The motivations of Brooklyn Dodger general Manager Branch Rickey have always been questioned. Why did he sign Jackie Robinson? How much of what he did came from a moral conviction that the color line must go, and how much came from a desire to make money and field a winning team?
Monte Irvin, who came up to star for the New York Giants in 1949, suggests that what Rickey did is far more important than why he did it.
"Regardless of the motives," Irvin observes, "Rickey had the conviction to pursue and to follow through."
Breaking baseball's color line enabled Rickey to tap into a gold mine, but he elected not to monopolize the rich lode of talent in the Negro Leagues.
Four players he did sign who became Rookies of the Year were Jackie Robinson (1947), Don Newcombe (1949), Joe Black (1952) and Junior Gilliam (1953). But there were others he passed up.
Monte Irvin cold have been a Brooklyn Dodger, as well as Larry Doby. Sam Jethroe could have also been a Dodger, but Rickey had Robinson, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe and Joe Black.
And the bigoted major league club owners who had called Rickey complaining, "You're gonna kill baseball bringing that nigger in now," were now asking, "Branch, do you know where I can get a couple of colored boys as good as Jackie and Campy and Newk?"
Rickey ran the Dodgers with a calm efficiency. Part of that calm efficiency translated to advising Robinson well. Reacting to the taunts and threats, and fighting back against the bigots could win a battle. But too much protesting could lose the war.
The great dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson called Jackie Robinson: "Ty Cobb in Technicolor." Others had much less complimentary words for the Brooklyn star.
By 1949, Jackie Robinson was in his third season as a Brooklyn Dodger and was no longer the lone black man on the baseball diamond - he could now let it all hang out. Branch Rickey who had kept the man Dodger fans called "Robby" under wraps was elated.
"I sat back happily," Rickey recalled, "knowing that with the restraints removed, Robinson was going to show the National League a thing or two."
Jackie's wife Rachel Robinson said, "It was hard for a man as assertive as Jack to contain his own rage, yet he felt that the end goal was so critical that there was no question that he would do it. And he knew he could do it even better if he could ventilate, express himself, use his own style."
And what a style it was!
Today Jackie Robinson remains the stuff of dreams, the striving for potential, the substance of accomplishment. Today he remains a powerful, driving symbol of a person with limitless athletic ability, the weight of his people on his soul, raging against a world he didn't make.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson played for the Dodgers of Brooklyn for a decade, and then he was done.
But what he accomplished in breaking the color line in baseball will last through all eternity. He blazed a path for many to follow, and they enriched the game of baseball with their talent, verve, drive, and commitment.
» Harvey Frommer is the author of 30 sports books, including "The New York Yankee Encyclopedia, "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,"and "Growing Up Baseball" with Frederic J. Frommer. His A YANKEE CENTURY will be published by Berkley in October 2002.
Also by Harvey Frommer
» Remembering Irving Rudd
» Subway Series
» Midsummer Classic: Midsummer Mockery
» Yankee Stadium's First Opening Day
» The Birth of Baseball's First Professional Team
» Yankee Stadium's First Opening Day
» Gehrig's Streak
» Willie Mays and the Month of May
» Reese was no Pee Wee
» Yankees vs. Red Sox: Baseball's Greatest Rivalry
» Celebrating Hank Greenberg
» Bobby Thomson's Famous Homer Lives On
» Remembering the Yankee Clipper: Joe DiMaggio
» Shoeless Joe Remains a Scapegoat
» The Mets Have Always Been Amazing
» More submissions
Copyright © 2002 by Harvey Frommer. Posted June 26, 2002.
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