On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson put on his first Brooklyn Dodgers uniform (number 42) and broke the Major League Baseball “color line”. Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey signed a contract with Robinson to play for the team on October 23, 1945. Robinson then spent a year on a minor league team to sharpen his skills. Rickey, who called the move baseball’s “great experiment,” chose Robinson because of his excellent athletic record and strength of character. The first player to “cross the color line” would have to be able to withstand intense public scrutiny and avoid confrontation even when met with insults and hostility.
Robinson was a well-rounded athlete, having competed in college baseball, football, basketball, and track. He had served in the Army and was active in the Civil Rights Movement. Robinson was a professional player for the Kansas City Monarchs, an all-Black team in the Negro American League.
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America is…more interested in the grace of a man’s swing, in the dexterity of his cutting a base, and his speed afoot, in his scientific body control, in his excellence as a competitor on the field…than they are in the pigmentation of a man’s skin…
Speech by Branch Rickey for the “One Hundred Percent Wrong Club” Banquet, Atlanta, Georgia, January 20, 1956. Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson, articles from By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s. Manuscript Division
Not only was Robinson able to quell opposition to his presence on the field, but he quickly won the respect and enthusiasm of the fans. He finished his first season batting .297 and led the National League in stolen bases with 29, earning baseball’s first Rookie of the Year Award. Two years later in 1949 he won the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award, leading the league with a .342 batting average and 37 stolen bases.
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Off the field, Robinson was the subject of everything from songs to a feature-length film about his life. He even starred as himself in the movie, “The Jackie Robinson Story.” Released in 1950, it was one of the first films to portray a Black man as an American hero.
In 1955, after getting close several times, Robinson finally played on a world-champion team when the Dodgers beat the Yankees in the World Series. He retired from baseball after the 1956 season with a lifetime batting average of .311 and the distinction of having stolen home an incredible 19 times. A legend even in his day, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, his first year of eligibility.
Photographed from one camera position behind home plate, the film shows a baseball game in progress. The action includes two players running toward the camera; one uniform is distinguishable as Newark, New Jersey.
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