“It was against this backdrop that the greatest story in the history of pro sport began; a story that would change and affect the way we live.”
Really? I hear we’re just as stupid and beknighted and rascist as we ever were. Ask the president and his wife and the atty general ...Hell, it’s in all the papers.
It’s 2015 and I am sick unto death OF Jackie Robinson stories. He changed bla bla bla but honkies still suck.
I just don’t care anymore.
Jackie Robinson isn’t responsible for what his self proclaimed admirers try to make of him. He served as a First Lieutenant in the Army during World War II, commanding white troops as part of an Army experiment. He was a fine sportsman and great athlete, who still had to wait too long for his shot at the majors. He was subjected to vile abuse, threats, resentment from other players, including his teammates. He carried burdens few of us can imagine, and he did it graciously and - I can find no other words - with nobility and class.
I do not know if it is “the greatest story in the history of pro sport”, but it was an opening that reversed a shameful era in American history. To compare segregation in baseball to the holocaust is intellectually lazy and trivializes both. But for thousands of perfectly capable black players, and for millions of American blacks it was supremely frustrating and humiliating. One my troop’s assistant scoutmasters left one his hands in Europe. When he got off the troop ship in New York, he was greeted with a sign directing “Colored Troops This Way”. “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of bigotry.” He was entitled to say it.
So, yeah, I like Jackie Robinson.
Give credit to Robinson for going through what he did, but a number of owners were itching for the opportunity to use black ballplayers. Few people know that later in 1947, Robinson's first year in the majors, another black player, Larry Doby, debuted for the Cleveland Indians.
In short, the time for black players in the majors had arrived. Whether Robinson or Doby failed (and Doby, who became an excellent player, had a poor rookie year), there was no stopping what would be a flood of black players in all pro sports.
Interestingly enough, a few years ago I read an article that in 1938, almost ten years before Robinson debuted in the majors, a poll was taken among white major leaguers as to how they felt about black players in the majors. According to the poll, about 80% said they had no objections.