Rickey and Robinson (17 page)

Robinson’s competitive fury was especially spurred when he thought an opponent underestimated him or did not show the proper respect for his talent. At Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, there were about thirty thousand in the stands for a night game. Close to a third of them were black. The score was tied, 2-2, with Robinson on third base. Fritz Ostermueller was the pitcher. Dancing off the base, Robinson ran down the third-base line about ten yards toward home plate, and then ran back to third. “Then he went down about fifteen yards, and when he ran back he slid into the bag and dusted himself off,” recalls Mal Goode. “Ostermueller probably said to himself, ‘I know that nigger isn’t gonna steal home now.’ He turned his head and went into the full wind-up position. Jackie broke for home and stole it. The same fans who just a few moments before were screaming, ‘Stick it in his ear and knock the black son of a bitch down,’ were cheering. When the shouting died down, a guy who was screaming those negative things about Jackie just before turned to his friend and said: ‘Goddamn, John, niggers shoulda been in baseball a long time ago.’” Robinson’s steal gave the Dodgers a 3-2 victory.

“The supreme insult to him was if you were a pitcher and walked a batter to get at him,” notes Joe Bostic. “I remember a game at Ebbets Field. Robinson came up after the pitcher had walked a batter intentionally to get at him. The count was two and one. He swung at a letter-high fastball. He swung at it with all the fury and all the venom the years had placed in him. That ball was a line drive that just screamed into the stands-it went in for a home run and it had all his pent-up emotion in it.”

Toward the end of the 1947 season, a Jackie Robinson Day was staged at Ebbets Field. Rickey was no longer worried about such celebrations being premature. Robinson was now an assured drawing card, rivaling Bob Feller and Ted Williams in the American League. The black pioneer would push Brooklyn’s attendance in 1947 to 1,807,526—the :first of ten straight million-plus years for the Robinsonled Dodgers. With the first tumultuous season virtually in the books, Rickey felt secure enough to allow Robinson to receive the official adulation.

“I thank you all,” Robinson said over the microphone in his high-pitched voice. He acknowledged the gifts: a brandnew car, a gold pen, a television and radio set, cutlery, silverware, an electric broiler. “I especially thank the members of the Dodgers who were so cooperative and helpful in helping me improve my game.”

The great dancer, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, stood next to the other Robinson, whose dancing feet had helped boost National League attendance to more than ten million in 1947, then the highest in its history. “I am sixty-nine years old,” Bill Robinson said, “but I never thought I would live to see the day when I would stand face to face with Ty Cobb in Technicolor.”

Jackie’s and Rachel’s mothers were flown in from California to be at Ebbets Field that day. “The :first time my mother met Mr. Rickey,” Jackie’s sister Willa Mae recalls, “she was thanking him for signing Jack. And he said, ‘Don’t thank me, Mrs. Robinson. I have to thank you. If it had not been for you, there wouldn’t be any Jackie.’” A small, stooped woman, Mallie Robinson stood near home plate and thrilled to the cheers for her son. “That was one of the most touching moments in Jack’s career,” recalls brother Mack, “to see Mother right there in the middle of the ceremony and all the accolades.”

Playing in more games than any other Dodger in 1947, Robinson scored more runs than any other teammate, stole more bases than any other player in the National League, and wound up with a batting average of .297.
The Sporting News,
once doubtful of his ability, designated him Rookie of the Year. “He was rated solely as a freshman player in the big leagues,” the baseball newspaper said, “on the basis of his hitting, his running, his defensive play, his team value.” It was an extraordinary season for a man playing under unimaginable pressure.

The Dodgers won the pennant that year. It was the fifth time in six years that a team built by Branch Rickey had captured the National League flag.

“It occurred to Mr. Rickey,” Dodson recalls, “that with the winning of the pennant, some of the Brooklyn black community leaders might have difficulty obtaining tickets to the World Series. Mr. Rickey inquired of his ticket manager if many blacks would be coming to the Series. ‘Not many, Mr. Rickey,’ the ticket manager responded. ‘I’ve done a pretty good job on that.’ It was a case where· the policy on the top was not understood by those underneath. Mr. Rickey had to get the tickets personally and give them to the black leaders.”

On September 30, 1947, the Yankees squared off against the Dodgers. It was the first World Series a black man ever played in. “That first game got to me,” recalls Mack Robinson. “I was pulling and groaning and stretching and grunting for every step or slide or swing. I was playing it all right with Jack.”

In the first game, Robinson flashed the razzle-dazzle style that had boggled National League pitchers all season. He walked in the first inning, and then stole second. He walked again in the third inning. This time, his dancing moves off first base so unnerved Yankee pitcher Spec Shea that he balked Robinson to second base.

Robinson’s seven hits tied him with Reese for the club leadership in the Series. He also played yrrorless ball in the field and stole two bases. At bat, his performance overall was disappointing. He hit only .259. “We knew how to pitch to him,” recalls Bill Bevens, who was one out away from the first no-hitter in World Series history in the third game, when Cookie Lavagetto doubled in two runs to win the game for the Dodgers. “We figured he had been a football player and his shoulders didn’t get around that good. We didn’t have any trouble with him. Later on he learned how to hit those pitches.”

“We won that Series,” notes Yogi Berra, “but we knew that with Robinson in Brooklyn, we’d be facing the Dodgers lots of times in the future.”