On this day 77 years ago – April 15, 1947 – Jackie Robinson stepped onto the baseball diamond in Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers from its opening in 1913 until Walter O’Malley moved the team to Los Angeles in 1957.
Jackie Robinson Day
There was never a bigger day in the team’s or the stadium’s history than that day when Jackie became the first Black player in major league history. Come to think of it, it was the biggest day in sports history, in this lifelong baseball fan’s somewhat deserved opinion. Each year, we celebrate that day – and, of course, Jackie – by having every player and coach wear his number – 42 – which had been retired from the game in 1997 and hangs permanently and prominently in every stadium.
Four years after Jackie made his debut, my father, an immigrant who settled in Brooklyn upon his arrival in America in 1929 and who by then lived in Mount Vernon, NY with his family of four, took me to see his beloved Dodgers – now, of course, my beloved Dodgers. It was my first of so many baseball games. Four or five times each year, Daddy and I climbed into his 1947 Dodge, a brash, 6,000-pound beast that seemed to eat up the asphalt beneath it on our way from Mount Vernon to Flatbush. In retrospect, I have reason to believe his route included the road that was then known as the Interboro Parkway, since renamed … Jackie Robinson Parkway. I can’t confirm that but if you know the territory, it’s probably right. I really like to think so.
The Greatness of Jackie Robinson
At four, I was no one to evaluate how great Jackie was, but the intensity of the Dodgers’ fans in that intimate old box of a stadium was something I easily understood. Indeed, he was spectacular. Aside from the other 33,000 fans, I was sitting next to the most passionate, optimistic (“Wait’ll next year”), and proud Dodger fan: my father that immigrant who became a fan before he became a citizen. I don’t know if he was at Jackie’s first game or not – and it never occurred to me to ask – because as I grew older, Daddy never lost the chance to teach me the importance of what the Dodgers – and especially General Manager Branch Rickey – had done. It’s a lesson all leaders should study. (Historical footnote: Jackie’s first game was not a sell out and he did not get a hit. But he did score the deciding run in the Dodgers’ 5-3 win over the Boston Braves.)
Years later, here’s what I can tell you today. When Rickey made the courageous decision to integrate the big leagues, he knew he had to find exactly the right guy. There were plenty of sterling athletes playing in the Negro Leagues – Lary Doby (the second Black player in the majors), Roy Campanella (the second Black Dodger), Hank Thompson, Monte Irvin, Satchell Paige, Minnie Minoso – truly great ones all. But Rickey had to get it right the first time – with absolutely no room for error, as not only was the history of baseball at stake but so was history, period.
All the other athletes would have been good choices but Rickey had the most confidence in Jackie – as a player, as an athlete, as a man, as a leader – the man who would excel at the game while enduring unimaginable hate, indignation, insults, threats, boycotts, you name it.
Turns out, Rickey was right. He made a decision that was carried into history on the shoulders of one of the finest athletes who ever donned a uniform – Jackie was a four-letter star at UCLA (baseball, basketball, football, and track) – and one of the finest examples of personal leadership I have ever seen. Turns out my father was right, too.Now, at an age my father never reached (he died at 66) or Jackie never reached (63), I try hard to pull lessons – both obvious and hidden – out of situations. In this case, the impact of Rickey’s decision and Jackie’s success were evident. But how’s this for coming out of left field? I believe that if the selection of the candidate to be the first Black man to break the color barrier were left up to the automated tracking systems (ATS) used by virtually all employers today, Jackie would not have been selected. The next few followed well but remember what was on the line.
If only more decisions were made like that today. Happy Jackie Robinson Day.