9701110155
DETROIT FREE PRESS
970415
Tuesday, April 15, 1997
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM Free Press Sports Writer
Copyright (c) 1997, Detroit Free Press
THE ANNIVERSARY: WHY ALL SHOULD CARE
"Robinson, I need a man that will take abuse and insults. If some guy
slides into you and calls you a black so-and-so, you'd come up swinging. And
you'd be justified. But you'd set the cause back 20 years."
"Mr. Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who's afraid to fight back?"
"Jack, I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back."
There was a long pause.
"Mr. Rickey, if you want to take this gamble, I promise there will be no
incident."
-- Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, as recounted by the scout who
brought them together, Clyde Sukeforth.
Close your eyes. What do you feel? The pounding of your heart, the air
going though your nostrils, your eyelids touching, your lips together. You
feel your feet against the ground, your fingers against your sides. Maybe a
slight headache. Maybe a growl in your stomach.
But you do not feel your skin.
You do not feel your color. With your eyes closed, you feel only the things
that we all have in common. And you are the same as everyone else. You are
the black man, the brown man, the yellow man, the red man.
With your eyes closed.
If there is anything left to say about today, the 50th anniversary of
Jackie Robinson's breaking baseball's color line, it is only this simple fact.
That for years, we let our emotions be foolishly dictated by our eyes. And on
this day 50 years ago, in one very small step, we began to let go of that.
Now, perhaps you feel like you don't need to hear anymore about Jackie
Robinson. After all, there is an anniversary of this event every year. This
one just happens to be No. 50. Big deal, right? And in typical American
overkill, there's not one TV station, radio station, newspaper or magazine
that hasn't jumped on this event and draped itself in some of its historic
glory.
Perhaps you feel if you hear one more thing about Jackie Robinson you'll
scream.
Point well taken. Now consider this . . .
He couldn't scream back
Consider every white neighbor who signed a petition to move Robinson's
family out of their section of Pasadena, Calif.
Consider every game that was canceled in the minors because Robinson, a
black man, was on the roster.
Consider every pitch that was thrown at Robinson's head -- intentionally.
Consider every note he received from spectators that began, "Robinson, we are
going to kill you . . ."
Consider every slur yelled by the Phillies in their first series against
Robinson -- "Nigger, go back to the cotton fields." "Hey snowflake, which
white boy's wife you dating tonight?"
Consider the nicknames they gave him, "The Ebony Ty Cobb" and "The Dark
Destroyer."
Consider the time Robinson's manager in Montreal, Clay Hopper, grabbed
Branch Rickey by the neck and said, "Do you really think that a nigger is a
human being?"
His manager said that? His manager?
You want to scream if you hear one more thing about Jackie Robinson -- and
then you realize he couldn't scream. He had to swallow it all, every bitter
little pill, every day that was clouded by hate, every summer that was stained
by some idiot making animal sounds and yelling the lowest of insults.
When you realize the pile of abuse hurled at Robinson in the course of his
historic career, you understand why Rickey quoted the Bible the first time
they met, passages about "turning the other cheek."
And you realize that Jackie Robinson is owed all of these anniversaries
for being the nose of the plane, the mainsail of the ship, the first to chart
this nasty and trying course.
Fifty years isn't an anniversary, it's a payback.
We're making progress
So if you're black this becomes a day of celebration, a reminder of how
things used to be, yes, but a celebration of a man who helped make them
different.
And if you're white, what's in it for you? Also a celebration, if you ask
me. The things some of us were doing when Jackie Robinson came along would be
considered repulsive and repugnant now. That's good.
The attitudes some of us had toward minorities would be considered
ignorant and intolerable now. That's good.
Today, white children cheer for black athletes, wear their uniforms, ask
for their autographs, and black children do the same for white athletes.
That's good, too.
Are we where we ought to be? Of course not. But when in history have we
ever been? There has been progress since Robinson broke the line two years
after World War II, and most of the progress hasn't come from black athletes.
Heck, they were always talented.
No, the progress has come in the hateful attitudes that have been broken
down, slowly melted, enough that we could come from that day in Ebbets Field
back in 1947 to Sunday afternoon, when nearly half the TV sets in America were
tuned to Tiger Woods as he strode up the 18th fairway at Augusta.
America cheered. Not black America. All of America. And when Woods found
his father after winning the Masters, he was a part of all of us, every child
and every parent. And it was no surprise that when they hugged, they both had
their eyes closed.
It is an embrace like that, without sight, without prejudice, that we give
today to Jackie Robinson. Slowly, slowly, we work toward one for everyone.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
COLUMN; BASEBALL; HISTORY; JACKIE ROBINSON