Opening Day
Page 34
ALSO BY JONATHAN EIG
Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
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NOTES
I can’t imagine what Jackie Robinson went through in 1947. By the time of my birth in Brooklyn, the Dodgers were in L.A., Ebbets Field had been replaced by a public housing project, and Robinson was a blurry image in my father’s home movies. That’s one good reason why I have tried in these pages not to imagine what Robinson went through in 1947. I have worked at every turn to present verifiable facts. Nothing here is imagined or invented. No dialogue has been re-created for dramatic effect. The facts speak for themselves, and I think they speak much more powerfully than the myths that have come to cloud Robinson’s story. This book relies on primary materials: interviews, newspaper articles, oral histories, and, for a few games, movie reel footage. I have tried whenever possible to confirm details with multiple sources. When conflicts arose, I tended to put my trust in reports written or recorded in and around 1947, before most of the mythmaking began. Robinson’s first autobiography, for example, published immediately after his rookie season, strikes me as more reliable than his later published accounts. As I researched this book, I was fortunate to have access to several private scrapbooks, including the one belonging to Rachel Robinson. As a result, some of the articles cited in the notes below lack headlines, while others lack dates, and one or two come from unnamed newspapers. I was also fortunate to find transcripts of unpublished interviews conducted by the writers Jerome Holtzman, Carl Rowan, and Jules Tygiel. Their contributions are cited in the notes below. All other interviews are my own.
PROLOGUE
deep sleep: Jackie Robinson and Wendell Smith, Jackie Robinson: My Own Story (New York: Greenberg, 1948), 123.
room 1169: “Debut ‘Just Another Game’ to Jackie,” Sporting News, April 23, 1947.
stomach in knots: “Dodgers Buy Jackie Robinson; ‘You Can Win Pennant’—Durocher,” New York Post, April 10, 1947.
Come to Brooklyn: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 123.
“I’m sorry, but”: “Negro’s Jailer Warned Too Late to Stop Mob,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 24, 1947.
One prominent black journalist: “Looking ’Em Over,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 11, 1946.
felt the weight on his shoulders: Sam Lacy story with no headline, Baltimore Afro-American, November 3, 1945.
A cold wind: Weather reports, New York Times, Brooklyn Eagle, New York Post, April 11, 1947.
“Simple, wasn’t it?”: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 124.
rough Italian kids: David Halberstam, Summer of ’49 (New York: Avon Books, 1990), 248.
“I want a ballplayer with guts”: Carl Rowan and Jackie Robinson, Wait Till Next Year (New York: Random House, 1960), 117.
second most famous: “Jackie Robinson Is Second Most Popular American in Air Poll,” Chicago Defender, November 22, 1947.
Black parents named: Letters to Robinson, Library of Congress.
White kids from small towns: Interviews with John Miley, Tot Holmes.
Passover Seders: Interview with Henry Foner.
White business owners: Letter from George Marchev to Rachel Robinson, Library of Congress.
CHAPTER ONE: JACK ROOSEVELT ROBINSON
could neither read nor write: Arnold Rampersad, Jackie Robinson (New York: Random House, 1997), 11.
“You’re about the sassiest”: Carl Rowan notes from interview with Mallie Robinson, Library of Congress.
“I always lived so close to God”: Ibid.
“If you want to get closer to heaven”: Ibid.
brighter and more beautiful: Ibid.
“She was hands caressing us”: Jackie Robinson, Baseball Has Done It (Brooklyn: Ig Publishing, 2005), 41.
One exasperated Pepper Street homeowner: Rowan notes from interview with Mallie Robinson, Library of Congress.
“Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!”: Ibid.
Jack never forgave: Ibid.
magical things happened: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 8.
“If I was good enough, I played”: “Jackie Robinson Says,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 5, 1947.
Mack wore his Olympic jacket: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 31.
He remained Jack: “Wilson Captures Prep Title With 27 1–2 Points,” Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1936.
influence of the Reverend Karl Downs: Jackie Robinson with Alfred Duckett, I Never Had It Made (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1995), 7.
“All Jackie did at Pasadena”: “Jackie Robinson Big Threat on U.C.L.A. Football Eleven,” Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1939.
“I was aggressive”: Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 9.
“The Gold Dust Trio”: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 68.
“steely hard eyes”: Ibid., 71.
neither drank nor smoked: Interview with Rachel Robinson.
the fashion choice as a token: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 78.
she preferred to call him Jack: Interview with Rachel Robinson.
blue suit, the only one he owned: Ibid.
disappointing peck on the cheek: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 80.
“sitting next to a nigger”: Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 14.
The provost marshal hung up: Transcript of Rowan interview of Robinson, Library of Congress.
“What did you say you were going to do?”: Ibid.
“I didn’t even stop talking”: Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 18.
“I put my finger”: Ibid., 19.
“Captain, tell me”: Ibid., 20.
“I looked it up”: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 108.
“He liked to play around the basket”: “Jackie Robinson, College Basketball Coach,” Austin American-Statesman, April 15, 1997.
four hundred dollars a month: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 113.
“pretty miserable way to make a buck”: Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 23.
“We . . . pulled up”: Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 63.
Robinson ordered the driver: Interview with Buck O’Neil.
“nip frosting off a cake”: Leroy “Satchel” Paige, as told to David Lipman, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 41.
“I use my single windup”: David Sterry and Arielle Eckstut, Satchel Sez: The Wit, Wisdom, and World of Leroy “Satchel” Paige (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001), 22.
“You keep on blowing off”: Neil Lanctot, Negro League Baseball (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2004), 242.
In those fourteen outings: Lawrence D. Hogan, Shades of Glory (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2006), 381.
“I never expected the walls”: Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 24.
CHAPTER TWO: “SOME GOOD COLORED PLAYERS”
Fay Young sensed it: “We Won’t Stand for Any Bunk,” Chicago Defender, September 1, 1945.
“Just rumors”: Ibid.
they warned Rickey: Robinson, Baseball Has Done It, 52.
“First, to win a pennant”: Ibid.
“the most liberal city in America”: Martha Biondi, To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 45.
“If baseball belonged to all the people”: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 58.
“There is no good reason”: Ibid.
“I know Southern ballplayers”: Ibid., 63.
“It’s too bad those colored boys”: Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 33.
asked Dodson for his help: Ibid., 57.
Dodson, thoroughly charmed: Dan Dodson, “The Integration of Negroes in Baseball,” Journal
of Educational Sociology, vol. 28, no. 2, October 1954, 73–82.
“Things worthwhile generally”: Branch Rickey, Branch Rickey’s Little Blue Book (New York: Macmillan, 1995), 11.
The other epigram: “When All Heaven Rejoiced: Branch Rickey and the Origins of the Breaking of the Color Line,” Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Fall 2002.
“massive, benign, and bucolic”: “Thoughts on Baseball,” New Yorker, May 27, 1950.
“Who wants to sleep anyhow?”: “Man of Empire,” Newsweek, August 8, 1949.
summoned his secretary to join him: Jules Tygiel notes from interview with Red Smith, Baseball Hall of Fame archives.
“Dear Ones at Home”: Rickey letter, Library of Congress.
“the finest man ever brought to the game”: “Wesley Branch Rickey,” New York Post, November 16, 1965.
“A man of many facets”: Ibid.
the careful notes he made: Rickey Papers, Library of Congress.
“not a single Negro player”: “Negro Player Issue Heads for Showdown,” Sporting News, November 1, 1945.
“He stared and stared”: Donald Honig, Baseball When the Grass Was Real (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 189.
interrupted more than once: Notes from Christopher Renino interview with Clyde Sukeforth.
“What will you do?”: Rickey, Branch Rickey’s Little Blue Book, 82.
hands were clenched: “The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Met,” Readers Digest, October 1961.
asked to return a questionnaire: Sotheby’s catalogue, The Barry Halper Collection of Baseball Memorabilia, 1999, 33.
“If I had not been so black”: Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 12.
no written rule: Ibid., 30.
“He is not now major league stuff”: “Negro Player Issue Heads for Showdown,” Sporting News, November 1, 1945.
a shoebox full of fried chicken: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 136.
his best blue suit: Interview with Rachel Robinson.
“certificate of respectability”: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 136.
a defining moment of their lives: Interview with Rachel Robinson.
embarrassed to be toting the food: Rachel Robinson, Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996), 46.
The Robinsons and a Mexican man: “I Live With a Hero,” McCalls, January 1951.
a big suitcase wrapped with heavy cord: Interview with Rachel Robinson and photographs.
The family offered: “I Live With a Hero,” McCalls, January 1951.
Rachel couldn’t sleep: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 138.
“WE WASH WHITE FOLKS’ CLOTHES ONLY”: Rowan and Robinson, Wait Till Next Year, 135.
“hot feeling close to sickness”: Ibid.
“My man had become”: Rachel Robinson, Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait, 48.
Some two hundred baseball players: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 67.
nothing but his shoes and glove: Ibid., 66.
“Duck!”: Ibid., 68.
Robinson found himself wishing: Ibid., 72.
“Suddenly I hated everybody”: Ibid.
consulted some of his lieutenants: Interview with Buzzie Bavasi.
“Those who had no prejudices”: “This is My Story,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 22, 1947.
One wag, Sam Maltin: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 109.
leaped into the car of a stranger: Ibid.
CHAPTER THREE: THE UPRISING
spoke openly of his belief: Interview with Bobby Bragan.
They had their own dialects and customs: Halberstam, Summer of ’49, 248.
twenty dollars per player per day: “Dodgers Win, Head for States,” Daily Mirror, April 7, 1947.
“near the slum district”: Photograph caption, Chicago Defender, March 15, 1947.
with whom Robinson roomed: “From A to Z,” New Jersey Afro-American, March 22, 1947.
only a cockroach could love: Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 166.
Campanella decided not to complain: Roy Campanella, It’s Good to Be Alive (New York: Signet, 1974), 127.
some doubt crept in: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 118.
“Jimcro” food: “Stomach Ailment Benches Jackie; Victim of Havana Housing Jimcro,” People’s Voice, April 5, 1947; “Havana Diet Slows Robinson,” New York Post, March 27, 1947.
“For what it’s worth”: “Robinson’s Status Puzzles Scribes,” Los Angeles Times, March 6, 1947.
Arroz con pollo: “From A to Z,” New Jersey Afro-American, March 22, 1947.
he was beginning to wonder: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson: My Own Story, 121.
First base is a busy place: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 119.
“I was a disgruntled ballplayer”: Ibid.
Howie Schultz, one: Interview with Howie Schultz.
“You couldn’t possibly dislike him”: Ibid.
probably had colitis: “Durocher Tests Robinson Again as Dodgers Beat Montreal, 7–0,” Herald Tribune, March 30, 1947.
“the experience is a nerve-wracking one”: “Jackie Reveals Reactions to Living in Baseball Showcase,” New Jersey Afro-American, March 15, 1947.
“I wouldn’t want to feel”: “Robinson Refuses to Join Dodgers if Resentment Exists,” Sporting News, April 2, 1947.
“Stick it in his fucking ear!”: Joshua Prager, The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World (New York: Pantheon, 2006), 11.
“He can’t hit”: Rickey, Branch Rickey’s Little Blue Book, 52.
a bit of a loner: Tygiel interview with Johnny Jorgensen, Baseball Hall of Fame archives.
taken a Dale Carnegie course: “The Artful Dodger,” article from unnamed publication, Baseball Hall of Fame archives.
Higbe always maintained: Kirby Higbe, The High Hard One (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 103.
he could relate to Walker’s feelings: Tygiel interview with Pee Wee Reese, Baseball Hall of Fame archives.
assumed Robinson wouldn’t last: Ibid.
“Dixie Walker was my roommate”: Interview with Bobby Bragan.
Bragan liked the nickname: Ibid.
“We just grew up segregated”: Ibid.
“Back then,” he recalled: Higbe, The High Hard One, 3.
“The Bottoms was a colored neighborhood”: Ibid., 10–11.
“Throwing rocks at Negroes”: Ibid., 11.
Durocher wore a yellow bathrobe: Harold Parrott, The Lords of Baseball (Atlanta: Long Street Press, 2001), 260.
“I don’t care if a guy is yellow or black”: Ibid.
recalled the advice of Dan Dodson: “The Integration of Negroes in Baseball,” Journal Educational Sociology, October 1954.
He also said Robinson was quiet: Tygiel interview with Higbe, Baseball Hall of Fame archives.
“an acute attack of indigestion”: “Dodgers Vanquish Browns, 3–1, Higbe Winning in Short Stint,” Herald Tribune, March 24, 1947.
“Recently the thought”: Letter from Dixie Walker to Rickey, Library of Congress.
insisted he had never seen a petition: “52 years on the road,” Birmingham Post, April 1, 1982.
“I didn’t know if they would spit”: “Dixie Walker Remembers,” New York Times, December 10, 1981.
Dixie Walker Hardware: Interviews and emails with Geri Worley and Kay Huey; photographs from Hueytown, Alabama.
sensed that Walker was under great stress: Arthur Mann, The Jackie Robinson Story (New York: F.J. Low Co., 1950), 97.
include the young slugger Ralph Kiner: Ibid.
put him out of action: William Marshall, Baseball’s Pivotal Era, 1945–1951 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 114.
“The Brooklyn Dodgers today”: “Jackie Robinson Becomes Dodger,” Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1947.
CHAPTER FOUR: OPENING DAY
The room was a mess: Interview with
Rachel Robinson.
“Just in case you have trouble”: Rowan and Robinson, Wait Till Next Year, 179.
He took the subway to work: Interview with Rachel Robinson and photographs.
“the first colored boy”: “Dodgers Play Braves, Eye Cards,” New York Post, April 15, 1947.
Robinson grinned but didn’t say anything: “Looking ’Em Over,” Richmond Afro-American, April 19, 1947.
He decided not to call a special meeting: Ibid.
Robinson was relieved: Ibid.
“It fit me”: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 126–27.
“This is my first ballgame”: “The Powerhouse,” Daily News, April 16, 1947.
nearly three-fifths of the fans were black: Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 178.
smallpox scare: “ ‘Old’ Reiser, ‘New’ Hermanski Stars Of Dodgers’ Opening Day Triumph,” Brooklyn Eagle, April 16, 1947.
“The biggest threat to his success”: Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 162.
“The conduct of ‘SOME’ ”: “Sports Beat,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 26, 1964.
Rachel and Jack Jr. waited: Interview with Rachel Robinson.
sick with diarrhea: Ibid.
the absence of roof lights: “City Orders Taxicabs to Show Roof Lights when Unoccupied and Cruising the Streets,” New York Times, May 29, 1947.
Her first order of business: Interview with Rachel Robinson.
The men in the section wore jackets: News photographs, April 15, 1947.
light-blue suit and matching cap: News photographs; “History, Not Hysteria,” Newsday, April 13, 1997.
Fussing over the baby: Interview with Rachel Robinson.
the Dodgers for the most part left Robinson alone: Interviews with Gene Hermanski, Bobby Bragan, Ralph Branca, et al.
“Jackie is very definitely brunette”: Email interview with Robert B. Parker.
“My mother worried”: Ibid.
“Looking at a ball game”: Robert B. Parker, Mortal Stakes (New York: Dell Publishing, 1975), 11.
they empathized with him: Interviews with Hermanski, Bragan, Branca, et al.
painfully slow rendition: “The Powerhouse,” Daily News, April 16, 1947.