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“To the average man in the average American community, Jackie Robinson was just what the sports pages said he was, no more, no less. ... ”
- Rachel Robinson
Before 1947, it was unheard of to see an African American player in professional sports, until Jackie Robinson dawned a uniform for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Born in the rural South in Cairo, Georgia, the son of a sharecropper, the grandson of a slave, Jackie Robinson was later raised in Pasadena, California. ... As an individual of courage and conviction, and as a skilled and dedicated athlete, Jackie Robinson stood tall amongst his peers. ... Throughout his playing career, Jackie Robinson overcame many obstacles in order to become one of the most influential and greatest baseball players of all time.
Jackie Robinson overcame the racism of the people around him so that people of all different races could play Major League Baseball. In 1944, Jackie Robinson joined the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro league baseball team. ... During his one season in the Negro leagues, Robinson proved himself to be an outstanding hitter, batting .387 with sixty-three hits (forty singles, fourteen doubles, four triples, and five homeruns), a skilled and aggressive base runner (stealing thirteen bases), most of which he learned from Willie Wells who taught Robinson to make the pivot at second base (Internet #10), and was one of the best infielders in the league. ...
When Robinson left the team to play for the Montreal Royals, black fans turned their backs on their old heroes. ... ” (Ribowsky, 54) When Jackie began training in Montreal, he saw that Branch Rickey was right. ... Until they saw that Jackie was good, and to some better, they pretended he wasn’t there. ...
After one season with the Montreal Royals, Rickey told Robinson that he had been ‘promoted’ and now would play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. ... For the first few years of his playing career, Jackie would argue non-stop with them about calls made against him that everyone knew should not have been called. ... (Prince, 98-99) Pee Wee Reese, a teammate of Robinson’s, once said in an interview, “You’d hear a lot of insults from the opposing benches and stands during games, guys calling him things like ‘nigger’ and ‘watermelon eater,’ trying to rile him.” (Reiser, 111) As Sports Illustrated’s Bill Nack wrote: “Robinson was the target of racial epithets and flying cheats, of hate letters and death threats, of pitchers throwing at his head and legs, and of catchers spitting on his shoes. ... Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect,” (Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 159) was Jackie’s only response to all of the death threats, insults, and bad calls.
After Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson opened the door for black players in organized baseball, a few others soon followed. ... (Internet #17)
When Jackie Robinson started playing in the major leagues in 1947 as number forty-two for the Brooklyn Dodgers, no one thought that he would amount to anything since he was much older than normal rookies, and they especially thought that he would never be one of the greatest players in history.
Approximate Word count = 2598
Approximate Pages = 10.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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