It Was Simply Another Part of His Greatness

It was said by many in later years that of the four sports Jackie Robinson participated in at UCLA--football, track, baseball and basketball-- baseball was his worst.

That would change, of course, but the fact is in the fall of 1939 he was the most feared running back on the West Coast.

Sixty years ago today, for example, on two plays, he laid waste to Oregon at the Coliseum, in a 16-6 victory fashioned entirely from his speed and broken-field running.

Robinson, who grew up on Pepper Street in Pasadena and was a star athlete at Muir High and Pasadena Junior College, was a back who seemed to hold an extra speed gear in reserve, shifting into it only when a situation required it.

In the second quarter, Robinson caught a 13-yard pass from Kenny Washington and scrambled 23 more yards for a score, in the process causing two Oregon defenders to run into each other and tumble to the ground.

On a third-quarter sweep after an Oregon punt, Robinson got around the Ducks’ perimeter and headed up the sideline. First one, then a second defender appeared to have an angle on him, but this time there was no broken-field running, as was the case on his first touchdown.

Robinson simply sped up and ran past the tacklers, 85 yards along the chalk stripe to a score.

“You need mechanized cavalry to stop Robinson,” Oregon Coach Gerald “Tex” Oliver said. “He runs as fast at three-quarter speed as the average player, but he’s got that extra quarter to draw on.”

Robinson rushed five times that day, averaging 16.8 yards a carry.

Also on this date: In 1981, the Dodgers flattened the New York Yankees, 9-2, to win the World Series, four games to two. . . . In 1973, Secretariat ended his racing career, winning the $142,700 Canadian International Championship in Toronto by 6 1/2 lengths. . . . Also in 1973, Gail Goodrich scored 49 points and Elmore Smith set an NBA record with 17 blocked shots in a 111-98 Laker victory over Portland. . . . In 1949, former middleweight boxing champion Marcel Cerdan of France and 47 others were killed in a plane crash in the Azores. Cerdan was on his way to New York to begin training for a Dec. 2 title fight with Jake LaMotta. . . . In 1939, in a 27-7 win over Yale, Michigan’s Tom Harmon gained 203 yards in 18 carries, including runs of 59, 45 and 31 yards.