnati, but, in an oft-told but undocumented story, Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese, a native son of Kentucky, draped an arm over the shoulders of the nervous rookie infielder in a courageous public show of support. Later, a threatened strike by the St. Louis Cardinals was short-circuited by a show of force by league president Ford Frick. Jackie's worst experience came at the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Led by manager Ben Chapman, the Phils baited Robinson so cruelly that he later admitted, "It brought me nearer to cracking up than I had ever been."12 But the Chapman episode actually served to strengthen support for Robinson and even converted some of his detractors. Stanky, who originally had opposed playing with Robinson, challenged the Phillies to pick on someone who could fight back. Public reaction against Chapman was so severe that he had to ask Robinson to pose for a photo with him to save his job. Jackie graciously complied. For his rookie campaign, Robinson hit .297, led the league with twenty-nine stolen bases, and finished second in the National League with 125 runs scored. In 151 games he lashed out 175 hits, including 12 home runs. Usually hitting second in the batting order, he walked seventy-four times and led the league in sacrifice hits. On defense, his sixteen errors at first base were the second highest total in the league, but his fielding was generally considered adequate. With Robinson the biggest addition to the lineup, the Dodgers captured the National League pennant. In the World Series, Jackie and his teammates lost to the powerful Yankees in a thrilling seven-game classic.

The 1947 season was the first in which the full membership of the Baseball Writers Association of America selected a Rookie of the Year, and Robinson beat out twenty-one-game-winner Larry Jansen of the New York Giants for the award. In the National League Most Valuable Player voting, he finished fifth. At season's end, Dixie Walker admitted that "(Robinson) is everything Branch Rickey said he was when he came up from Montreal."13 The integration of major-league baseball proceeded without critical incident. Though Robinson was scorned by some of his teammates, was harassed by enemy bench jockeys, and received a steady diet of fastballs close to his head; he faithfully abided by his promise to Rickey to turn the other cheek. Even when veteran outfielder Enos "Country" Slaughter of the Cardinals appeared to deliberately try to maim him with his spikes in an August 20 game at Ebbets Field, Jackie didn't retaliate. In fact, baseball's "Great Experiment" was a huge success. Despite the concerns of the owners, integration proved to be a financial windfall for Major League Baseball. Robinson and the Dodgers eclipsed the home attendance record they had set the previous year.

They also broke single-game attendance records in every National League ballpark they played in during the 1947 season, with the exception of Cincinnati's Crosley Field, where the attendance record for the first major-league night game held up. Near the end of the season, Jackie was feted by fans with a day in his honor. At year's end, he finished runner-up to crooner Bing Crosby in a national popularity poll. Before the 1948 season, Eddie Stanky was swapped to the Boston Braves to open up the Dodgers' second-base slot for Robinson. Jackie reported to camp out of shape and got off to a poor start. He was shifted back to first base for thirty games while utilityman Eddie Miksis manned second for the Dodgers. Eventually, Gil Hodges emerged as the club's regular first baseman, and Robinson returned to second. He finished strong at the plate, ending the year with a .296 batting mark and leading the league's regular second basemen in fielding percentage. Spending more time in the power spots in the batting order, he drove in 85 runs, tops on the disappointing third-place squad.

In 1949, Robinson enjoyed the best season of his career, establishing career highs in games played, hits, batting average, slugging, runs batted in, and stolen bases as the Dodgers captured the National League pennant by a single game. He won the batting title with a .342 mark and his major-league-leading thirty-seven steals were the highest total in the National League in nineteen years. He finished second in the league in runs batted in (124), hits (203), and on-base percentage (.432), and third in slugging average (.528), runs scored (122), doubles (38), and triples (12). His efforts were rewarded with his selection as the National League Most Valuable Player. Robinson enjoyed two more superb seasons in 1950 and 1951, batting .328 and .338 and finishing second and third respectively in the batting race. Both years the Dodgers lost the pennant on the last day of the season, although Jackie's heroics kept them in the hunt until the bitter end.

In 1951, his spectacular play forced the playoff with the Giants that would be decided by Bobby Thomson's momentous home run. In the final regular-season contest against the Phillies, Robinson prevented the winning run from scoring in the ninth inning with a sensational diving catch, and blasted a game-winning homer in the fourteenth inning. The Dodgers returned to the top of the National League standings in 1952 as Robinson hit .308, scored 104 runs, stole twenty-four bases, and belted nineteen homers. During the 1953 season, Jackie Robinson may have had his finest moment. He had worked hard to develop into a fine defensive second baseman. In 1951 he led National League second sackers in fielding and double plays, and had repeated as the double-play leader in 1952. But the Dodgers had a young black second baseman in their system, Jim Gilliam, who was ready for the big time. Jackie graciously agreed to move to another position to make room for the rookie.

The thirty-four-year-old veteran played seventy-six games in the outfield, and appeared fourty-four times at third base, nine times at second, and six times at first base during the 1953 campaign. He even filled in at shortstop in one game, the only time he played his original position as a major-leaguer. He hit .329, drove in ninety-five runs, and scored 109 times. Gilliam expertly filled the Dodgers' leadoff spot and was selected the National League Rookie of the Year. The 1954 campaign was Robinson's last good season. Again shuttling between left field and third base, he batted .311, but age and accumulated injuries were starting to catch up with him. He stole only seven bases and missed thirty games. In 1955, the year the Brooklyn Dodgers captured their first world championship, Robinson had the worst season statistically of his outstanding career. Sharing third base with light-hitting Don Hoak, he appeared in the field in fewer than 100 games and batted only .256.

In the Dodgers' epic World Series victory, Robinson was at third base for six of the seven contests and though he hit poorly, he scored five times, including his shocking Game One steal of home. Jackie rallied to hit .275 in 1956, his final season, while sharing third base with newly acquired Randy Jackson and occasionally filling in at second. Though a mere shadow of his former self, the thirty-seven-year-old veteran was still a force at the plate and on the basepaths. In the Dodgers' seven-game World Series loss to the Yankees, Jackie drew five walks, scored five times, and blasted a home run. He struck out in his last professional at-bat, but fittingly he went down fighting. Yankees catcher Yogi Berra had to throw him out at first base after dropping the third strike. Jackie's last years with the Dodgers had not been harmonious. He disliked both manager Walt Alston and owner Walter O'Malley, whose power play forced Branch Rickey out of the Brooklyn front office in 1950. Though the Dodgers had captured the 1956 pennant, the once dominating nucleus was growing old.

Robinson himself was no longer a top performer on the field and had become increasingly outspoken on racial issues both inside and outside of baseball. The Dodgers brass was hoping he'd step down gracefully, but Jackie refused to announce his retirement. Finally the club forced his hand by swapping him to the New York Giants on December 13, 1956, for journeyman hurler Dick Littlefield and $30,000 in cash. On January 22, 1957 Robinson's retirement from baseball was announced in an exclusive article in Look magazine, in which he took a few parting shots at the remaining segregated teams in the majors. Jackie had actually decided to retire before he was dealt to the Giants, but couldn't say anything earlier because of his deal with Look. The Giants reportedly offered him $60,000 to stay, and the prospect of playing alongside Willie Mays definitely had some appeal. But when Brooklyn general manager Buzzy Bavasi publicly implied that Robinson was just trying to use the magazine article to get a better contract, he decided to prove the Dodgers wrong and declined the Giants' offer. Though Robinson's career as a major-league baseball player was over, he wasn't about to retire from the spotlight.

He joined the Chock full o'Nuts coffee company as a vice president and served as the chairman of the Board of Freedom National Bank, founded to provide loans and banking services for minority members who were largely being ignored by establishment banks. He authored several autobiographical works, wrote a weekly newspaper column, and hosted a radio show. Earlier he even tried his hand at acting, starring in the movie The Jackie Robinson Story. Robinson remained an unofficial spokesman for African-Americans and a relentless crusader for civil rights. He became embroiled in politics. Though a strong supporter of Martin Luther King and the NAACP, he endorsed Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy for president in 1960 because he felt Kennedy had not made it "his business to know colored people." Reportedly it was an action that he later came to regret. In 1962 Robinson was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was inducted along with former Cleveland pitching great Bob Feller, who had once predicted that Jackie's "football shoulders" would keep him from hitting big-league pitching. A few years after his retirement from baseball, Robinson acknowledged that he suffered from diabetes.

His health declined under the ravages of the disease and at the age of fifty-three he suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He died on October 24, 1972, only months after his number 42 was officially retired by the Dodgers. Although he always denied it, there's evidence that Robinson may have been the first insulin-dependent diabetic to play major-league baseball, despite his claim that it hadn't been diagnosed while he was an active player. But former tennis great Bill Talbert, a close friend of Robinson's and the first famous athlete known to perform with diabetes, believed that Jackie became insulin-dependent in midcareer. "I think Jackie felt it was a weakness. With all the publicity about blacks in baseball, he didn't want another thing to talk about," Talbert said after Robinson's death.14 More than two thousand people packed Riverside Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to hear the young Rev. Jesse Jackson deliver Jackie Robinson's eulogy.

Tens of thousands lined the streets of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant to watch the passage of his mile-long funeral procession.Robinson is buried in Cyprus Hill Cemetery in Brooklyn, along with his mother-in-law Zellee Isum and his son Jack Roosevelt, Jr. He was survived by his wife Rachel, son David and daughter Sharon. Shortly after his death Robinson's ordeals and accomplishments were the subject of a Broadway musical, The First. In 1987, on the 40th anniversary of his breaking of color barrier, the Rookie of the Year Award was redesignated as the Jackie Robinson Award in honor of its first recipient. On the fiftieth anniversary of his debut, his number 42 was permanently retired by all major-league teams, although current major leaguers already wearing the number were allowed to keep it for the remainder of their careers. Among the adjectives often used to describe Robinson's personal makeup are fearless, courageous, dynamic, defiant, and proud. But the most frequently used descriptor is probably aggressive. It's a word that defines his public life as a tireless campaigner against discrimination as well as his history making athletic career.

Jackie, who was not known for self-deprecation, made the greatest understatement of his life in 1945 at the announcement of his signing. "Maybe I'm doing something for my race," he ventured.15 Former teammate Joe Black, speaking for generations of black ballplayers, later said, "When I look at my house. I say 'Thank God for Jackie Robinson.’”16 Note: This biography is an adaptation from The Black Stars Who Made Baseball Whole: The Jackie Robinson Generation in the Major Leagues by Rick Swaine (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2006). PHOTOS: Jackie Robinson breaks Major League Baseball color barrier - Press Telegram Media Center Share Search FILE - In this April 15, 1947 file photo, from left, Brooklyn Dodgers baseball players John Jorgensen, Pee Wee Reese, Ed Stanky and Jackie Robinson pose at Ebbets Field in New York. On this day, Robinson became the first African-American player in Major League Baseball when he stepped onto Ebbets Field to compete for the Brooklyn Dodgers. (AP Photo) FILE - Brooklyn Dodgers baseball player Jackie Robinson poses in 1952.

(AP Photo/File) Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers' first baseman, posed action at Ebbets Field in 1947. (AP Photo) Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers' first baseman, is shown at Ebbets Field in 1947. (AP Photo) Jackie Robinson entering the Dodgers Club House in his minor league uniform. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Brooklyn Dodgers' Jackie Robinson, first black to ever be admitted into the Major Leagues, is at first base at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn in 1947. (AP Photo) Jackie Robinson (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Jackie Robinson (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Members of the National League Pennant bound Brooklyn Dodgers are pictured at Ebbets Field, Sept. 20, 1947. Left to right front are Stan Strull, batboy and Norman Berman, ballboy. First row are Pete Reiser, Stan Rojek, Al Gionfriddo, Eddie Stanky, Vic Lombardi, coach Jake Pitler, manager Burt Shotton, coach Clyde Sukeforth, unidentified coach, Cookie Lavagetto, Hank Behrman, Peewee Reese.

Second row: Eddie Miksis, Johnny Jorgensen, Dan Bankhead, Gene Hermanski, Gil Hodges, Hal Gregg, Carl Furillo, Rex Barney, Harry Taylor, Ralph Branca, Harold Parrott. Third row: trainer Harold Wendler, property man Dan Comerford, Jackie Robinson, Hugh Casey, Joe Hatten, Dixie Walker, Clyde King, Bobby Bragan, Bruce Edwards, Arky Vaughan, assisstant property man John Griffin. (AP Photo/Harry Harris) Jackie Robinson with Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Jackie Robinson. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Jackie Robinson. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Jackie Robinson. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Jackie Robinson (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Undated photo of US baseball star Jackie Robinson as he signs a then-record contract to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson, who endured insults and death threats to integrate United States sports, was honored 15 April by the permanent retirement of his jersey number throughout Major League baseball. The contract, the highest salary in Dodger history up to then, was for US $35, 000 a year.

(STR/AFP/Getty Images) FILE - In this April 15, 1947 file photo, from left, Brooklyn Dodgers baseball players John Jorgensen, Pee Wee Reese, Ed Stanky and Jackie Robinson pose at Ebbets Field in New York. (AP Photo, File) 1987: Rachel Robinson, the widow of major-league baseball's first black player, Jackie Robinson, addresses the crowd at Dodger Stadium. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Jackie Robinson, shown stealing home against the Chicago Cubs in 1952. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Jackie Robinson swings and hits during a scene in the film of his career, Feb. 20, 1950, in Anaheim, California. (AP Photo/Frank Filan) Jackie Robinson is congratulated by Stan Musial. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) A statue of Pee Wee Reese (L) and Jackie Robinson, stands after being cleaned of racist graffiti on August 9, 2013 in the Coney Island neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

Robinson broke the color barrier for Major League Baseball in 1947 when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and Reese was a teammate and supporter. The statue was unveiled in 2005. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images) Jackie Robinson was elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame in 1962. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Jackie Robinson with wife, Rachel. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey as Robinson signed professional contract with Dodger organization in 1946. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) FILE - In this June 30, 1971 file photo, Jackie Robinson poses at his home in Stamford, Conn. (AP Photo/File) Jackie Robinson shown April 11, 1947 in Montreal uniform on left and Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. (AP Photo) Brooklyn Dodgers new first base coach George Sisler, center, talks with four Dodgers first basemen, from left, Howie Schultz, Ed Stevens, Jackie Robinson, and Tom Brown, at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 23, 1947. Sisler is the former St. Louis Browns first baseman.

(AP Photo) FILE - In a May 9, 1947 file photo, Jackie Robinson, left, Brooklyn Dodgers' first baseman, looks over the bat Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman uses during practice, as he prepared to play his first Philadelphia game for the Dodgers. The Philadelphia City Council unanimously passed a resolution Thursday, March 31, 2016, naming April 15, 2016 as a day to honor Robinson's achievements and to apologize for the racism he faced while visiting Philadelphia in 1947. Robinson was refused service by a local hotel and then taunted by Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman, who, along with players, mercilessly hurled racial slurs at Robinson each time he came to bat. (AP Photo, File) The Dodgers' Jackie Robinson drops bat and takes off for first after bunting safely in the fifth inning of the game with the Giants at Ebbets Field, July 3, 1947 in New York. (AP Photo) Jackie Robinson (left), Brooklyn Dodgers baseman who was named "Rookie of the Year" by Sporting News, a baseball publication, chats at Sportsmans Park in St. Louis, Sept.

12, 1947 with J.G. Taylor Spink (center), editor of Sporting News, and Dodgers Manager Burt Shotton just before the St. Louis Cardinals-Dodgers game, Sept. 13, 1947. (AP Photo) Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers star since breaking into Major League baseball in 1947, is shown with his wife, Rachel, and their four-year-old son, Jackie Jr., in their home in Stamford, Conn., Dec. 13, 1956. (AP Photo/John Lindsay) Jackie Robinson, who retired after a 10-year career, waves as he leaves the clubhouse after collecting his belongings at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Jan. 7, 1957. Robinson, 38, became the first black baseball player in the modern major leagues when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. (AP Photo/Jacob Harris) A statue of Pee Wee Reese (L) and Jackie Robinson, stands after being cleaned of racist graffiti on August 9, 2013 in the Coney Island neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

Robinson broke the color barrier for Major League Baseball in 1947 when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and Reese was a teammate and supporter. The statue was unveiled in 2005. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images) Close-up of the Jackie Robinson award at the 35th Anniversary of the Jackie Robinson Foundation at the Waldorf Astoria hotel on March 3, 2008 in New York City. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for the Jackie Robinson Foundation) Flanked by U.S. President George W. Bush (L) and Speaker of the House Dennis Haster (R-IL) (R), Rachel Robinson (C), widow of baseball player Jackie Robinson receives the Congressional Gold Medal that is presented to her husband during a ceremony March 2, 2005 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Jackie Robinson was recognized for his legendary baseball career, his lifetime of breaking down barriers and his unending fight for justice. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) First Lady Michelle Obama speaks at the start of a student workshop with the cast and crew of the film "42" on April 2, 2013 in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

From left: actor Harrison Ford, who plays Major League Baseball executive Branch Rickey and Rachel Robinson, widow of Jackie Robinson. The movie is the life story of US baseball player Jackie Robinson. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) First Lady Michelle Obama, right, introduces a panel of the cast and crew of the movie "42", with, from left, writer and director Brian Helgeland, actor Harrison Ford, actor Chadwick Boseman, and Rachel Robinson, 90, widow of baseball great Jackie Robinson at the start of a panel workshop for high school and college students from across the country, Tuesday, April 2, 2013, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Actor Harrison Ford listens at left as Rachel Robinson, 90, widow of baseball great Jackie Robinson talks about her late husband during a workshop for high school and college students based on the movie, "42," Tuesday, April 2, 2013, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Rachel Robinson (in white), the widow of baseball legend Jackie Robinson, and her family attend the Los Angeles Premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' and Legendary Pictures' '42' at TCL Chinese Theatre on April 9, 2013 in Hollywood, California. (JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images) Widow of baseball player Jackie Robinson, Rachel Robinson attends the after party for the Los Angeles premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' and Legendary Pictures' "42" on April 9, 2013 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) Rachel Robinson (in white), the widow of baseball legend Jackie Robinson, and her family attend the Los Angeles Premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' and Legendary Pictures' '42' at TCL Chinese Theatre on April 9, 2013 in Hollywood, California. (JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images) (L-R) Actor Chadwick Boseman, Jackie Robinson's widow Rachel Robinson and producer Thomas Tull pose at the after party for the premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' and Legendary Pictures' "42" at the Chinese Theatre on April 9, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.

(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) The Jackie Robinson Hall of Fame plaque is shown at the premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' and Legendary Pictures' "42" at the Chinese Theatre on April 9, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) Rachel Robinson, widow of the late baseball great Jackie Robinson, speaks during the "Salute to Jackie Robinson Night" at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles Saturday, April 5, 1997. The salute paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of Robinson's historic debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, which broke major league baseball's color barrier. Seated behind Rachel are Robinson's former teammate Don Newcombe, left, and Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley. (AP Photo/Steve Grason) This film image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson in a scene from "42." Kansas City's Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is hosting an advance screening of an upcoming movie about Jackie Robinson, who broke major league baseball's color barrier.

Thomas Butch of the financial firm Waddell and Reed announced Wednesday, March 20, 2013, that actors Harrison Ford and Andre Holland will be among those appearing at an April 11 screening of "42." The film chronicles Robinson's rise from the Negro Leagues' Kansas City Monarchs in 1945 to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, when he won the inaugural Rookie of the Year award. The film opens nationwide on April 12. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, D. Stevens) This film image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson, right, and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey in a scene from "42." (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, D. Stevens) Chadwick Boseman, left, who plays Jackie Robinson in "42," poses with fellow cast member Harrison Ford at the Los Angeles premiere of "42" at the TCL Chinese Theater on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Los Angeles.

(Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) Rachel Robinson, widow of the late baseball legend Jackie Robinson, poses at the Los Angeles premiere of the film at the TCL Chinese Theater on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) Chadwick Boseman, left, who plays baseball legend Jackie Robinson in "42," poses with fellow cast member Harrison Ford and his wife Calista Flockhart at the Los Angeles premiere of the film at the TCL Chinese Theater on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) Chadwick Boseman, who plays baseball legend Jackie Robinson in "42," poses at the Los Angeles premiere of the film at the TCL Chinese Theater on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) This publicity film image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Chadwick Boseman, right, as Jackie Robinson in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ drama “42,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (AP Photo/Warner Bros.

Pictures) Baseball legend Jackie Robinson's widow Rachel Robinson poses with family members at the Los Angeles premiere of "42" at the TCL Chinese Theater on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) This publicity film image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Chadwick Boseman, left, as Jackie Robinson and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ drama “42,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, D. Stevens) Dodger players all wear #42 on their jerseys in honor of Jackie Robinson at Dodger Stadium against the San Diego Padres, Sunday April 15, 2007. (Michael Owen Baker/Los Angeles Daily News) Dodger players all wear #42 on their jerseys in honor of Jackie Robinson while Jackie's widow, Rachel Robinson, speaks to the crowd and is shown on the jumbotron at Dodger Stadium against the San Diego Padres, Sunday April 15, 2007.

(Michael Owen Baker/Los Angeles Daily News) Baseball commissioner Bud Selig gives Rachel Robinson the Commissioner's Historic Achievement Award at Dodger Stadium before the game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday April 15, 2007. (Michael Owen Baker/Los Angeles Daily News) The Dodgers' Wilson Valdez, center, congratulates teammates after beating the San Diego Padres 9-3 at Dodger Stadium during Jackie Robinson Day, Sunday April 15, 2007. (Michael Owen Baker/Los Angeles Daily News) After hitting a homer in the bottom of fifth inning, Dodgers' Jeff Kent, right, high-fives his teammates in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers wore the number 42 to honor Jackie Robinson. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo) BOSTON - APRIL 16: The Tampa Bay Rays gather on the pitchers mound in the fourth inning against the Boston Red Sox on April 16, 2010 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. The Tampa Bay Rays wore the number 42 to honor Jackie Robinson.

(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) Los Angeles Dodgers' Dee Gordon reacts after a game winning single with bases loaded as Juan Rivera scores to beat the San Diego Padres 5-4 in the ninth inning of a baseball game in Los Angeles on Sunday, April 15, 2012. Jackie Robinson's Nephew William Robinson, left, cheers while wearing the number "42" jersey. The Dodgers wore the number 42 to honor Jackie Robinson. (Keith Birmingham/Pasadena Star-News) Ike Davis (L) of the New York Mets is congratulated by teammate David Wright after Davis hit a two run-hommer against the Philadelphia Phillies in a MLB baseball game on April 15, 2012 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To commemorate Jackie Robinson Day, all players and coaches will be wearing #42. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images) The Toronto Blue Jays stand for the National Anthem before action against the Baltimore Orioles during MLB action at the Rogers Centre April 15, 2012 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Both teams wore the number 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson Day.

(Photo by Abelimages/Getty Images) Hanley Ramirez of the Miami Marlins celebrates hitting a bases loaded walk off single in the 11th inning during a game against the Houston Astros at Marlins Park on April 15, 2012 in Miami, Florida. Both teams wore the number 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson Day. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) Ryan Ludwick walks off the field with teammates Zack Cozart, Scott Rolen, and Jay Bruce after hitting a grand slam against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on April 15, 2012 in Washington, DC. In honor of Jackie Robinson Day, all players across Major League Baseball wore number 42. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images) Aramis Ramirez of the Milwaukee Brewers is congratulated by teammates after scoring a second inning run against the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field on April 15, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia. All uniformed team members are wearing jersey number 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson Day.

(Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images) This April 7, 2013 photo shows a plaque on a house in the Brooklyn borough of New York, where baseball great Jackie Robinson once lived. The sign says: “The first African-American major league baseball player lived here from 1947 to 1949.” A new movie, “42,” tells Robinson’s inspiring story as the man who integrated Major League Baseball. The house at 5224 Tilden Ave. in East Flatbush is one of a number of places in Brooklyn connected to Robinson. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz) This April 9, 2013 photo shows Jackie Robinson’s gravesite, where fans still leave tributes to the man who integrated Major League Baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz) ‹ Read More in American History Magazine Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!! By mid-November the criticism became so hostile that Rickey’s own family pleaded with him to abandon his crusade for fear that it would destroy his health.

The Dodger president refused, speaking only of the excitement and competitive advantage that black players would bring to Brooklyn baseball, while downplaying the moral significance he attached to integration. “The greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of the game is the black race,” he contended. “The Negroes will make us winners for years to come and for that I will happily bear being called a ‘bleeding heart’ and a ‘do-gooder’ and all that humanitarian rot.” Robinson’s first test came during the 1946 preseason, even before he debuted with the Montreal Royals. Rickey named Mississippian Clay Hopper, who had worked for him since 1929, to manage the Royals. There were reports, probably true, that Hopper begged Rickey to reconsider giving him this assignment. But Rickey’s careful handling of Robinson’s jump to the big leagues would seem to suggest that he believed that having a Southerner at the helm of the Montreal club would head off some dissension among the players and that he trusted Hopper to handle any situation that might arise. Throughout the ’46 season, Robinson endured racist remarks from fans and opposing players and humiliating treatment in the South.

By season’s end, the constant pressure and abuse had taken its toll—his hair began to gray, he suffered with chronic stomach trouble, and some thought he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Finding himself unable to eat or sleep, he went to a doctor, who concluded he was suffering from stress. “You’re not having a nervous breakdown,” the physician told him. “You’re under a lot of stress. Stay home and don’t read any newspapers, and don’t go to the ballpark for a week.” Jackie, his wife Rachel remembered, stayed home for one day. The problem, she said, “came from his not being able to fight back.” It was, as Rickey had warned him, “the cross that you must bear.” Despite the tension and distractions, Robinson managed to hit for an impressive .349 average and led the Montreal Royals to victory over the Louisville Colonels in the Little World Series. After the final game in that championship series, grateful Royals fans hoisted Robinson onto their shoulders and carried him to the locker room. Hopper shook his shortstop’s hand and said: “You’re a real ballplayer and a gentleman. It’s been wonderful having you on the team.” Robinson had made his first convert.

Because Robinson’s success with Montreal had been so impressive, Rickey assumed that all the Dodgers would demand is promotion to the majors for the 1947 season. “After all,” he reasoned, “Robinson could mean a pennant, and ball players are not averse to cashing World Series checks.” To promote and protect his young black star, Rickey made some additional moves. First, in order to avoid Jim Crow restrictions, he held spring training in Havana, Cuba, instead of Florida. Next, he moved Robinson, an experienced shortstop and second baseman, to first base, where he would be spared physical contact with opposing players who might try to injure him deliberately. Finally, Rickey scheduled a seven-game series between the Dodgers and the Royals in order to showcase Robinson’s talent. “I want you to be a whirling demon against the Dodgers in this series,” Rickey told Robinson. “You have to be so good that the Dodger players themselves are going to want you on their club….I want you to hit that ball. I want you to get on base and run wild. Steal their pants off. Be the most conspicuous player on the field.

The newspapermen from New York will send good stories back about you and help mold favorable public opinion.” Robinson more than obliged, batting .625 and stealing seven bases in the series. But instead of helping him, the performance served only to alienate him from his future teammates, many of whom were Southerners. Alabamian Dixie Walker drafted a petition stating that the players who signed would prefer to be traded than to play with a black teammate. While the team was playing exhibition games in Panama, Walker proceeded to gather signatures from Dodger teammates. Harold “Pee Wee” Reese, although a Kentuckian, refused to sign. It was a tremendously courageous act on his part because, as the team’s shortstop, Reese had more to lose than any other Dodger. “If he can take my job,” Reese insisted, “he’s entitled to it.” When Dodger manager Leo Durocher learned of the petition, he was furious. He had asked Rickey to bring Robinson up to Brooklyn during the previous year’s pennant drive.

At a late-night team meeting, according to Harold Parrott, the Dodger road secretary, Durocher told Walker and the other petitioners that “I don’t care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a zebra. I’m the manager of this team and I say he plays. What’s more, I say he can make us all rich….An’ if any of you can’t use the money, I’ll see that you’re traded.” The rebellion squelched, Rickey announced on April 10, 1947, that Jackie Robinson had officially been signed to play first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The noble experiment was in full swing. Of all the major league cities, Brooklyn, with its ethnically diverse and racially mixed neighborhoods, was just the place to break the color barrier. Despite their reputation as “perennial losers”—since the franchise’s establishment in 1883, no Brooklyn team had won a World Series—the Dodgers enjoyed an enduring love affair with their fans. This warm affinity was fostered, in part, by their cramped but colorful ballpark, Ebbets Field, located in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.

The double-decked grandstands stood only along the foul lines, allowing the fans a special intimacy wit the players. “If you were in a box seat,” said broadcaster Red Barber, “you were so close you were practically an infielder.” Aside from the patchwork collection of local advertisements in left field; the large black scoreboard in right; and the tone-deaf “Dodger Symphony Band” that roamed the grandstand, nothing came between the Dodger and their die-hard fans. When Robinson made his first appearance as a Dodger on April 15, 1947, more than 26,000 fans packed Ebbets Field; reportedly some 14,000 of those were African American. The afternoon was cold and rainy, and Robinson went hitless. Nonetheless, the sight of a black man on a major league diamond during a regular season game moved the crowd so deeply that they cheered the Dodgers on to a 5-3 victory over the Boston Braves. Every move the 28-year-old rookie made seemed to be greeted with the chant: “Jackie! Jackie!

Jackie!” It seemed as if baseball had finally shed its three-quarters of a century of hypocrisy to become truly deserving of the title “national pastime.” When the Philadelphia Phillies arrived in Brooklyn a week later, however, all hopes that integration would come peaceably were shattered. In one of the lowest moments ever in baseball history, the Phillies, led by their Southern manager, Ben Chapman, launched a tirade of racial epithets during the pregame batting practice. And the jeering did not let up throughout the entire three-game series. Two weeks later, when the Dodgers traveled to the so-called City of Brotherly Love, Chapman and his Phillies picked up where they left off, warning the Dodger players that they would contract diseases if they touched Robinson and indulging in even more personal racial slurs. Robinson’s less-than-stellar hitting in the series only added to the Phillies’ contention that he did not belong in the majors and was a ploy to attract blacks to Dodger games and make more money for Rickey. After the second game of the series, angry Dodger fans launched a full-scale protest with the National League’s president, Ford Frick, who responded by ordering Chapman and the Phillies to stop their verbal assault immediately.

In fact, Chapman probably would have lost his job over the incident, if Robinson had not agreed to pose with him for a conciliatory newspaper photograph. Under duress, the Phillies manager agreed to stand next to the Dodger rookie. “Ben extended his hand,” Harold Parrott recalled, “smiling broadly as if they had been buddy-buddy for a lifetime. Robinson reached out and grasped it. The flicker of a smile crept across his face as the photographer snapped away, getting several shots. Years later Robinson admitted that the incessant abuse during those games with the Phillies almost led him to the breaking point. As he described it: “For one wild and rage-crazed minute I thought, ‘To hell with Mr. Rickey’s noble experiment. It’s clear that it won’t succeed….What a 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 and I’d never become a sports star.

But my son could tell his son some day what his daddy could have been if he hadn’t been too much of a man.” The experience with the Phillies revealed the shocking severity of the racism that existed in baseball. At the same time, however, Robinson’s tremendous restraint in the face of such ugly prejudice served to rally his teammates around him and the cause of integration. Eddie Stanky, one of those who had signed the petition against Robinson joining the team, became so angered by the Phillies’ relentless abuse that he challenged them to “yell at somebody who can answer back.” Soon after, before a game in Cincinnati, the Reds’ players taunted Pee Wee Reese about playing with a black teammate. The Dodger shortstop walked over to Robinson and, in a firm show of support, placed his arm around the first baseman’s shoulders. As the season unfolded, Dodger support for Robinson strengthened in response to the admirable way he handled all the adversity. Opposing pitchers threw at his head and ribs, while infielders would spit in his face if he was involved in a close play on the base paths. And the hate mail was unending. But through it all, Robinson persevered. He even managed to keep a sense of humor.

Before one game in Cincinnati, when the Dodgers learned that their first baseman’s life had been threatened, one teammate suggested that all the players wear Robinson’s number “42” on their backs to confuse the assailant. “Okay with me,” responded the rookie. “Paint your faces black and run pigeon-toed too!” Even the white baseball establishment began to embrace the Dodger infielder. In May of 1947, when Ford Frick learned of the St. Louis Cardinals’ intention to instigate a league-wide strike by walking off the ball diamond in a scheduled game against the integrated Dodgers, he vowed to suspend their ringleaders if they carried out their plan. “I don’t care if I wreck the National League for five years,” he declared. “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.” The conspiracy died on the spot.

When the season ended, the Sporting News, which had gone on record earlier as opposing the integration of baseball because “There is not a single Negro player with major league possibilities,” named Robinson the National League’s Rookie of the Year for his impressive performance that season—29 stolen bases, 12 home runs, 42 successful bunt hits, and a .297 batting average. Those efforts helped the Dodgers to capture a pennant, and on September 23, jubilant Brooklyn fans cheered their first baseman with a “Jackie Robinson Day” at Ebbets Field. In addition to a new car and other gifts, Robinson received tributes for his contribution to racial equality. Song-and-dance man Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, one of the guest speakers, told the crowd: “I’m 69 years old but never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d stand face-to-face with Ty Cobb in Technicolor.” The Dodgers forced the New York Yankees to a seventh and deciding game in the World Series. And when all was said and done, no amount of hate mail or verbal and psychological abuse could tarnish the indisputable fact that Jackie Robinson was an exceptional baseball player.

He belonged in the major leagues. Robinson’s greatest accomplishment, however, was the inspiration that he provided for other African Americans, both in and out of baseball. Thousands of blacks came to watch him play, setting new attendance records in such cities as Chicago and Pittsburgh. Even in St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, where the opposing teams were the most hostile toward the Dodger rookie, black fans would arrive on chartered buses called “Jackie Robinson Specials,” having traveled hundreds of miles just to see him play. Ed Charles, a black youngster from the Deep South who went on to play in the major leagues himself, remembered the thrill of seeing his childhood hero for the first time. “I sat in the segregated section of the ball park and watched Jackie,” he said. “And I finally believed what I read in the papers—that one of us had made it. When the game was over we kids followed Jackie to the train station. When the train pulled out, we ran down the tracks listening for the sounds as far as we could. And when we couldn’t hear it any longer, we stopped and put our ears to the track so we could feel the vibrations of that train carrying Jackie Robinson.

We wanted to be part of him as long as we could.” Indeed, Robinson had jolted the national consciousness in a profound way. Until 1947 all of baseball’s heroes had been white men. Suddenly, there was a black baseball star who could hit, bunt, steal, and field with the best of them. His style of play was nothing new in the Negro Leagues, but in the white majors, it was innovative and exciting. Robinson made things happen on the base paths. If he got on first, he stole second. If he could not steal third, he would distract the pitcher by dancing off second in order to advance. And then he would steal home. The name of the game was to score runs without a hit, something quite different from the “power hitting” strategy that had characterized major league baseball.

During the next decade, this new style of play would come to be known as “Dodger Baseball.” Before the ’47 season was over, Branch Rickey had signed 16 additional Negro Leaguers, including catcher and future three-time Most Valuable Player Roy Campanella; pitcher Don Newcombe, who in 1956 would win 27 games; and second baseman Jim Gilliam, like Robinson always a threat to steal a base. Together with Robinson and such white stars as Pee Wee Reese, Edwin “Duke” Snider, Gil Hodges, and Carl Erskine, these men would form the nucleus of a team that would capture six pennants and, at long last, in 1955, a world championship, before the Dodgers left Brooklyn for the West Coast at the end of the 1957 season. By 1959, every team in major league baseball was integrated, one of every five players being of African-American descent. When Rickey talked of trading Robinson to the New York Giants after the ’56 season, the pioneering ballplayer chose to retire at the age of 38.

His career totals, which included 1,518 hits, more than 200 stolen bases, and a lifetime batting average of .311, earned him a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, the first African American so honored. He continued to fight actively for civil rights long after his baseball career had ended, supporting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his call for the peaceful integration of American society. Despite his tremendous accomplishments on and off the baseball field, Jackie Robinson, with characteristic humility, never gave himself much credit. A year before his untimely death in 1972, he reflected on his struggle to break baseball’s color barrier. “I was proud,” Robinson admitted, “yet I was uneasy. Proud to be in the hurricane eye of a significant breakthrough and to be used to prove that a sport can’t call itself ‘national’ if blacks are barred from it. But uneasy because I knew that I was still a black man in a white world.

And so I continue to ask myself, ‘What have I really done for my people?’” The answer was evident to everyone but him; for by appealing to the moral conscience of the nation, Jackie Robinson had given a young generation of blacks a chance at the “American Dream” and in the process taught many white Americans to respect others regardless of the color of their skin. More Jackie Robinson Articles Daily Quiz for April 7, 2011 Baseball great Jackie Robinson became a vice president for this coffee company after he retired from baseball. About this Collection - By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s | Digital Collections | Library of Congress Listen to this page About this Collection 2007 marks the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's rookie season for the Brooklyn Dodgers. When he stepped onto Ebbets field on April 15th, 1947, Robinson became the first African American in the twentieth century to play baseball in the major leagues -- breaking the "color line," a segregation practice dating to the nineteenth century. Jackie Robinson was an extremely talented multi-sport athlete and a courageous man who played an active role in civil rights.

This presentation was created to commemorate his achievements and describe some aspects of the color line's development and the Negro Leagues. Materials that tell his story, and the history of baseball in general, are located throughout the Library of Congress. This web presentation was made possible by a generous gift from the Citigroup Foundation. Selection Criteria While the Library of Congress does not have collections that focus solely on Jackie Robinson, the baseball color line, or the Negro Leagues, diverse original materials relevant to all of these topics can be found through the Library's numerous reading rooms. With the goal of representing many different media, Library staff selected and reproduced approximately 30 interesting items created between the 1860s and the 1960s, including manuscripts, photographs, ephemera, and books. Narrative information drawn from encyclopedia articles, published biographies, and baseball histories established the context for understanding the original materials. The Library holds additional original materials that could not be reproduced here, either because they are still under copyright protection (for example, NBC radio broadcasts), or, because digitization would be very expensive (for example, the full-length movie The Jackie Robinson Story).

This online presentation introduces a multi-faceted man and a variety of complex issues, topics, and events that risk oversimplification in any short retelling. Books listed in the Bibliography should be consulted for further information. The breadth of resources at the Library of Congress is impressive, but other libraries and organizations also offer a wealth of information on these subjects. Selected sources are listed in the Related Web Sites section. By Popular Demand: Images from the Prints and Photographs Division Library patrons and staff often select pictorial materials from the Prints and Photographs Division for reproduction in books, exhibits, lectures, television documentaries, decorative calendars, research papers, and many other kinds of projects. Researchers arrange with the Library's Photoduplication Service to produce copies of selected items. Typically ordered are 8x10-inch prints or 4x5-inch color transparencies. In order to make the prints, the Photoduplication Service must create a copy negative, if none exists. Afterwards, those negatives and color transparencies are added to a file of high-demand images maintained by the Prints and Photographs Division. In 1996, this file contained approximately 120,000 negatives and transparencies.

The high demand image file serves as a ready reference source for many of the Library's most popular pictures. The high-demand image file complements the division's heavily used collections of original negatives, including its Selected Civil War Photographs , Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection (forthcoming), and Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record collections. Over time, the Library plans to place a significant percentage of the high-demand file online under the series title "By Popular Demand." The first group of images will consist of items which appear in staff-selected illustrated reference aids. Likely candidates will be guides relating to immigration at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The entire high-demand file covers a broad range of international subjects and popular American topics such as eyewitness drawings of the Civil War, photographs of Native Americans, historical prints by Currier & Ives, political cartoons, and portraits of prominent figures in many fields.

Question: April 15, 1947 saw Jackie Robinson break the "color barrier" in major league baseball when he joined what club?
Answer: Brooklyn Dodgers