View From Lodi, CA: Jackie Robinson, 60 Years Later


By the time

Jackie Robinson
took the field for the Brooklyn
Dodgers in 1947 as Major League Baseball`s first African
American player, his name and accomplishments were
already well known to me.

As a young boy growing up in Los Angeles, I was aware
of Robinson`s athletic achievements. Robinson—whose 60th
anniversary as

baseball`s first African-American player
is being
celebrated this weekend—was a legend.

And for good reason. At the University of California
at Los Angeles,

Robinson
was the first student to play—and excel—at
four varsity sports concurrently:

baseball, football, track and basketball.

Baseball consumed me. Although the major leagues
didn`t arrive in Los Angeles until 1957, I followed it
with a passion that few could match. Every evening I
read the box scores from the

Los Angeles Herald-Express
. In those days,
games back east were played during the day and the
results were printed in the late edition.

Then, after I had digested the big league statistics,
I turned my attention to the local California Triple-A
minor league teams: the Hollywood Stars, the

Los Angeles Angels
, the

San Francisco Seals
and the

Sacramento Solons
.

But while I was old enough to appreciate and admire
Robinson`s skills when he took the field, I was in no
way mature enough to understand what he had to endure.

During Robinson`s first game against the Boston
Braves, the Braves` manager, Ben Chapman,

yelled out
at Jackie, “Hey nigger, why don`t you
go back to the cotton field where you belong?"

Even one of Robinson`s teammates,

Eddie Stanky
, was an enemy. Before the opening game
against the Braves, Stanky approached Robinson and

said
,” “Before I play with you I want you to know
how I feel about it. I want you to know I don`t like it.
I want you to know I don`t like you."

Despite the overwhelming odds against his success
created by the atmosphere of hate that surrounded him
Robinson, who lead the Dodgers to six pennants in ten
years, went on to be a

Hall of Fame
baseball player and also one of
America`s key civil rights figures.

As Robinson, looking back on his career,
said:

"I had to fight hard
against loneliness, abuse and the knowledge that any
mistake I made would be magnified because I was the only
black man out there. Many people resented my impatience
and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much
as I cared about respect."

But on Jackie Robinson Day on April 15th,
as the deserved celebrations of Robinson, his career and
his role as one of America`s

most important 20th century figures
, play
out across the country, there are sad and ironic
footnotes to his story.

The first is that so few Americans, including major
league players, know anything at all about Robinson or
his sacrifices. This, in a world where only a handful of
people can identify the current Chief Justice of the

Supreme Court
or recognize a photograph of

John F. Kennedy,
is not altogether surprising.

But it is disappointing.

Second, and an even greater disappointment is that,
despite Robinson`s crusade on their behalf,

so few Blacks play baseball today.

According to a 2006 study by the

University of Central Florida`s Institute of Diversity
and Ethics in Sports
, only 8.4 percent of major
league players are black, a decline from 9 percent in
2004 and 2005.

This is

the fewest number
of baseball playing blacks in
since 1986.

On the other hand, 29.4 percent of major league
players in 2006 were

Hispanic
and 2.4 percent were

Asian
, both an increase over their 2005 totals.

The good news is that neither of these two facts will
in any way detract from the recognition of Robinson and
baseball`s proudest
and most powerful moment”
at Dodger Stadium.

Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English
at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly
column since 1988. It currently appears in the


Lodi News-Sentinel
.