Here's to You, Mr. Robinson

Although I'm not much of a sports fan (and yes, that is an understatement), my husband is a major sports fiend. He's a Dodger fan mainly because the Brooklyn Dodgers were the first to integrate baseball.

And today is the 60th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut on the team on April 15, 1947, breaking the color barrier in pro baseball and launching a legendary Hall of Fame career.

Of course, my interest in this date in part relates to my husband, as well as the story of Jackie Robinson, who as a person exemplified professionalism and character and courage. As George Will said, Remembering Jackie Robinson's day:

Robinson died of diabetes-related illnesses in 1972, at 53, the same age Babe Ruth was when he died. Ruth reshaped baseball; Robinson's life still reverberates through all of American life.

As Martin Luther King Jr., who was 18 in 1947, was to say, Robinson was "a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides." "Robinson," writes Eig, "showed black Americans what was possible. He showed white Americans what was inevitable."

By the end of the 1947 season, America's future was unfolding by democracy's dialectic of improvement. Robinson changed sensibilities, which led to changed laws, which in turn accelerated changes in sensibilities.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson's middle name was homage to the President who said "speak softly and carry a big stick."

His stick weighed 34 ounces, which was enough.

Robinson's own words, via Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, from an essay Jackie Robinson wrote in 1951 for Edward R. Murrow's radio show, "This I Believe" express his spirit:

"Whatever obstacles I found made me fight all the harder. But it would have been impossible for me to fight at all, except that I was sustained by the personal and deep-rooted belief that my fight had a chance. It had a chance because it took place in a free society. Not once was I forced to face and fight an immovable object. Not once was the situation so cast-iron rigid that I had no chance at all. Free minds and human hearts were at work all around me; and so there was the probability of improvement. I look at my children now, and know that I must still prepare them to meet obstacles and prejudices.

"But I can tell them, too, that they will never face some of these prejudices because other people have gone before them. And to myself I can say that, because progress is unalterable, many of today's dogmas will have vanished by the time they grow into adults. I can say to my children: There is a chance for you. No guarantee, but a chance.

"And this chance has come to be, because there is nothing static with free people. There is no Middle Ages logic so strong that it can stop the human tide from flowing forward. I do not believe that every person, in every walk of life, can succeed in spite of any handicap. That would be perfection. But I do believe — and with every fiber in me — that what I was able to attain came to be because we put behind us (no matter how slowly) the dogmas of the past: to discover the truth of today; and perhaps find the greatness of tomorrow.

"I believe in the human race. I believe in the warm heart. I believe in man's integrity. I believe in the goodness of a free society. And I believe that the society can remain good only as long as we are willing to fight for it — and to fight against whatever imperfections may exist.

"My fight was against the barriers that kept Negroes out of baseball. This was the area where I found imperfection, and where I was best able to fight. And I fought because I knew it was not doomed to be a losing fight. It couldn't be a losing fight-not when it took place in a free society.

"And in the largest sense, I believe that what I did was done for me — that it was my faith in God that sustained me in my fight. And that what was done for me must and will be done for others."

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a special multi-part series on Robinson, including that of the sorry legacy of the Phillies -- as the last major league team to integrate. See also Major League Baseball: Jackie Robinson Day.

(Via The Quaker Agitator)

Tags: Jackie Robinson, Dodgers, Racism