Jackie Robinson: More Than Just a Baseball Player

Baseball has often been referred to as "America's favorite pastime," however, sport enthusiasts are so quick to forget the exclusive and outwardly racist regulations the league used to abide by.  Before 1946, there were no integrated professional baseball teams.  It was strictly the Major League, where only white athletes could participate in, and the Negro Leagues.  Breaking this racial caste system was Jackie Robinson, a southern elite athlete who would change the game of baseball forever.  

Many remember Robinson for his outstanding career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, in his first year alone hitting 12 home runs to help the Dodgers win the National League Pennant. Robinson also led the league in stolen bases to pick up the Rookie of the Year title.  However, how Jackie actually achieved his status and became the first man to integrate major league baseball is often left in the shadows.   

Before Branch Rickey signed Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie was a four sport high school athlete and the youngest of five children.  Robinson lived his entire youth in poverty and worked extremely hard in the classroom to gain academic recognition.  He went on to be the first collegiate athlete at UCLA to letter in 4 sports.  After UCLA, Robinson served as second lieutenant in the U.S Army.  Though never seeing combat, he was honorably discharged and played 3 years in the Negro Leagues.  It was at this time that the Major League Baseball committee decided that they needed an "outstanding negro" to enter the all-white league.  The MLB was losing revenue and decided to integrate, and Jackie Robinson happened to fit this mold.  

While playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson would receive death threats sent to his home, threatening his family if he did not quit the league.  Many athletes on his team signed petitions to keep him out of the league, and coaches and athletes for the opposing teams would chant racist cheers when Robinson was at bat.  None of this, deterred Robinson from chasing after his ultimate goal of becoming a civil rights activist, and one of the greatest legacies baseball has ever seen.  

Robinson served on the board of the NAACP and became the first African American to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.  While Jackie Robinson was an outstanding athlete, we should not forget as a society the hard work, dedication, intelligence, and willingness to serve our country that it took for this man to achieve his goal.  Jackie Robinson was not just a baseball player, he was a beneficial change to American society. 

Source:   Jackie Robinson. Biography – A&E Television Networks (n.d.). Retrieved April 11, 2016, from http://www.biography.com/people/jackie-robinson-9460813#a-voice-for-african-american-athletes