Daring Play: How a Courageous Jackie Robinson Transformed Baseball
In 1947 Robinson became the first major league player to receive the Rookie of the Year award Before the 1955 season began however he didn’t know how long he could keep playing Although still a fast runner he had slowed down a bit And injuries sometimes limited his playing time He began thinking about life beyond baseball Robinson missed nearly one-third of the 1955 season because of injuries and age But as the postseason approached he was in better health and playing well I made up my mind
to go out there and hustle he said He felt that his energy had helped inspire his teammates to win the National League pennant The Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees lined up before the start of a 1955 World Series game at Yankee Stadium Despite his contributions some baseball experts wondered whether Robinson would be a starting player in Game 1 of the World Series against the Yankees Former Dodgers manager Leo Durocher had managed Robinson in Brooklyn and had seen him play while running the New York Giants the city’s other team The thought of not starting Robinson was crazy Durocher said Jackie Robinson was born to play and excel in the awful
pressure of a World Series When Brooklyn’s starting lineup for Game 1 was announced September 28 Robinson was in it playing third base The Dodgers scored first getting two runs in the top of the second inning Robinson contributed with a triple and then scored on a single by Don Zimmer The Yankees tied the score in the bottom of the inning In the third Brooklyn scored again only to see the Yankees once again tie it Over the next three innings the Yankees took a three-run lead The score was still 6-3 in the eighth when Robinson came to the plate with one out and a man on first He once again faced the Yankees Whitey Ford one of the top pitchers in the game Robinson hit a ground ball that third baseman Gil McDougald could not field cleanly Robinson reached second on the error then went to third on a sacrifice fly The sacrifice had scored the runner ahead of him so now with the score 6-4 and two outs Robinson looked at home plate just 90 feet 27 meters away Robinson later wrote that he stood on third base thinking this could be his last year in baseball his last chance to help Brooklyn win a World Series and defeat their New York rivals I suddenly decided to shake things up Robinson wrote It was not the best baseball strategy to steal home with our team two runs behind but I just took off and did it
Robinson slides under the mitt of Yankee catcher Yogi Berra to steal home in the 1955 World Series in one of baseball’s most famous photographs What happened when Jackie Robinson stole home in the World Series led to a controversial call at the plate It also led to one of the most famous photographs from Robinson’s historic career THE SLOW PACE OF INTEGRATION Major League Baseball and sports historians note that while Jackie Robinson made history he was not the first black to play professional baseball on a team with whites Robinson made history by breaking the color line that had been in force since the late 1800s The color line meant that only whites were allowed to play for the major league teams and for the minor league teams that helped train their players During the 1870s Bud Fowler became the first African-American known to play professionally for a white
