Major League Baseball today remembers and honors Jackie Robinson one of the
greatest players to ever play the sport. Every April 15th every major league
player wears the number 42 to honor what Jackie struggled through and achieved
during his life. We remember him as brother in Christ!
Brooklyn Dodgers President Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson, the shortstop of
the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League, first met the morning of
August 28, 1945, in Rickey’s fourth-floor office at 215 Montague Street in
Brooklyn, New York.
Clyde Sukeforth, a Brooklyn scout, told Robinson that Rickey
was interested in signing the ballplayer for a Black team he was organizing, the
Brooklyn Brown Dodgers.
Rickey’s interest in a Black team, however, was a
smokescreen to hide his intention of ending the national pastime’s color barrier
by identifying talented players in Black baseball. His scouts recommended
Robinson and other ballplayers for the Brooklyn Dodgers organization.1
Rickey
had examined every part of Robinson’s life, including his time at UCLA, where he
had been a four-sport athlete; in the US Army, where he had been court-martialed
for protesting after he had been sent to back of a bus; and with the Monarchs in
the Negro leagues.2
Rickey was impressed with Robinson’s athleticism but was
worried about reports of the ballplayer’s temper and whether he could control it
in response to what would be an unceasing amount of physical and emotional abuse
from fans and players on opposing teams. If Robinson lost his temper, it would
give his critics reason to confirm their belief that Blacks should not be
allowed in the game.
“I’m looking for a ballplayer with the guts not to fight
back,” Rickey told Robinson. Rickey wanted to find out for himself how Robinson
would respond to such indignities. He decided to test Robinson. Rickey took off
his sport coat and transformed himself into a bigoted White clerk refusing
Robinson a room in a Whites-only hotel; a White waiter in a restaurant denying
Robinson service and calling him “boy”; and an opposing ballplayer who, as
Robinson later remember, criticized “my race, my parents, in language that was
almost unendurable.” And finally, Rickey was a foul-mouthed base stealer sliding
hard into Robinson with his metal spikes high in the air. Rickey then swung his
fist at Robinson’s head, calling him a racist epithet.3
Rickey then opened a
book published in the 1920s, Giovanni Papini’s Life of Christ, and read Jesus’
words from the Sermon on the Mountain in the Gospel of Matthew: “You have heard
that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say
unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right
cheek, turn to him the other also.”
Robinson knew the Gospel and knew what was
required of him.
“I have two cheeks, Mr. Rickey. Is that it?” he replied.4
The
meeting between the two Methodists, Rickey and Robinson, ultimately transformed
baseball and America itself. “Robinson’s a Methodist. I’m a Methodist. God’s a
Methodist,” Rickey says. “You can’t go wrong.”
The exchange is included in 42,
the movie starring Chadwick Boseman, as Robinson, and Harrison Ford as Rickey.
What is often overlooked in books, articles, documentaries, and movies about
Robinson’s life is that it is also a religious story. His faith in God, as he
often said, carried him through the pain and anguish of integrating the major
leagues.
Michael Long and I wrote about Robinson and his faith in the 2017 book
Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography, which was published by Westminster John
Knox Press.5
The book begins with Robinson’s birth on January 31, 1919. As
Jackie’s mother, Mallie, held her newborn son, she looked at her husband, Jerry,
her brother, and her brother-in-law trying to make “sugar teats” – lard and
sugar wrapped in cheesecloth to resemble nipples that would ease the baby’s
assimilation into the world. Mallie slowly shook her head as she watched the
hapless men spill most of the lard on the floor and then whispered a blessing to
Jackie. “Bless you, my boy,” she said. “For you to survive all this, God will
have to keep his eye on you.”6 Shortly after Jackie’s birth, Jerry Robinson
hopped a train with another woman. Mallie found herself alone to support five
children in rural Cairo, Georgia, in the hostile South, where Blacks had few
opportunities, if any, to improve their standing, and any Black who confronted
racial injustice ran the risk of ending up in jail, beaten, or lynched.7
In May
1920, Rachel moved her family to Pasadena, California, where she repeatedly told
Jackie and his four siblings that God would take care of them.8
Jackie, however,
did not yet have his mother’s faith or the strength to turn the other cheek. The
Robinsons were the only Black family living on Pepper Street and their White
neighbors made no effort to welcome them. When Jackie was 8, a girl who lived
across Pepper Street from the Robinsons, called him a nigger. Jackie yelled back
at her that she was “nothing but a cracker.” The girl’s father came outside the
house and threw a rock at Jackie, who returned fire with a rock of his own.9
As
a teenager, Jackie refused to go with his mother to Scott Methodist Church. He
belonged to a neighborhood gang, the Pepper Street Gang, which consisted not of
violent boys and men as the word conjures up today but of boys who shoplifted
from local grocers and got into fights with other teens.10 The boys’ petty
crimes got them in trouble with the police. This increased Mallie’s concern
about her son.
She expressed his worries to the Rev. Karl Downs, the young
minister at Scott Methodist. Downs found Robinson on a Pasadena street corner,
told him to come see him, and persuaded him to come to church.11 Arnold
Rampersad wrote in his biography of Robinson that Downs, who was just seven
years older, became a good friend and a father figure to Robinson. His impact on
Robinson was particularly significant
when it came to shaping the young man’s
religion.
Rampersad said that Downs became the channel through which religious
faith “finally flowed into Jack’s consciousness and was finally accepted there,
if on revised terms, as he reached manhood,” Rampersad said. “Faith in God then
began to register in him as both a mysterious force, beyond his comprehension,
and a pragmatic way to negotiate the world.”12
At Downs’s request, Robinson
began teaching Sunday school – even on the mornings after football games he
played at Pasadena Junior College and then at UCLA. “On Sunday mornings, when I
woke up sore and aching because of a football game the day before, I yearned to
just stay in bed. But no matter how terrible I felt, I had to get up.”13
Robinson made a habit of praying beside his bed before going to sleep. Robinson
learned that exercising faith was not just about praying. Downs instilled in
Robinson the pride in being a Black man in a White-dominated world and in
standing up to social injustice in a world where there was so much racial
injustice. Robinson carried himself with pride. He wore White shirts that showed
off his dark skin.14
Rachel Isum, who was three years behind Robinson at UCLA,
was attracted to Robinson’s handsome looks but also to his self-confidence.
Robinson and Isum, who were both Methodists, began dating and remained a couple
until his death in 1972.
Robinson’s faith gave him strength during his
court-martial in the Army in 1944. He was drafted in March 1942, three months
after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II.
Robinson, like most, if not every other Black soldier, faced racial
discrimination in the Army. Bases were largely segregated but segregation was
prohibited on military buses.
While stationed at Fort Hood in Texas, a bus
driver ordered Robinson to the back of a bus. Robinson knew he didn’t have to
move and did not move. An argument followed. The base assistant provost
conducted an inquiry, interviewing the bus driver, White passengers, and White
MPs, but ignoring Robinson. Robinson, who felt he was not given the respect
demanded of an officer, interrupted the questioning. He was accused of not
showing proper respect to a commandeering officer. If found guilty, he could be
sentenced to a military prison. As Robinson sat in shackles in the courtroom, he
relied on his faith in God, remembering his mother’s words. “You are a child of
God, made in God’s image. Because God is there, nothing can go wrong with you,”
she had told him. “You can allow yourself to take risks because you just know
that the Lord will not allow you to sink so far that you can’t swim.”15
Robinson
was acquitted of all charges. By the time of the acquittal, Robinson’s battalion
had left for Europe, where it fought in the bloody Battle of the Bulge. By
confronting racial discrimination at Fort Hood, he was prevented from going
abroad where he might have been injured or killed. Robinson was discharged and
began playing in the segregated Negro leagues, where he was playing when Branch
Rickey was searching for the right player to break baseball’s color barrier. By
confronting racial discrimination in the Army, he would be available to confront
racial discrimination in baseball.
Robinson did not like playing in Negro
leagues. He did not like the catch-as-catch-all playing schedule or the constant
traveling where they might play games in two different cities on the same day
and couldn’t stay in Whites-only hotels or eat in Whites-only restaurants. He
did not drink alcohol or chase women as many of his teammates did. Robinson
openly scorned his whiskey-drinking and promiscuous teammates, once tossing a
glass of scotch into a burning fireplace to demonstrate the lethality of liquor.
He stunned his teammates by telling them he was waiting until marriage to have
sex.
“His sense of self was tightly wound around core values of dignity and
self-esteem, and he believed in God and the Bible,” Rampersad wrote about
Robinson. “Absurdly or not, he drew a line in the dirt between himself and sin,
and tried not to cross it.”16 As influential as Karl Downs was in Robinson’s
life, no one had a more profound impact on Robinson than Rickey. Rickey too owed
his strong sense of faith to his mother, Emily, who taught him stories from the
Bible.
Rickey biographer Lee Lowenfish said Emily Rickey’s stories from
Scripture reinforced in her son “the belief that there was a right way and a
wrong way to life.”17 This meant that God came first to Rickey, whose religious
devotion was such that he didn’t attend baseball games on Sundays.
Rickey and
Robinson forever changed baseball and society on October 23, 1945, when the
Montreal Royals, the Triple-A team in the Brooklyn organization, announced it
had signed Robinson. Robinson knew that much of White America would judge all
Blacks by how well he played and how well he comported himself. If he failed in
either way, his failure reflected badly on all Blacks. Robinson’s first test
came when Jackie and Rachel, having just married, left Southern California for
the Deep South, where Jackie would try to win a spot on the Montreal roster
during spring training in Florida. The Robinson were bumped from two planes and
replaced by White passengers. Shortly after they boarded a bus near Pensacola, a
bus driver, calling Jackie “boy,” ordered the newlyweds to the back of the bus.
Jackie turned his cheek both times.18
Robinson was chased out of Sanford,
Florida, by the Ku Klux Klan. A number of cities refused to allow the integrated
Montreal team to play. Robinson struggled with his hitting and he injured his
throwing arm. Robinson played his first game of the spring in Daytona Beach on
Sunday, March 17.19 Black ministers gave sermons about Robinson that morning and
asked their parishioners to pray for him. When services ended, Blacks, in their
Sunday clothes, walked to the ballpark.20 What happened in Daytona Beach
repeated itself elsewhere in cities where Robinson played. “I know how wonderful
it felt on a number of occasions, when a Negro minister approached me at the
ball club and said, ‘You know, I cut my sermon short today so the people could
get out of church early and get to the ball park to root for you,’” Robinson
said. “My minister friends tell me that when the average minister cuts down his
sermon, he is making one of the greatest sacrifices known to man.” Robinson
credited Black ministers for his success. “I owe so much to the Negro ministers,
and it is a debt I never intend to forget.”21
Robinson played the 1946 season
with the Montreal Royals and was then promoted to the Dodgers the following
spring. He knew that if he succeeded in the major leagues, he would change the
way a lot of Whites thought about Blacks. If he succeeded, it would mean that
other Blacks would get opportunities that were now closed to them. If he could
overcome racial discrimination, then others could, too.22
No athlete ever faced
either the pressure or abuse that Robinson did when he took the field for the
first time in a Brooklyn uniform on April 15, 1947. Robinson clearly understood
the stakes at play. Robinson knew Rickey could only do so much and that his own
success depended on his own ability, but also providence. “His religion had
taught him that the line between confidence and Satanic pride is a fine one; – a
twisted ankle, a turned knee – might yet intervene to reassert the inscrutable
ways of Providence,” Rampersad wrote. “The drama would unfold; he would be both
spectator and the man at the plate; God would decide the outcome.”23
Robinson
believed that God was on his side.24
Robinson did not merely endure in the face
of constant death threats, opposing pitchers throwing at him, base runners
spiking him, or fans screaming the ugliest of racial epithets; he thrived. His
faith formed in him an indomitable spirit. Robinson promised Rickey he would
respond to his detractors by turning the other cheek, and he did. “In observing
that trust,” Rickey said, “he has had an almost Christ-like taste of turning the
other cheek.”25
Robinson continued with his nightly ritual of praying, once
telling a reporter about his faith in God and his nightly ritual of kneeling at
his bedside. “It’s the best way to get closer to God,” Robinson said, and then
the second baseman added with a smile, “and a hard-hit ground ball.”
After
Robinson retired from baseball, he wrote newspaper columns for the New York Post
and the Amsterdam News in New York. Many of the columns are collected in the
book Beyond Home Plate, which is edited by Michael Long. In one column, Robinson
compared his own experience with “turning the other cheek” with the nonviolent
confrontation of the civil-rights movement espoused by his friend, Martin Luther
King Jr. “I can testify to the fact that it was a lot harder to turn the other
cheek and refuse to fight back than it would have been to exercise a normal
reaction,”
Robinson wrote. “But it works, because sooner or later it brings a
sense of shame to those who attack you. And that sense of shame is often the
beginning of progress.”26
CHRIS LAMB is chair of the journalism and
public-relations department at Indiana University- Indianapolis. He is the
author of 11 books, including Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s
First Spring Training; Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long
Campaign to Desegregate Baseball; Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography; and,
most recently, Sports Journalism: A History of Glory, Fame, and Technology.
Notes
1 Lee Lowenfish, Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 373-374. Arnold Rampersad, Jackie Robinson:
A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 125-126.
2 Lowenfish, 368-369.
3
Rampersad, 127.
4 Lowenfish, 375-376; Rampersad, 127.
5 Michael Long and Chris
Lamb, Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography (Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2017).
6 Long and Lamb, 13.
7 Long and Lamb, 18.
8 Long and Lamb, 18.
9
Rampersad, 24.
10 Long and Lamb, 23-24.
11 Long and Lamb, 25.
12 Rampersad, 53.
13 Jackie Robinson and Alfred Duckett, I Never Had It Made (Hopewell, New
Jersey: Ecco Press, 1972), 8.
14 Long and Lamb, 34-36.
15 Rampersad, 102-111.
16
Rampersad, 118.
17 Lowenfish,
18 Chris Lamb, Blackout: The Untold Story of
Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
2012), 5-14.
19 Lamb, Blackout, 87-89, 94-95, 103, 135, 140.
20 Lamb, Blackout,
104, 105.
21 Long and Lamb, 75.
22 Long and Lamb, 84.
23 Rampersad, 168.
24 Long
and Lamb, 85.
25 Wendell Smith, “Sports Beat,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 28,
1948. Quoted in Long and Lamb, 98.
26 Chris Lamb, “Jackie Robinson: Faith in
Himself and in God,” Wall Street Journal, April 11, 2013.
