Jack’s Blog

In reading an article about the 61st anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, I was perplexed to hear that there was disappointment in a release that said the number of blacks making up major league baseball rosters had declined from 8.4%in 2006 to 8.2% last year.  The statement continued to say that as recently as 1995, the percentage of blacks in the majors was 19% and the numbers were troubling.

Granted, the article was brief, not delving much farther than the numbers and a short quote, but to any baseball fan in the United States (and even the world, now that the game’s gone somewhat global), the reasons are glaringly apparent and, from my point of view, all positive.  While the percentage of blacks decreased in the past 15 or so years, the percentage of Latino players doubled - to where Latino players currently hold down nearly 30% of the spots on major league rosters!  Added to that statistic, the number of Asian players has increased (from zero) to where many are not only occupying places on rosters, but are some of the most talented and popular ballplayers in the game.

I can’t help but think that African-Americans today have more doors open to them in other industries, both inside and outside the world of professional sports.  Dominating “country club” sports like golf and tennis as Tiger Woods and the Williams’ sisters have done had to have been an inspiration to youngsters of color.  There also seems to be an effort in other industries as well to hire regardless of race, as this current generation of minority college graduates descend upon the business and political worlds.  Indeed, how long ago would someone have thought that the leading candidate for the presidency of this nation would have been a black man?

Being disappointed that a .2% drop in the number of blacks playing major league baseball trivializes what Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier stood for.  Certainly, if those numbers reflected a quota system of some sort, we all should be embarrassed, but people of all races and ethnic backgrounds became benefits of Jackie’s courageous battle.  As John F. Kennedy proclaimed:

“All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents.”

If you were a kid growing up in New Jersey in the early ’50s, you rooted for one of three teams - the New York Yankees, the New York Giants or, my favorite, the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Although my father was a die-hard Yankees fan, he was a good enough sport (and good enough dad) to take me to Ebbets Field, home of my beloved Bums (my father always claimed I was brain washed by my mother’s side of the family, all of whom hailed from Brooklyn).

The first time we ever went to Ebbets Field, I was four years old.  My father was a toll collector for the New Jersey Turnpike and my mother was a secretary so disposable income was tough to come by and, although my father scraped the money together for a couple of train tickets (by far the most economical means to get to the city) and two tickets, we were watching the game from the nosebleed section (which was totally fine with me - hey, I was at a Dodger game! - and, to be perfectly honest, Ebbets Field was such a bandbox, any seat was a good one - unless you got stuck behind a pole).

I can remember many of the fans in our section being black and one, when he saw me, asked, “Hey, little fella, who’re you for?”  Now, one thing you’re going to get from a four-year-old kid is an honest answer (lying doesn’t become part of a youngster’s makeup until a few years later), so I looked up, wide-eyed and said, “The Dodgers!”  This was shortly after Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier and the country was still divided on the race issue.  “Hey, get this kid a Coke - and a hot dog.  Get his old man a beer.”  We were subjected to the royal treatment.

I didn’t know why, but I figured out I must have given the right answer.  We might have gotten a chauffered ride back to Jersey if they would have asked who my favorite player was because Jackie Robinson was my childhood idol.  All I saw was a guy who could hit, field, run bases, was strong and handled himself with so much class and dignity.  I’m sure I had no idea what class and dignity were at that point in my life, but I knew I wanted to be just like Jackie.

Don’t get me wrong: Erskine, Newk, Labine, Black, Spooner, Campy, Hodges, Gilliam, PeeWee, Cox, Amoros, the Duke, Furillo, all had their baseball cards on my bedroom wall, but it was Jackie’s that was front and center.  Naturally, being a Jewish kid, Sandy Koufax soon jumped to the head of the class but not until years later.  These Dodgers were the guys who won the first ever World Championship for the Dodgers in ‘55 and I can still remember the ground ball to PeeWee Reese who threw to Gil Hodges for the final out in Johnny Podres’ 2-0 shutout of the hated Yankees in game 7 that begat a roar from my house (the neighborhood boys on either side of me and the twins across the street were all Yankee fans and I’d finally gotten my chance to bask in glory).

My aunt, a good athlete and pretty big fan in her own right, mailed a birthday card to the club requesting all the guys sign it for her nephew who “lived and died” with the Dodgers.  They did, I got it back, but somewhere in the 20+ relocations I’ve made since, it’s nowhere to be found.  I’m still sick about it.

At that time, as I mentioned, I completely idolized Jackie Robinson for his superior talent, the way he carried himself and because he was the best player on my favorite team.  As I read about his life, I found out about how remarkable an athlete (football, basketball, tennis and track) he was and how intelligent he was.  He’d attended UCLA and starred in numerous sports there.  Further research into his life explained his ultra-competitive and courageous nature.  What had impressed me most was that Branch Rickey, the president and general manager of the Dodgers selected him to be the first player to break the color barrier, not merely because of any of those traits listed above, but more so because he knew Jackie had the mental makeup to withstand all that was about to be leveled at him and, rather than physically fight back, retaliate by thoroughly defeating his opponents in the best way he could to make a point for all of mankind and especially, for his people.

When I became a teenager and Jackie’s career was on the downhill side, his exit was the classiest move of all.  The Dodgers traded him to the Giants, and rather than play for the bitter rivals, he retired - he walked away and never looked back.  In my mind, he remains to this day without a peer.

If ever a line was appropriate for one person, Maxwell Anderson’s quote defines the legacy of Jackie Robinson:

“There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, till all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime.” �