Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson
was born on January 31st, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia. Jackie was the youngest of
five children born to Jerry and Mallie Robinson and had siblings Edgar, Frank,
Matthew, and Willa Mae Robinson. Jackie's middle name was given to him in honor
of President Theodore Roosevelt who dies 25 days before Jackie was born.
Jackie's father would leave his family in 1920 and his mom moved him and his
four siblings to Pasadena, California. Jackie would start his high school
career at John Muir High School where he played football, basketball, track,
and baseball where he would letter in each at the varsity level. He was a
shortstop and a catcher for the baseball team and earned a place on the Pomona
annual baseball tournament all-star team. This annual baseball tournament
included future Hall of Famers like Ted Williams and Bob Lemon. Jackie was also
the quarterback on the football team and played guard for the basketball team.
Jackie would get some recognition by professional scouts after winning an award
in the broad jump in track and field. Jackie was also a member of the tennis
team in his high school years. In 1936 Jackie won the junior boys singles
championship in the annual Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament. In 1937 the
Pasadena Star News newspaper reported that Robinson has been the most
outstanding athlete at Muir for starring in five sports for the school.
Jackie would move on to Pasadena Junior College after graduating from Muir High
School where he continued his athletic career by playing basketball, football,
baseball, and track once again. On the football team Jackie played both sides
of the ball this time playing quarterback and also playing some safety on the
defense. He would be the leadoff man for his baseball team while manning the
short stop position. He would once again get recognition in track for his broad
jumping ability after breaking school records in the competition previously
held by his brother Matthew, whose nickname was Mack. While playing on the
football team Jackie suffered a fractured ankle which would complicate his
deployment status while he was in the military. Jackie would also be elected to
the Lancers at his time in Pasadena Junior College which is a student run
police organization responsible for patrolling the school grounds
during various school activities. In 1938 Jackie was elected to the All
Southland Junior College Baseball Team and was selected as the regions MVP in
that league. Also in that season Jackie was one of ten students named to the
school's Order of the Mast and Dagger which was awarded to students who
performed outstanding service to the school and whose scholastic and
citizenship record is worthy of recognition. In 1938 he was arrested after
getting into a shouting match with the police and received a two year suspended
sentence. This was the beginning of the reputation of being very combative when
it came to racial antagonisms and such. Frank Robinson, Jackie's closest
brother, dies in a motorcycle accident towards the end of his PJC career which
prompted him to transfer to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to
be closer to his family.
Jackie transferred to UCLA in the spring of 1939 where he became the school's
first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports, which were baseball,
basketball, football, and track. He was one of four black players in the 1939
UCLA Bruins football team and was one of three of the four backfield players on
the football team. In 1940 Jackie won the NCAA Men's Outdoor Track and Field
Championship in the long jump when he jumped 24 ft 10 1/4 inches. Baseball was
surprisingly considered his worst sport in his time spent at UCLA after hitting
.097 in his only season there, although in his first game he did for 4-4 with
two steals of home. In his senior year at UCLA Jackie would meet his future
wife Rachel Isum who was a freshman and was familiar with his athletic career at
Pasadena Junior College. In 1941 Jackie left college just shy of graduation and
took a job as an assistant athletic director with the National Youth
Administration in Atascadero, California. Later that year the government
stopped the NYA and Jackie found himself in Honolulu to play football for the
Honolulu Bears. Jackie would try and latch in later in that year with the Los
Angeles Bulldogs of the Pacific Coast Football League but by that time the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had drawn the United States into World War II,
thus ending Jackie's football career.
In 1942 Jackie was drafted into the military and assigned to an Army cavalry
unit in Fort Riley, Kansas. After much protesting Jackie Robinson was admitted
into the Officer Candidate School at Fort Riley which would bring Jackie and
heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis closer as friends. Robinson was promoted
to second lieutenant and was reassigned to Fort Hood, Texas where he joined the
761st Black Panthers Tank Battalion. On July 6th, 1944 Jackie's military career
would take a turn for the worse as he was in the hospital awaiting test results
on the ankle he injured in junior college. Jackie would board an unsegregated
bus afterwards and was ordered to move to the back of the bus, although he refused
and was taken into custody by the military police when he reached his
destination. After confronting the investigating officer about being racist
Jackie was recommended for a court martial. Robinson was not court martialed
but transferred to the 758th Battalion where he was charged with
multiple charges including public drunkenness, although Jackie was never known
as a drinker. Jackie was acquitted of all charges by an all-white panel of nine
officers but Jackie still missed being deployed overseas and never saw any
combat action. Jackie would receive an honorable discharge in 1944 but not
before meeting a former player for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro
American League who encouraged Jackie to try out for the Monarchs, which he did
in 1945.
In early 1945 Jackie accepted a $400 per month contract to play for the Kansas
City Monarchs in the Negro League. Robinson played 47 games at short stop for
the Monarchs and hit .387 with 5 HR's, and 13 SB's while being in the 1945
Negro League All Star Game. In August of 1945 the club president and general
manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers had a meeting with Jackie Robinson with hopes
of signing him for either their big league team or their farm club, the
Montreal Royals. Rickey was more worried about whether Jackie could refrain
from fighting back when faced with racism rather than fight like he had in the
military and at Pasadena Junior College. After Rickey got
the commitment to turn the other cheek to the racism after the famous
quotes from Jackie and Rickey, "Are you looking for a negro who is afraid
to fight back" from Robinson which was responded by saying that he needed
a Negro player "with guys enough not to fight back." Jackie was
signed that day to a $600 a month contract and would be assigned to the
Montreal Royals in the 1946 season. This would cause a bit of a ruckus within
the Negro Leagues because Jackie was not the best player in the Negro Leagues
and people like Satchel Paige, Larry Doby, and Josh Gibson were not happy with
him getting the chance before they did. The racism and segregation started
right away as many places would not allow Jackie or Johnny Wright, another
black player Branch Rickey signed, to be a part of any activities. Jackie could
not stay in the hotel with his team and since the Dodgers did not have a spring
training facility yet most teams would not hold games that involved these two men.
The police chief in Sanford, Florida even went as far as to threaten to cancel
games if either of these two men trained there. On April 18th, 1946 the Jersey
City Giants and the Montreal Royals played a game and Jackie Robinson made his
professional debut, thus officially breaking the color barrier for minor league
teams. Robinson went 4-5 including a three run home run, 3 RBI's, scored four
runs, and stole two bases in a 14-1 Royals victory. Jackie would be named the
International League MVP that season after leading the league with a .349
average and a .985 fielding percentage while drawing over a million fans in
1946 to the ball park to see games that he was in.
Jackie would be called up to the majors six days before the start of the 1947
season. Jackie was a right handed batter that played first base for the
Brooklyn Dodgers because Eddie Stanky was the Dodgers every day second baseman.
Robinson would finish his first season by playing 151 games with a .297
average, a .383 OBP, .427 SLG %, 175 hits, 125 runs, 31 doubles, 5 triples, 12
home runs, and 48 RBI's. He also led the league in sacrifice hits, 28, and
stolen bases with 29 SB's that season. He would earn
the inaugural Rookie of the Year Award that season. Stanky was traded
to the Boston Braves in the spring of 1948 and Jackie took over the second base
job where he finished with a .980 fielding percentage that season. He would hit
for the cycle in August of 1948 against the St. Louis Cardinals and led his
team to a third place finish in the National League. Jackie, with the help of
Hall of Famer George Sisler, would reinvent his swing and approach at the plate
and would win the 1949 MVP award with a .342 average, 37 stolen bases, 124
RBI's, 122 runs scored, and would be the starting second basemen for the
National League in the 1949 All Star Game, the first to include black players.
The Dodgers would win the National League Championship that season but would
lose to the New York Yankees in five games. Jackie would become the highest
paid player in Dodgers history up to that point with a $35,000 contract and
would have a movie about him, the Jackie Robinson Story, made where he played himself
in the movie. Before the 1951 season the Dodgers new owner Walter O'Malley
offered Jackie the managerial job for the Montreal Royals when he was done
playing baseball. The 1951 season would bring some heart break for Jackie and
the Dodgers though because that was the season that Bobby Thomson's "Shot
Heard 'Round the World" home run ended the 1951 World Series. They would
win the NL pennant in 1952 but would once again lose in the World Series to the
New York Yankees in seven games. They would once again win the NL pennant in
1953 but would once again lose the World Series to the New York Yankees, this
time in six games. The Dodgers would get their revenge though in the 1955 World
Series though as the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees to win Jackie's only
World Series championship of his career. In 1956 Jackie Robinson was traded to
the New York Giants but the deal was never completed because Jackie had agreed
to quit baseball due to declining skills and his battle with diabetes.
Jackie would finish his major league career with a .311 career batting average
with 1,518 hits, 137 home runs, 734 RBI's, and 197 stolen bases among other
accolades. He would only play in ten seasons, all for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and
would play in six World Series and six All Star Games including one World
Series ring and one MVP award. In 1962, after pleading with voters to only vote
on his on the field play and not his historic impact to the game of baseball,
Jackie was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot. The
Dodgers would retire his #42 on June 4th, 1972 along with teammates Roy
Campanella, #39, and Sandy Koufax, #32. Jackie would make his final public
appearance in October of 1972 where he threw out the ceremonial first pitch
before Game 2 of the World Series. In 1999 Jackie was named to the Major League
Baseball All-Century Team. Jackie Robinson would die on October 24th,
1972 in Stamford, Connecticut.
Jackie has been honored many times since his death of a heart attack at age 53.
In 1987 both the American and National League Rookie of the Year Awards were
renamed the Jackie Robinson Award. In 1997 Major League Baseball retired
Jackie's #42 all across baseball with Mariano Rivera the only player left that
was grandfathered in and still wearing it. In 2006 the New York Mets
modeled the main entrance of their new stadium, Citi Field, after old Ebbets
Field and named it the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. Also, starting in 2004, the
Aflac National High School Baseball Player of the Year has been presented as
the Jackie Robinson Award. In 2007 Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger
and his wife Maria Shriver announced that Jackie would be inducted into the
California Hall of Fame. His former college baseball team, the UCLA Bruins,
play all their baseball games in Jackie Robinson Stadium and even have a
memorial state of Robinson inside the stadium. City Island Ballpark in Daytona
Beach, Florida was renamed Jackie Robinson Ballpark in 1990 and has a statue of
Jackie and his two children in front of the stadium. There are many other
buildings, houses, fields, etc. named after Jackie because of everything he did
both on and off the baseball field.
Jackie Robinson will always be remembered for breaking the color
barrier in baseball and leading the charge for black players in baseball.
Jackie Robinson always did things the right way and fought for what he believed
in and will always be remembered no matter how many years pass. Happy Jackie
Robinson Day everybody and thank you Jackie for everything you have done both
on and off the field.
