Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography

by Long, Michael G.

  ers prayed for him. Ed Charles, who would later play in the big leagues, was a thirteen-year-old during the spring training of 1946, living in the same neighborhood as Kelly Field, where the Montreal team practiced.

  After school he would walk to the field and watch Robinson. “I was just a kid, and I was awed by it all, and I prayed for him,” Charles said. “I would say, ‘Please, God, let him show the whites what we can do and

  that we can excel like they can.’ ”30

  Robinson was scheduled to play his first game on March 17 at

  City Island Ball Park in downtown Daytona Beach. As blacks sat in

  church that morning, they thought about and prayed for Robinson,

  and ministers gave sermons about him. When church was over, blacks

  who attended a downtown church walked to the ballpark. Mothers

  and fathers grasped the hands of small children, others clutched the arms of the frail and elderly, and young boys hurried excitedly ahead of their families. The segregated bleachers would be inadequate for all the black spectators that day. But there also were not enough seats for all the whites.31

  What happened in Daytona Beach repeated itself in Montreal and

  in Brooklyn and in other cities where Robinson played. He learned

  that ministers, priests, and rabbis told their parishioners about what Jackie Robinson meant to the cause of racial equality, compassion, and democracy, and urged them to go see him play and, whether they went

  or not, to pray for him.

  “I know how wonderful it felt on a number of occasions, when a

  Negro minister approached me at the ball club and said, ‘You know, I cut my sermon short today so the people could get out of church early and get to the ball park to root for you,’ ” Robinson said. “My minister friends tell me that when the average minister cuts down his sermon, he is making one of the great sacrifices known to men.” He credited black ministers for his success. “I owe so much to the Negro ministers, and it is a debt I never intend to forget.”32

  Robinson’s thoughts turned to his faith on the morning of March

  17 as he wondered what lay ahead for him. He did not know if he

  would be allowed to play that afternoon. No black had ever played

  during a spring training game in Florida. History was against him, and so were the Jim Crow laws. Then there was the question of what would happen if he were allowed to play. Robinson could not help but think

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  about all the things that could go wrong. His life could be in danger.

  What might spectators yell at him, throw at him—or worse?33

  Robinson had no choice but to trust Rickey and hope he would make

  things work. It was a Sunday game, and Rickey, making no exception

  to his rule about attending baseball games on the Sabbath, would not be at the ballpark. But Rickey, knowing that playing Robinson would

  violate Daytona Beach’s segregation ordinance, pressured city officials to allow the game. He was not interested in changing the city’s laws, he told officials, only in giving a black ballplayer an opportunity to play professional baseball.

  Rickey won the argument, initially because of his persuasive skills

  but then because officials saw the crowds of whites and blacks walking toward City Island Ball Park. The crowd of four thousand spectators

  was the largest ever to see a game at the ballpark. A thousand blacks jammed into the segregated section down the first-base line.34

  Robinson was nervous when he came up to bat in the second inning.

  He heard the tremendous ovation from the black spectators, then

  braced for the jeers from the white spectators. “This is where you’re going to get it,” he told himself. He heard some scattered boos but

  nothing like he expected. “They’re giving you a chance,” one drawling Southern voice said, “now come on and do something about it!”35

  Robinson went hitless in the game, but he felt satisfied with how

  he played—and relieved by the response of the white fans. “I knew, of course, that everyone wasn’t pulling for me to make good, but I was

  sure now that the whole world wasn’t lined up against me,” he said.

  “When I went to sleep, the applause was still ringing in my ears.”36

  Robinson would play several other games that spring in front of

  good crowds at City Island Ball Park. There were no incidents on the field or in the bleachers. Daytona Beach was the only city in Florida that allowed Robinson to play in a game. When the Montreal team arrived

  for a game in Jacksonville, it found the stadium padlocked. DeLand

  canceled a game because it said the park’s lights were not working, even though the game was to be played in the early afternoon. When the

  Montreal team returned for a game in Sanford, the town’s police chief escorted Jackie off the field.37

  Robinson’s hitting improved steadily as spring training progressed.

  By the end of the spring, both Robinson and Wright had demonstrated

  that they were good enough to make the Montreal team.

  When the team left Daytona Beach on a train to travel north to

  begin their regular season, Ed Charles and several black children ran

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  after the train until it disappeared from sight. “And when we finally couldn’t hear it any longer, we ran some more and finally stopped and put our ears to the tracks so we could feel the vibrations of the train carrying Jackie Robinson,” Charles said. “We wanted to be a part of

  him as long as we could.”38

  The train took them to Jersey City, New Jersey, where Montreal

  began their regular season before a sellout crowd. In his first plate appearance, Robinson grounded out weakly to the shortstop. When he

  batted again in the third inning, there were two runners on base and none out. The Jersey City infield prepared for a bunt. Robinson swung away and sent the ball over the left-field fence for a home run. He had hits in his next three appearances. When the game was over, he had

  four hits, four runs scored, and two stolen bases.39

  After the game, spectators swarmed onto the field to congratulate him.

  “You’ve had quite a day, little man,” Rachel told him after the game.

  “God has been good to us today,” he responded.40

  In his column, Wendell Smith quoted Robinson as modestly attributing his performance to some “very special prayers” he recited before the game.41

  William Nunn of the Pittsburgh Courier began his column by writing that Robinson’s heroics that day were possible because of Branch Rickey’s act of faith when he signed the ballplayer several months earlier. Robinson, Nunn added, responded with his own strong faith. “A

  man whose faith in God and democracy caused him to defy baseball’s

  infamous ‘unwritten law,’ teamed up with a 27-year-old athlete who

  also had faith in God and the democratic way of life,” Nunn said. He drove home his point by quoting Robert Browning, who wrote, “God’s

  in His Heaven—All’s right with the world.”42

  The beginning of Robinson’s season sharply contrasted with that

  of Johnny Wright, who struggled in his first two appearances and was released and returned to the Negro leagues.

  Robinson, an intensely private man, did not like being on center

  stage in the drama that unfolded around him, and yet he faced the difficult circumstances without succumbing to fear or self-doubt or anger.

  Few athletes in his position could have done what he did; with so much at stake, he did not just endure but appeared to thrive. He accepted the responsibility that came with being the first black player in Major League Baseball. Unlike other ballplayers, he could not walk off the field, put on his street clothes, and become s
omeone else until the next game. He was always Jackie Robinson—the symbol of racial equality.

  People made demands on his time. He found it difficult to say no.

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  In late May he accepted an invitation to chair the New York State

  Organizing Committee of the United Negro and Allied Veterans. The

  committee included such black civil rights figures as New York City

  councilman Benjamin Davis Jr. and Congressman Adam Clayton

  Powell Jr., who was pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Har-

  lem. He joined Davis and Powell on June 9 at Abyssinian Church to

  talk about “the burning problems of discrimination” that faced black war veterans.43

  Montreal became a sanctuary for the Robinsons after the horrid

  weeks in Florida. They were treated with kindness and hospitality in Montreal. The Robinsons sublet a furnished apartment from a woman

  who insisted they use her own linen and kitchen plates and utensils.

  “We were still shaking from the experience we had before going to

  Canada,” Rachel said. “When we got to Montreal, it was like coming

  out of a nightmare. The atmosphere in Montreal was so positive, we

  felt it was a good omen for Jack to play well.”44

  By early June, Robinson led the league in batting average. Fans

  cheered loudly for Robinson at the team’s ballpark, Delorimier Downs.

  The Montreal fans responded with love. Jackie expressed his appreciation to the people in Montreal. “I owe more to Canadians than they’ll ever know,” he said.45

  Montreal saw Robinson as a baseball player. In much of the United

  States, however, whether in the International League in 1946 or in

  the National League, Robinson was a black man. “Canadians regarded

  me as a United States citizen who happened to have a colored skin,”

  Robinson said. “Some of my fellow Americans, especially in Baltimore, regarded me as an obscenity, a savage little above the level of a jungle beast, and told me so in vile language.”46

  Life on the road for Robinson could be brutal, particularly in cit-

  ies with southern sensibilities, like Baltimore, Maryland, but things were nearly as bad in Syracuse in upstate New York. A Syracuse player threw a black bat from the opposing dugout as Robinson waited on the on-deck circle. One former Syracuse player remembered how his teammates tried to take to the field in blackface but were stopped by their manager. Robinson once stood in the batter’s box, waiting to hit, as venomous insults poured down on him from the Syracuse dugout and

  bleachers. “I don’t feel sorry for you,” the catcher said from his crouch behind Robinson. “You can go to hell.”47

  Things were different in Buffalo, New York, where business leaders,

  labor unions, churches, other organizations, and what one journalist

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  called “the biggest crowd” in the ballpark’s history honored Robinson as a hero. Lester Granger, head of the National Urban League, wrote

  that he was pleased to read the enthusiastic response to Robinson in the Buffalo newspapers and to hear a positive news commentator on

  the radio. After the game in Buffalo, Robinson was walking to his hotel when he was stopped by an elderly white man who recognized him and

  offered him a religious plaque. The man explained that the plaque had always brought him good fortune and he wanted Robinson to have it

  “as a testimonial of good will from innumerable and anonymous well-

  wishers,” Granger said.48

  Robinson vindicated Rickey’s faith in him with every hit, stolen

  base, and defensive gem. Rickey wanted to see how Robinson did in the minor leagues before promoting him to the major leagues. But perhaps just as important, he wanted to see if the ballplayer had the mental toughness to withstand racial slurs and physical abuse from opposing fans and players before subjecting him to the larger crowds in the major leagues.

  Robinson remained steadfast in his promise to Rickey—as pitchers

  threw repeatedly at his head, as base runners slid into him with their cleats high, and as vulgarities were directed at him from opposing players in their dugouts and spectators in the bleachers. Rickey, who was in Brooklyn, could do only so much. He relied on manager Clay Hopper

  and general manager Mel Jones to see to it that Robinson turned the

  other cheek. Hopper reminded Robinson to ignore the temptation to

  retaliate against players or argue with umpires. Jones said Robinson came into his office, restraining his anger. “Nobody knows what I’m

  going through,” Robinson said.49

  International League president Frank Shaughnessy asked Rickey

  to keep Robinson in Montreal when the team went to Baltimore

  for a series in late April because, he said, of the strong possibility of

  “rioting and bloodshed” that could “wreck organized baseball in the

  city.” Rickey dismissed Shaughnessy’s concerns as exaggerated. They

  were not.50

  The weather on the first night was frigid, keeping the crowd small.

  Rachel, who traveled to Baltimore for the game, heard enough from the fans to leave her trembling. When Jackie walked onto the field, a man sitting behind her yelled, “Here comes that nigger son of a bitch! Let’s give it to him now!”

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  Rachel feared for her husband’s safety and wept uncontrollably in

  her hotel room after the game. She wondered if it was time for Jackie to quit white baseball.51

  Temperatures warmed up the next day for a doubleheader. More

  than twenty-five thousand fans attended the game, and the bigots in

  the stands fed off one another. Robinson, who was injured, struggled in the first game and then sat out the second. The second game ended with a fight between Montreal and Baltimore players at home plate.

  Baltimore fans stormed onto the field and then, learning that Robinson had left the field, headed for the Montreal dressing room.

  The mob waited outside the dressing room until 1:00 a.m., screaming

  at Robinson. “Come out here Robinson, you son of a bitch. We know

  you’re there. We’re gonna get you,” Johnny “Spider” Jorgenson, a

  Montreal player, remembered. Jorgenson and two other Montreal

  players, Tom Tatum and Marvin Rackley, remained with Robinson

  until the crowd left and then, unable to find a cab, escorted Robinson to his hotel on a city bus.52

  Robinson had made little impression during the first series in Baltimore, but in his return to the city, he hit a home run and two singles and stole home, leading the Royals to a 10–9, ten-inning win.

  “Anger, which can powerfully inhibit athletic ability, did not make

  Jack less effective as a player but seemed to intensify his concentration and propel him to greater feats,” Arnold Rampersad wrote. “Rage and hurt did not drive him to the usual, often destructive therapies—

  alcohol, tobacco, sexual adventuring.”53

  Robinson depended on Rachel, who quietly listened as he raged

  against the abuses or retreated into silence. She continued to hide her own struggles from her husband. During her fifth month of pregnancy, her temperature mysteriously rose as high as 103 degrees and

  then dropped to normal, only to rise again. “I never told Jack about the fever,” she said. “I had to make the sacrifice, because I had begun to think that I was married to a man with a destiny, someone who had been chosen for a great task, and I couldn’t let him down.”54

  Smith wrote nothing about Robinson’s fragile psychological

  condition during the 1946 season. But during the next spring, he

  wrote that Robinson had been
on the verge of a nervous breakdown

  during his season with Montreal. Robinson went to a doctor, who

  recommended that he take some time away from the ballpark and rest.

  He asked Hopper for several days off. The manager gave him five days.

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  81

  But the Royals were in the middle of a pennant race, and when they

  lost a few games in a row, Hopper told Robinson he needed him back

  with the team.55

  Montreal won one hundred games, more than any other team in

  the International League. Robinson led the league with a .349 batting average and 113 runs scored. He finished second in the league with

  forty stolen bases and led the league in fielding percentage.

  Montreal finished the season by playing the Louisville Colonels

  of the American Association in the Little World Series. Robinson

  faced another hostile crowd in Kentucky. This time, the exhausted

  Robinson slumped. The worse he played, he remembered, “the more

  vicious the howling mob became.”56 Fortunately, for Robinson and

  the Royals, the series returned to Montreal, where, as usual, he had the crowd behind him. Montreal defeated Louisville behind the heroics of Robinson, who hit .400 for the series, was the star of the fifth game, and scored the final run in Montreal’s 2–0 win in the decisive sixth game.

  During the celebration inside the dressing room, a smiling Clay Hop-

  per warmly shook Robinson’s hand and said, “You’re a great ballplayer and a fine gentleman. It’s been wonderful having you on the team.”57

  Robinson’s success vindicated Rickey and redeemed Hopper, who

  told Rickey he should sign Robinson the next year for the Dodgers.

  After showering and putting on his street clothes after the postgame celebration, Robinson left the dressing room. A crowd of French Canadian fans ran to him, hugged him, kissed him, and then carried him

  on their shoulders, singing, “Il a gagné ses épaulettes” (He has earned his stripes).

  Robinson finally broke away from the crowd and ran for a cab, and

  the crowd chased after him.

  “It was probably the only day in history,” Sam Maltin wrote in the

  Pittsburgh Courier, “that a black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on its mind.”58