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AJ McKenzie
  • 2 days ago
The man who fully integrated the MLB, 79 years ago today
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847

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00:00Ablicek steals it! Ablicek stole the ball!
00:02Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!
00:09United Joe Bici. Bici follows in.
00:13A down by the court! A down by the court!
00:20That's a close!
00:22They've won their sixth NBA championship.
00:25Yes, sir. Swing!
00:30Last year.
00:34Last year.
00:34Last year.
00:36Last year.
00:38Last year.
00:40For SportsCentury.
00:42Jackie Robinson was blessed with all the gifts.
00:46Smart!
00:52Probably athletic.
00:53He played four sports and...
00:57Uh-huh.
00:59...about him greater fame, Robinson was determined to play baseball, and like many black men before him, he headed into
01:07the obscurity of the Negro Leagues.
01:09Then, two circumstances conspired to make him a major world player of the 20th century.
01:16The first, a white man with a passion for racial justice, and the other, a not-so-simple factor, known
01:27as timing.
01:35The war just ended.
01:40There was a great outburst of energy and optimism that hit right after the war.
01:52Not only had the war right,
01:58didn't triumph, but the whole
02:07...longed the Depression when that was replaced by a sense of not been there for a long time.
02:14The post-war glow fell everywhere, it seemed, but not on the African American who worked and struggled.
02:31...incredible.
02:35...old in a world apart, separate and unequal.
02:38It me...
02:40...he was the...
02:41...even though they sent people like us to war, with...
02:48...is all the GM back who fought, who had felt,
02:51...I'm American, I got out of a bus.
02:53There were instances in which German prisoners of war, based in this country,
02:57...had more rights on army bases than did the black people.
03:01Well, in uniform, the German prisoners of war could go to officers' clubs, and the black people couldn't.
03:06Like a virulent social disease, racism infected every aspect of our life.
03:11Even the national time was spared.
03:13Our inability to get black players in that game was so of our able to be Americans,
03:19...that if America was a baseball model, the fact that black people allowed to be missing fields with white players
03:23said that we weren't part of any of that.
03:25When Jackie Robinson breaks into baseball, it's seven years before Brown vs. Board of Education.
03:31It's the decade before Martin Luther King comes to national prominence.
03:37It's almost two decades before significant civil rights legislation.
03:41It's hard to imagine the America, for those of us who weren't there to see it, the America into which
03:47Jackie Robinson projects himself.
03:51No wider white than Dodger white.
03:54That's true to...
03:56...that color of his skin against the color of that uniform was spin-bottling to look at.
04:02Suddenly, when you saw that, you said,
04:05...everybody I have ever seen on a major league playing field has been white.
04:11...is something like hope, a sense of pride, and if this young black man...
04:22...was the beginning of building the second half of the 20th century.
04:30...this meant not only to him, not only to the Dodgers, to my grandfather,
04:40...but his whole race.
04:45Yeah...
04:45...obviously.
04:48I got on the horn, I said,
04:50...this is all black protagonists.
04:53I said, hear this, hear this, hear this.
04:56Woke everybody up.
04:57I said, Branch Rickey just signed Jackie Robinson.
05:00...and an organized baseball contract.
05:03They hooped, they hollered, they shot the guns.
05:05We didn't sleep much that night.
05:07In early 1946, owners voted 15 to 1 against blacks playing an organized ball.
05:15Realizing he was flying solo, Rickey assigned Robinson to the...
05:26...relocated to Cuba.
05:27...with manager Leo DeRocher presiding, the great experiment had hardly got underway...
05:33...when tension from within threatened the team's...
05:45...trip to Panama.
05:47...on that first trip, I would say that the other boys, myself included...
05:59...were not enamored about sitting at the table with Jackie.
06:04Dixie Walker actually put it in writing.
06:07I'm very...
06:10...very aware of the petition because it was brought to me by a couple of ballplayers...
06:14...and I gave it back to them, I wouldn't sign it.
06:17Of course Duke Snyder wouldn't.
06:19...Leo hears from one of his coaches...
06:24...players are going to sign a petition.
06:26So it's 2 in the morning, he wakes up his coaches...
06:29...get everybody.
06:31...and Leo says, he ain't got a petition going around.
06:34She won't play with Robbins.
06:36Well, I want to tell you what you can do with your petition.
06:38You can wipe your ass with it.
06:40I would play an elephant if he had the talent...
06:44...and I would send my own brother home to make room for him.
06:48Now go back to bed and I don't want to hear another word about the petition.
06:52And Mr. Rickey called for us...
06:57...one-on-one and said,
06:58I understand that there's some objection to Jackie Robinson joining us.
07:06If he can do better than the other man we've got, he's going to play.
07:10You understand that?
07:11Yes, sir.
07:13When Robinson was...
07:16...ready for the majors one season later, rumors of player strikes...
07:23...spread like brush fires throughout the league.
07:25Dousing one such fire was a...
07:28...strongly worded telegram to the...
07:33...from Commissioner Happy Chandler.
07:35...at the time.
07:38And he heard...
07:40...three players with the St. Louis Baseball Club
07:42and decided they would...
07:45...would not get on the field with Jackie.
07:48And he said, gentlemen, he said, I understand you're not going to play today.
07:51That's right. He said, fine.
07:53If you don't play today, you will never play baseball again.
07:56Not as long as I'm president of the league.
07:58And I just signed a new seven-year contract this morning.
08:01Are you going to play?
08:02Yes, sir.
08:03We're going to play.
08:04But once play began, the Dodger rookies...
08:11...offered an unremitting torrent of racial abuse.
08:15...from the stands where you hear...
08:17...Hey, Robertson.
08:20King of the niggers.
08:21Or, hey, baboon, why don't you go back to the jungle?
08:24They threw black cats on the field.
08:26They threw watermelons on the field, you know.
08:28And, hey, boy, give me a shine.
08:31Word got around...
08:33...that he was instructed not to retaliate.
08:36I don't know of anybody that could have put up with what Jackie went through.
08:43Robinson had a crown of thorns.
08:46How would you like to go to a ballpark and be called nigger every day?
08:51They didn't just throw at Robinson to brush him back because it obviously didn't do any good.
08:55They throw it in to hurt him.
08:56If he slayed in the second base, they tried to tag him with the ball in his face.
09:02They did try to do everything to persuade him not to play baseball.
09:07But he stayed right there with them.
09:08He understood what he had to do.
09:11That's a long time to scout.
09:12And at the same time, I mean, emotionally, psychologically, that had to have ravaged him.
09:17Practicing what, for him, was uncharacteristic passivity,
09:21Robinson shared his anguish with Rachel, whom he'd married a year earlier.
09:26She was his rocker to Ralston.
09:28He said to Rachel, I wonder if it was worthwhile.
09:33And she just held him, and she says, you know, Jack?
09:40On April 22nd in Ebbets Field,
09:43when Robinson was hit with the nastiest string of racist epithets he'd ever heard.
09:48Compliments of the Phillies' Alabama bred manager, Ben Chapman.
09:52Ben made no qualms about how he felt about the blacks.
09:55He called them niggers, and that's what he called Jackie.
10:00And that's what he would say to you if you were playing with a nigger.
10:05How can you play with a nigger?
10:07Playing out of position at first base, Robinson heard every slur,
10:11every insult hurled from the stands and the visitors' dugout.
10:15The batter's box was even more hazardous.
10:17After an 0 for 20 stretch in April, rumors flew that he would soon be sent down.
10:23Jack, he said, man, this is it.
10:25I think this is the day I'm going to blow up.
10:28He said, and then suddenly Reese came over and put his arm around me and says,
10:32forget those guys, Jack.
10:35Let's play.
10:35Here's this southern boy, walks over and puts his arm on Jackie, gesturing, saying,
10:41hey, this is my teammate.
10:43I accepted him.
10:44Why don't you do the same?
10:45Finally, players like Richie Ashburn told the Phillies, hey, get off of this guy.
10:51You're making him better.
10:52And that was true.
10:54Surviving his fierce baptism of racial fire, Robinson burned brilliantly through the summer.
10:59He led the Dodgers in seven offensive categories, won Rookie of the Year, and took his teammates to the pennant.
11:06His success thundered throughout America's black and white communities, raising the bar of expectations for an entire race.
11:19Jack Roosevelt Robinson was...
11:30Ty слово is...
11:30I...
11:57Why don't you hear when they are all trenches?
11:58Oh, got that, boy.
11:58I did have the next...
11:58di surfer...
11:58Yeah, I do!
12:12January 31st, 19...
12:22...the fifth of five children, and...
12:27...when Jackie was a year old, um, his father had left the family...
12:39...and moved to Pasadena...
12:53...earned enough money to buy her own house...
12:55...she bought into this...
13:04...among what...
13:08...family there...
13:09...when the white neighbors tried to drive her out, she refused to go.
13:13So the model that Jackie had...
13:17...um, was one of pride, was one of, of strength, was one of ambition...
13:33...walked on the wild side.
13:34...the Pepper Street Gang was not a gang...
13:42...the...
13:49...the...
13:50...the...
13:52...the...
13:52...the...
13:57...the...
13:58... advice into trouble with the police...
14:03...
14:03...raiding fruit trees.
14:06...
14:07But in both instances, it had to do with Robinson refusing
14:17and talking back.
14:24Sounds like Jackie Robinson.
14:33In the reputation of a hard nose.
14:39He wasn't satisfied.
14:46Something dirty to him.
14:53Watch out, because down the line, he probably would.
15:03But he could not compete athletically with one.
15:11No one could tell him that he couldn't exist socially.
15:1939.
15:25First for UCLA.
15:50It was nothing for Jackie Robinson to play in a doubleheader at UCLA.
15:54Play the first game.
15:58Get in a car, be driven down to the Coliseum.
16:01Set the Pac-10.
16:07Long jump record.
16:08Go back out and play the second game.
16:11It's golf, you name it.
16:12He could play it.
16:16Peyton Palm, he was just an outstanding athlete.
16:21Yep.
16:24He was as great an athlete, probably, all-around athlete as we have seen in this country in this
16:31century.
16:32The first student in UCLA history to letter in four sports.
16:36Four.
16:38Robinson suddenly dropped out of school in his senior year, convinced that his...
16:47And he stayed to get a diploma.
16:59His brother, Mac, had a college degree from the university.
17:02And the U.S. was just entering the war.
17:06University of Oregon, his brother, Mac, also had been a great athlete.
17:10And he had been doing anything better than a janitor's job in Pasadena.
17:13Yeah, I don't think he ever professional had skin.
17:32Barnstorming with an all-
17:33All-
17:38Back for the Honolulu Bears in the fall of 1941.
17:41On December 4th.
17:43Waste of time.
17:47Laird would live in infamy befell Pearl Harbor.
17:54Told you.
17:55He had a-
18:03Applied uneligible.
18:05They were not allowing African Americans.
18:08But in the midst of almost-
18:11Of most certain rejection, fate smiled on Robinson when an enlist-
18:20Joe Lewis was detached to Fort Riley on temporary-
18:24Yes, sir.
18:26Joe Lewis.
18:27...very duty.
18:28Lewis was a sergeant.
18:37He was not your ordinary sergeant.
18:39And Robinson sought out Lewis.
18:46To see if there was anything he might do to make sure that they set up a class of-
18:59Officers.
19:00Jackie was on the drill field in the last phases of officer candidate training.
19:08A senior officer referred to a black-
19:17Snead officer identified Alshel in the last two months ago.
19:17Let her register.
19:23I've seen y'all in his place.
19:26In the胡好wain.
19:31R-
21:07That's impressive.
21:09That was his weakest sport and he was still great.
21:14...international league batting title with a .349 average and led the Royals to victory in the Junior World Series.
21:21Meanwhile, his manager regarded him as a curiosity.
21:25He played for a manager from Mississippi, Clay Hopper. Robinson had made some sort of incredible base running play and
21:32Rickey said, that was just the greatest thing I've ever seen a human being do. And Hopper said, Mr. Rickey,
21:38do you really believe they're human?
21:41Oh!
21:42With his momentous arrival in the majors in 1947...
21:45If I was Prince Rickey, he would have been gone. And I hope he was gone.
21:49Robinson not only proved the Clay Hoppers to be wrongheaded primitives, he brought tens of thousands of enthusiastic African Americans
21:58through the turnstiles of every park in the National League.
22:01He would come to city after city and the clergy in that city and the African American newspaper in that
22:07city would say, Jackie Robinson is coming, go to the ballpark and behave very well and dress properly.
22:13And they wanted to make sure that African Americans who went out to see this exemplar on the field were
22:19exemplars in the stands.
22:21The outcome basically was that the Negro Leagues were destroyed. The Negro Leagues provide work for black businesses, for secretaries,
22:30for black newspapers who do the advertising.
22:33And if you think those jobs, once we integrate, are going to go to black people, you're nuts.
22:38At one point, a white writer asked me, didn't I realize that a lot of colored people were losing their
22:46jobs?
22:47And I told him that Abraham Lincoln was equally responsible, perhaps, because he put 400,000 black colored people out
22:55of jobs.
22:56That was the price of integration.
23:01Robinson was playing first base in a game in St. Louis, and the slaughter stepped on his ankle, running down
23:06the first delivery.
23:07Off the base, on and off the base, whoop, there it's gone.
23:11Drew a little blood, stood on first base, spit out tobacco, just looked him in the eye, Robinson didn't say
23:17anything. Nothing.
23:20Two years later, they're in Brooklyn. Slaughter hits a shot off the right field wall, Robinson's playing second.
23:26The throw comes in second. Robinson Tang slaughtered full in the mouth, knocking teeth out, drawing blood.
23:33And said to him, I never forget.
23:37In 1949, after two lip-biting Major League seasons, a hidden side of Robinson began to emerge in all its
23:44manhood.
23:45After two years, Mr. Rickey took the gag off, and it just burst out of Jackie.
23:51From then on, he was a guy who could vet his anger, and he had quite a lot of feuds
23:57with different people, especially with the Giants.
23:59Sal Magney was a great pitch for the Giants. He'd either hit or he'd throw very close to Jackie.
24:05There was something between them, evidently.
24:07Because one time, Jackie bunted towards first base, and he was hoping that Sal would come over.
24:11Well, as it turned out, Davey Williams caught the ball from Sal, stepped into the basin, and Jackie just ran
24:17right over him.
24:18Davey was never the same.
24:20Robinson was not a pacifist. He had a temper and an amazing vocabulary of four-letter words.
24:29They called him Ty Cobb in Technicolor. He was very aggressive. He didn't do anything. If he got in his
24:36way, he'd knock you down.
24:37Him and Cobb were born in Georgia.
24:40This is the same thing to Jackie. And Jackie says, let's go right under the stands and let's meet.
24:45And guys said, okay, and they take two steps, and they change their mind and come back.
24:50Hard as he was on the opposition, Robinson did not spare his own teammates from his wrath.
24:57If he thought I wasn't putting out, or I was down a little bit, he'd come in and chew me
25:02out, or he'd look at me from second base and say, hey, let's go. Cut out the crap. Let's go.
25:09But his toughness, intelligence, and courage were only three of his many parts.
25:14A fourth changed the majors almost as much as the color of his skin. Jackie Robinson was showtime.
25:21Jackie Robinson brought to the major leagues the style of the Negro Leagues. Dancing around, taunting pitchers, making them commit
25:29balls, making them, you know, throw the ball out of the strike zone.
25:32Not even Ty Cobb, I don't think played them.
25:34Distraction, in a good way. The pitcher knows in the back of their head, literally, like right behind them is
25:42Jackie Robinson looking to steal a base.
25:44So they can't fully put their full mind on getting the guy out that's up at bat.
25:53And then Jackie runs on them anyway.
26:00Behind games that Jackie play with people, we never saw a player who could get on first base and turn
26:06the whole game around by jumping up and down, getting a pitcher to throw over.
26:09Ball is down the right field, corner in Ebbets Field, he goes to third base, then he steals home.
26:14He's the only player in my entire career that in a clubhouse meeting, we followed around each base.
26:20They'd say, now if he gets on first, hold him close, don't let him get a walking lead because he
26:24can steal it.
26:26Get on second, you got to watch him there because he gets a bigger lead off second and does off
26:30first, he'll steal third.
26:31And if he gets on third, look out now, he can steal home.
26:34There's a picture down in Vero Beach in Dodgy Town of Jackie in a rundown.
26:39And there's seven Philadelphia Philly players between home plate and just in back of third base.
26:47Seven of him and Jackie in a rundown.
26:50And Jackie ended up scoring a run.
26:52He was safe.
26:551949 was Robinson's finest season.
26:58He won the MVP with a .342 average and led the Dodgers to their second pennant in three years.
27:05At 30, he was universally regarded not only as the first black in the majors, but as a great player.
27:12When you consider that the man played in the four World Series, one at first base, one at second base,
27:21one at third base and one in left field, you have to know immediately what kind of ability he had.
27:31Averaging .323 between 1950 through 1954, Robinson led the talent-laden Dodgers against the Yankees in two more World Series,
27:40losing both.
27:41But in 1955, they were bums no more.
27:47That's one in five, but they got that one.
27:49Beating New York in seven games for the first World Championship in franchise history.
27:54I happen to be...
27:56The picture's pretty nightmare fuel-ish, so I'd like them to refrain from doing that.
28:02In the borough of Brooklyn, on that afternoon, it was just a wonderful moment to be riding the subway back
28:08in toward Manhattan
28:09and hearing the bells going off all over Brooklyn.
28:12Although Robinson's average had plummeted to 256 during the season, he set the tone for victory with his 19th career
28:20theft of home in game one of the World Series.
28:24Worn by hustle, drained by the cruel demands of history, Robinson, at 37, was on his last legs in 1956.
28:33In his sixth World Series in ten seasons, Robinson's battle against time was underscored in Don Larson's perfect game.
28:42Jackie Robinson led off the second inning at a line drive to Andy Carey and the ball rolled to McDougal,
28:47who was coming over that way, and threw Jackie out, boom, boom.
28:51To hear before that, he might have beaten him out.
28:53What the Dodgers decided to do was trade him to the Giants, sold him for $30,000 on a routine
29:01pitcher named Dick Littlefield.
29:03What a way to treat Jackie Robinson.
29:06This icon, this integrator, this pioneer, to sell him like an old shoe.
29:13He said, no, I'm not going to the Giants. I'm a Dodger. I'm blue.
29:19So he quit.
29:22Between 1947 and 1956, seven rookies of the year and six MVPs were bestowed on black players in the National
29:30League.
29:31But such dominance at the top was not reflected throughout the Major League rosters.
29:36In Robinson's last season, 51 non-whites were sprinkled over 16 teams.
29:42Race relations in the Major Leagues had not improved all that much.
29:46A black player still had to be better than average.
29:50Blacks were never reserves.
29:53You either started or you're in the minors.
29:55The bench was white.
29:57Most of the black ballplayers who followed Jackie were scared to death to say anything whenever anything was going on.
30:06You weren't going to get any complaints out of Willie Mays.
30:09Campanella, like Willie Mays, and like others at that time, were living in the world that they lived in.
30:17Not in the world that was going to be made different.
30:20There was friction between Campanella and Robinson.
30:24Robinson always felt Campy wasn't militant enough.
30:28Jack used to say, well, people think I should be friends with Roy because we're both colored using the word
30:33they used on it.
30:34He said, but that's not how I make my friends.
30:37One year, we were just talking.
30:39He said, you know, there's a little Uncle Tom in Campy.
30:42But whatever their differences, Robinson and Campanella still faced a common enemy.
30:48The black players couldn't stay with the white players at the Chase Hotel here in San Luis.
30:55And finally that changed and they invited the players to stay there with the rest of the team.
31:01Well, all of the players, I'm talking about Joe Black and Don Newcomb and Campanella said,
31:05OK, now that we can get in, we don't want to stay there with one exception.
31:10Robinson checked in the hotel.
31:11They told him not to go in the swimming pool in about five minutes.
31:15Robinson was in the swimming pool.
31:17Jackie was the 60s before they were the 60s because he brought a militant attitude to the Dodger clubhouse.
31:24He became the most intense personality in the clubhouse, an angry, if you will, black man who annoyed even his
31:32other black players.
31:35He was politically active. Equipped with strongly held views about the course that black America should take,
31:41he seldom flinched from criticizing those with whom he disagreed.
31:46One such case involved a rebuke of famed actor and activist Paul Robeson in 1949
31:52before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
31:54I've been asked to express my views on Paul Robeson's statements in Paris
31:58to the effect that American Negroes would refuse to fight in any war against Russia because we love Russia so
32:06much.
32:06I'll never forget a day when he had lunch with Eleanor Roosevelt at the United Nations during the day,
32:13and in the evening he stole two bases of Sal Magley.
32:17I don't know too many ballplayers who have had a day like that.
32:20Even in retirement, Robeson remained one of America's most prominent black men.
32:25He was vice president of a national restaurant chain, founded a bank in Harlem,
32:30and campaigned for political causes he believed in.
32:33And I say to you that there is not one Negro, not one that I know in this country,
32:38that hasn't made until the most underprivileged Negro in St. Augustine, Florida hasn't made.
32:44He was never afraid to speak out.
32:46He had a regular column for a long time in the New York Post and the Amsterdam News
32:51in which he was able to make his views on civil rights known.
32:55When I called Robinson in the mid-60s, one of the first questions he asked me was,
33:02just out of curiosity, how many blacks or Negroes are on your staff?
33:08And that wouldn't have been hard for me to answer because we had none,
33:11and Robinson's answer was hot. I thought so.
33:15I don't like to see young Negro kids of seven, eight, nine years old
33:18being thrown across the street by the force of a fire hose.
33:22They took that prestige and placed its...
33:25Look at all the water they wasted on black people that could have been used for fires.
33:31...squarely at the disposal of the civil rights movement.
33:34He was very eager to join the fray.
33:37Jackie would make tours across the South
33:41and make free speeches at banquets for the NAACP and other civil rights organizations.
33:47It was not the popular thing to do, but he did it.
33:50And he did it at great risk.
33:52He was almost apologizing for not being able to take one step further
33:56and be actually, you know, face-to-face with the batons
33:59and the snarling dogs and the fire hoses and so on.
34:02That's what, I think, above all he wanted to do.
34:05There had been some church burnings and little kids killed.
34:08And boy, he looked at me with fire in his eyes.
34:10He says, how long do you think we're gonna take this before we react?
34:15He played politics the way he...
34:18I don't know if it was the Montgomery Four or the Little Rock Four.
34:22...stole bases with elements of daring and surprise.
34:26Neither party was sure when, how, or for whom he would campaign.
34:31Jackie Robinson was a political free agent.
34:34And he knew the value of being uncommitted.
34:38Committed to justice, committed to a certain political agenda,
34:41but not to be taken for granted by one party or another.
34:43He felt that if all blacks simply voted for the Democrats,
34:48the Democrats would be able to take them for granted.
34:50And so he felt they needed a strong presence in the Republican Party.
34:53You'll hear the same thing somebody like J.C. wants today.
34:56I said, but Jack, there are lots of issues.
35:00He said, there...
35:02What was Birmingham four?
35:04I know because my grandma's from Alabama.
35:09Birmingham four.
35:10Pressure groups working for all of them.
35:13I am a one-man pressure group for civil rights.
35:16Nixon had really courted Jackie Robinson for many years.
35:20There's a whole series of letters that Nixon wrote to him in the late 50s.
35:24Nixon, being a shrewd politician,
35:26recognized that having Jackie Robinson on his side
35:30would help to win some of those black votes,
35:32which almost always went to the Democrats.
35:35He was appalled when Kennedy freely admitted
35:38that he really knew nothing about blacks.
35:41He would try to sort of work up a knowledge,
35:43but he didn't know blacks.
35:45Chester Bowles, a prominent Democrat,
35:48had arranged in Connecticut an evening
35:51with Jackie Robinson and John Kennedy.
35:53He said, Mr. Robinson,
35:58being from New England, I haven't known many Negroes.
36:03Jack said, I thought, being in Congress
36:06for as long as that fellow was in Congress,
36:08he should have made it his business to know Negroes.
36:11He felt that Kennedy wouldn't look at him in the eye,
36:13that Kennedy was evasive.
36:15In the fall of 1960,
36:17when Martin Luther King was arrested during a sit-in in Atlanta,
36:21it became clear to both parties
36:23that the candidate with the stronger stance on civil rights
36:26would win the November election.
36:28He said, I talked with Nixon's people,
36:32or he may have said, I talked to Nixon.
36:33I told them they needed to make some response.
36:36He said, I pleaded with them,
36:37and they never said a word.
36:39Nixon's other advisers said, no,
36:43don't do that.
36:44You'll alienate white voters.
36:45And Nixon listened to them.
36:48It took John Kennedy picking up the phone,
36:51calling Coretta when Martin Luther King was arrested,
36:54to give a wake-up call.
36:57That was one telephone call,
36:59probably swung that election.
37:01And any of us who were not personally involved with Nixon
37:07immediately swung to Kennedy.
37:10Jackie happened to have been personally involved.
37:13Kennedy's gesture toward the black population at the 11th hour
37:16won the day on November 8th,
37:19and Robinson's image as social pioneer was discarded,
37:22like so much unused GOP confetti.
37:25Jackie went from finding himself a decade before a symbol of social progress
37:31to seeing himself called an Uncle Tom reviled
37:36by people who I think he had helped to, in a way, set free.
37:40And that hurt him tremendously.
37:43Concerned that the tide of social reform could swing either way in the early 1960s,
37:48Robinson peppered the JFK administration with warnings
37:51that a new radical generation of civil rights leaders
37:55was bent on racial progress by any means necessary.
37:59Today we're telling them, clear in their mind,
38:02if you touch us with your hands, we're going to break your arms.
38:09So here comes the black Muslim movement,
38:14which says that whites are blue-eyed doubles
38:17and is pushing a gu...
38:20Yeah.
38:21What is a Muslim?
38:23I know Muslims, but what is a Muslim?
38:27I don't know what that is.
38:30...or anti-Semitism. Robinson was appalled, but simply appalled.
38:35He was the only one that I know who criticized Malcolm X
38:40and took him on within his own world.
38:43He said that Malcolm's vigilante,
38:46don't tread on me, posture was funny.
38:49You've never been on the front lines.
38:51I know how tough that is.
38:53I have gone down to Birmingham, I've gone down to Selma,
38:56and I've seen a courage there that you don't have.
39:05Beyond the frustrations of his public life,
39:07Robinson was anguished by what was happening to his oldest son,
39:11Jackie Jr.
39:12His father was a walking god,
39:19and Jackie Jr. was not that kind of person.
39:23I mean, he was a guy who nearly had to find his own way
39:26and his own identity.
39:27At some point, he stopped trying,
39:29and then he goes off to Vietnam,
39:31has people, friends killed all around him,
39:36turns to drugs,
39:37and it's a familiar story in some ways.
39:40A news reporter called his office and told him,
39:42your son's just been arrested on drug charges.
39:45We all met as a family.
39:46We went to the jail as a family.
39:48We checked on Jackie first,
39:50and then my father went up and dealt with the press.
39:53My dad said, you know, I'm responsible.
39:56I take personal responsibility for this because I couldn't get to my child.
39:59Look, it happened in my home.
40:00It could happen in your homes.
40:01There was a real recovery program that he entered,
40:06and he began to turn his life around.
40:08And then, the irony of ironies, he died in a car crash.
40:13He just agonized.
40:15He said, Carl, all the kids I've talked to,
40:18he said, all the places I've been,
40:19he said, maybe I didn't spend enough time with my own son.
40:25It was very, very moving and touching service.
40:30We went out on the street, and Jack was talking to young people
40:34on Green Avenue in Brooklyn, telling them about drugs,
40:37telling them about the hell that heroin would take them to.
40:41He'd come in there weeping with grief at his son,
40:43and he came out helping the young people.
40:46Hemingway says courage is grace under pressure.
40:48There was grace under pressure.
40:50His spirit broken, Robinson's physical condition worsened
40:54after his son's death in 1971.
40:57He was losing an extended battle with diabetes.
41:01And he lost his close teammate, Gil Hodges,
41:09suddenly of a heart attack.
41:12He could hardly see.
41:16In fact, I asked him to sign something for me,
41:20and it was upside down.
41:21And he was signing it upside down.
41:23I had to turn it around.
41:25There was one day when I no longer could deny, you know,
41:29that my father was getting sicker.
41:31You know, he walked slower, and he had to limp,
41:34and he was going blind.
41:36Stay down in the corner of 7th Avenue and 52nd Street.
41:39I heard a voice that I recognized.
41:41And, uh, listen, I don't mean any harm,
41:44but just let me hold your shoulder.
41:47I don't see so well.
41:48I just would like to help to get across the street.
41:51And it was Jackie Robinson.
41:53He was a guy who, in his 40s, looked like he was 70.
41:57With his life draining out of him,
42:00Robinson doggedly waged the war where he started 25 years earlier.
42:04When asked to attend the 1972 World Series,
42:08he refused, citing as his reason
42:10the absence of a single black manager in the major leagues.
42:14I said, supposing I told you that I'm working very hard on that right now,
42:18and I promise you I'll get it done, just a matter of time.
42:21I will get it done.
42:22Would that make any difference?
42:24And he said, I'll think about it.
42:27So I think he called me the next day or two, and he said...
42:30Look, I think he's just saving face.
42:33He couldn't have gone to the World Series
42:36because he wouldn't have seen what was going on anyway.
42:41Yeah, I'll do it because of that promise.
42:44Jackie didn't like promises.
42:46He said to me, don't put me in my grave
42:51promising that my son will have equality.
42:55You give me equality so that I know he'll have equality.
42:59He was critical of baseball.
43:01He always had this intensity like, if I'm going to get this done,
43:07I only got one lifetime.
43:08I mean, I got to get it done.
43:10It's never finished.
43:11It's never finished.
43:12We're not there yet.
43:23I'm really proud and pleased to be here this afternoon.
43:27But must admit, I'm going to be tremendously more pleased and more proud
43:32when I look at that third base coaching line one day
43:35and see a black face managing in baseball.
43:37Thank you very much.
43:38That was Robinson.
43:41He spoke...
43:42See this.
43:44Two days after this series ended, he was gone from us.
43:48His mind, he stood up and said what he wanted to say,
43:51and over that he exited the stage.
43:57Jackie Robinson died today.
43:59He was 53 years old and he died of what appears to have been a heart attack
44:03at his home in Stanford, Connecticut.
44:07I remember saying that he got hit the gun first.
44:10He stole second.
44:12He stole third.
44:13And in the end, against all these odds,
44:16everybody suspected he might steal home.
44:19And he made a dash for home plate.
44:22And Jackie won.
44:23And when Jackie won, all of us won.
44:26And one of the Dodger people about 20 minutes later said to me,
44:31there was a great eulogy.
44:33But he didn't steal home.
44:35He didn't want to die.
44:38He's up there right now.
44:40And he's torn off his cap.
44:42And he's saying, I was only 53 years old.
44:46That's one lousy call.
44:48Even today, when I think of Jackie, you know,
44:51I'm still visualizing him.
44:53I still hear his voice.
44:54I see him dancing off first base, driving pitches crazy.
44:58I see him coming down the line at third base.
45:00I see him hitting with his hands held high and the bat straight in the end.
45:03I still can visualize Jackie.
45:05He was a tough character.
45:07And he was complicated.
45:09And he died early because the pressure and stress destroyed his body.
45:15But he was a great man who died for our sins.
45:24Mr. President and President, Mrs. Robinson, ladies and gentlemen.
45:29Throughout its long history, Major League Baseball has operated under the premise that no single person is bigger than the
45:38game.
45:39In honor of Jackie, Major League Baseball is taking the unprecedented step of retiring his uniform number, number 42, in
45:51perpetuity.
45:53Number 42, from this day forward, will never again be issued by a Major League club.
46:11Whatever success I've had in professional baseball is simply because Jackie Robinson paved the way for me to get where
46:18I am today.
46:19There's no way that I could have put up with Jackie Robinson and put up with it.
46:22Brad Tricky asked Jackie Robinson not to fight back and not to talk or say anything for two years.
46:28He just had to accept it.
46:30If someone told me to do that today or five years ago, no way I could have done that.
46:37I was summoned once by Walter O'Malley to meet a guest in the box.
46:43And the guest was a California politician who was out of work.
46:47And he was staring at the game and staring at the game.
46:51And this man knew some baseball.
46:52And I could see that his focus was Jackie Robinson.
46:56And that he was having his eyes open and his mind opened by the presence of number 42, the black
47:02man on the field.
47:04And that man's name was Earl Warren.
47:07He would be the chief justice and the architect of the integration of schools.
47:13There's no doubt that the most important African American in our history was Martin Luther King.
47:19There is, I think, similarly no doubt that the second most important and not second by much was Jackie Robinson.
47:30Jack Robinson's impact was greater than just that of baseball.
47:34He was a transforming agent.
47:37And in the face of such hostility and such meanness and violence, he did it with such amazing dignity.
47:46He had to set the course for the country.
47:48Were there better baseball players than Jackie Robinson?
47:51Yeah.
47:52Were there more important baseball players than Jackie Robinson?
47:56Who?
48:03Since Jackie first stepped across that line at Ebbets Field, the Robinson effect has carried well beyond sports.
48:10Without Jackie, would we have had Martin Luther King?
48:14Or would a bronze kid named Colin Powell have been named Secretary of State?
48:19The revolution continues.
48:21For SportsCentury, I'm Chris Fowler.
48:24Moreover, I wanna stop having the best baseball players for groups.
48:30Democrats are at beingWorld sonra.
48:30Chris Denis Delia is a part of the fraudulent ninja.
48:32And here's the last Podcast in which she faced a bit of lasted before.
48:32котором they went up at Wace for an important tasks to connect their lives out by an 임z IV.
48:34And that first thing happened last year's main event by the eyes of the appeal of George Polish,
48:34You
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