Daring Play: How a Courageous Jackie Robinson Transformed Baseball
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
club Like Robinson Fowler was a skilled infielder The first black player known to play regularly in a major league was Moses Fleetwood Walker a catcher He played for Toledo which joined one of the first major leagues the American Association in 1884 Soon after however the color line returned to baseball Historians place much of the blame on Adrian Cap Anson the manager and star player of the National League team in Chicago now called the Cubs Anson had strong racist views and refused to allow his team to play against Walker’s team or any other team with an African-American player By the end of the century no blacks played in the major leagues or for the top minor league teams Robinson’s success with the Brooklyn Dodgers answered any questions about whether African-Americans deserved to be in the major leagues Honest baseball players and fans had known the answer for some time White stars often played against stars of the Negro Leagues teams made up of African-American players White players and fans saw that the talents of the top black players matched or exceeded those of many white major leaguers Even so most major league clubs were slow to sign black players By 1952 only five other teams had joined the Dodgers in integrating their rosters the Cleveland Indians St Louis Browns New York Giants Boston Braves and Chicago White Sox Even when teams did sign black players they might have just one though by 1949 the Dodgers had three black stars Joining Robinson were pitcher Don Newcombe and catcher Roy Campanella The last team to integrate was the Boston Red Sox which did not have a black player on its roster until 1959 The percentage of African-American players held steady from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s at from 16 to 19 percent Since then it has fallen to about 7 percent At the same time the percentage of Latino players has risen to about 27 percent Roy Campanella from left and Don Newcombe joined Robinson as stars of the Brooklyn Dodgers
Chapter Two BREAKING THE COLOR BARRIER Jackie Robinson’s path to the major leagues and the 1955 World Series began in a small house near Cairo Georgia Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born January 31 1919 His middle name was in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt who had died just a few weeks before Roosevelt had spoken out against racism but his policies did not end the segregation common in Georgia and other former slave states Jack as his family called him was the grandson of slaves and his father Jerry worked as a sharecropper A white farmer let Jerry Robinson use some of his land and gave him supplies along with a place for the Robinsons to live In return Robinson gave half of what he grew to the landowner Jack was the youngest of five children His father left the family shortly after Jack was born Jack’s mother Mallie Robinson struggled to raise her family and at the urging of her half-brother moved the family to California Jackie was not quite 18 months old when the Robinsons arrived in Pasadena a suburb of Los Angeles Through hard work Mallie Robinson was able to save money and buy her family a home But she still struggled at times to feed her family Jackie Robinson later wrote that when his mother wasn’t working she taught her children the importance of family unity religion and kindness toward others
