Robinson’s Legacy Is Its Own Award

Having had four National League rookies of the year in succession, the Dodgers might take this opportunity to remind organized baseball and the general public alike that this award bears the name of Jackie Robinson, a fact that seems to elude people who have no trouble remembering the name of Cy Young.

Funny how difficult it is to break old habits.

Other facts from Robinson’s storied life also appear to have been forgotten, such as his spending his Dodger rookie season of 1947 at first base, not second. But Robinson himself, at least, has not been forgotten, which is the way things ought to be.

Fifty years ago Thursday, Jackie Robinson, the kid from Pepper Street in Pasadena, played his first professional baseball game for the Dodger organization. A newlywed, his wife, Rachel, sat in the stands of Jersey City, N.J., waiting for “Jack”--that was all she ever called him--to bat for the visiting side from Montreal, ranking minor league club of the Dodgers.

In the third inning, Robinson homered, with two men on base, over a 340-foot marker in left field. Next time up, he bunted, beat it out and stole second base. He ended the day with four hits and two steals.

“This was the day the dam burst between me and my teammates, Northerners and Southerners alike,” Robinson would recall, many years later.

The very next trip took Jack and Rachel to a ballpark in Baltimore, where some of the things said by the fans in the stands seated behind Robinson’s wife remain unprintable and reprehensible, half a century later. Some dams burst less easily than others.

For a little while a few years ago, I had the privilege of spending some time with Rachel Robinson, both here in Los Angeles and at her foundation in New York. She was trying at the time to explain how things really were back in the ‘40s, in order for historians and filmmakers to understand the truth.

There was so much more to Jack’s life than breaking the color barrier of baseball, she emphasized. There were his civic and political stands, his efforts to open Harlem’s first black-owned bank, the way he stood up for a Jewish businessman who wanted to run a steak house in Harlem and encountered understandable racism in reverse.

“I have resented bigotry in any form,” was Robinson’s position at the time. “How could we stand against anti-black prejudice if we were willing to practice or condone a similar intolerance?”

In years to come, Jackie always fought the good fight.

His correspondence with Richard Nixon, in particular, was as spirited and lively as his activity on any field. Robinson was a Republican who had campaigned for Nelson Rockefeller, but he believed that under Nixon’s administration, few strides were being made in racial harmony and equality, and campaign promises had not been kept. And he told Nixon as much.

Robinson expressed bluntly that the president’s most trusted advisors seemed to be Spiro Agnew, John Mitchell and Strom Thurmond, and went on to ask: “How can you expect trust from us when we feel that these men you have selected for high office are enemies?”

Indulged with what he perceived as double-talk in Nixon’s personal reply, Robinson fired off a second letter, saying that he could not endorse the president for a second term so long as Agnew remained second-in-command. Robinson wrote: “I feel so strongly about [Agnew] that I dread the thought of anything happening to you.”

In the spring of 1946, when Robinson first flew to Florida to report to the Montreal team’s camp, he and Rachel left Los Angeles feeling pretty good about their lot in life. During a layover in New Orleans, the Robinsons were asked to get off, were not let back on, were not permitted to eat in the coffee shop and were turned away at several New Orleans hotels, ending up in a flop house.

Trying to reach Daytona Beach, Fla., their plane finally took them to Pensacola, where, again, they were bumped off flights twice, with no explanation. White passengers flew on ahead.

The beginning of Jackie Robinson’s baseball career and everything he had to endure is integral to “Soul of the Game,” a new film from HBO that has its premiere Saturday. More will be said on this subject a year from now, when Robinson’s actual Dodger debut in the major leagues will mark its 50th anniversary.

Until then, be advised that the Dodgers again have a couple of fine rookies this season. Should one of them do exceptionally well, it could mean five Jackie Robinson Awards in a row.