Today marks what would have been Jackie Robinson's 100th birthday.
Robinson famously broke MLB's color barrier when he took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. In a 10-year big league career, Robinson won the inaugural NL Rookie of the Year, was named NL MVP in 1949 when he won his lone NL batting title, was named to six NL All-Star teams and played in six World Series including Brooklyn's lone World Series title in 1955. Robinson's skin was black but he bled Dodger blue. When he was traded to the New York Giants at the end of the 1956 season, Robinson chose retirement rather than exchange uniforms. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1962.
Of course, Robinson had to endure hatred of the worst kind before he played his first game including a petition from his own teammates to have him removed from the team. Fortunately, Branch Rickey and Leo Durocher put a stop to that. But Rickey and Durocher couldn't be everywhere and Robinson had to suffer many of the indignities committed against him in silence. Despite his success in baseball and in business, Robinson would age rapidly with the onset of diabetes. A heart attack would claim his life on October 24, 1972 only 9 days after throwing out the first pitch for Game 2 of the 1972 World Series between the Oakland A's and Cincinnati Reds at Riverfront Stadium. Robinson was only 53, but he had lived a full century. Progress would be made in Robinson's lifetime, but at considerable pain and sacrifice.
I have written about Robinson previously. Here is what I wrote in April 2013 about Robinson's starring role in the 1950 biopic The Jackie Robinson Story. This article coincided with the release of 42 which starred a pre-Black Panther Chadwick Boseman. I also recorded my observations about Ken Burns' two part PBS film on Robinson in April 2016.
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