Back Back Back Back Back and Gone! This is what people heard many times when Robinson was up to bat. In the year of 1947, Jackie Robinson made history when he broke baseball’s color barrier to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in the major leagues in the Modern Era. Before he was in the Major League Baseball he was a Football player for the local UCLA Bruins. Jackie Robinson faced misfortunes such as fans yelling out nonsense such as bad names while playing on the field, players treating him badly like he was not an equal, and not having anywhere to sleep at night even though he was very physically active in sports since he was very young.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born January 31, 1919. He was brought up in a small town called Cairo, Georgia. Jackie Robinson was the fifth child born to parents Jerry and Mallie Robinson. He was the youngest of five children, Edgar, Frank, Matthew, and Willa Mae. Jerry was a very poor sharecropper, and brought in enough money to feed his five children. Mallie worked as a housekeeper to a very wealthy plantation owner. Jerry, tired of being poor, started to have an affair with the daughter of a very wealthy black family. Jackie’s parent didn’t have the best marriage but they tried their best to make it work out for their five children. Jerry left the family back in Georgia to find work in Texas but never returned back. After struggling to keep the farm by herself, Mallie realized it was impossible. She’s believe it was no longer safe to stay in Georgia. In 1919, there was traumatic, violent riots and hangings of blacks on every tree side in the summer of that year. Mrs. Robinson and many of her relatives saved and gathered money all together so they can buy tickets to Los Angeles where Jackie Robinson would become a star as one of the best baseball players ever.
Robinson attended John Muir High School, where he was placed on the Pomona Annual Baseball Tournament with fellow future Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox. A naturally gifted athlete, Robinson played football, basketball, baseball, and track and field at Pasadena Community College. He was named the region's Most Valuable Player in baseball in 1938. After college, he was conscripted in the Army and was of use of World War II. When he came back from army he pursued his baseball career. Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Dodgers, brought Jackie into baseball. Many of the Brooklyn Dodgers were from the south and didn’t like black people. Some even hated the fact that Jackie was one of their teammates. Jackie had to earn their full respect with the bat and glove and so he did. On August 29, 1948, in a 12-7 win against the St. Louis Cardinals, Robinson ‘hit for the cycle’ with a homerun, a triple, a double, and then a single in the same game.
He then went on to UCLA, where he again outshined in football, basketball, baseball and track. UCLA was also where Jackie met Rachel. (The love of his life) Rachel and Jackie got married in February of 1946. Jackie and Rachel Robinson had three children together named Jack, Sharon and David. Rachel said that she and Jackie went to great lengths to create a nurturing home that sheltered their kids from racism. In 1971, the couple’s oldest child, Jack Robinson Jr died at the age of 24 in a car accident. Their second child Sharon Robinson, is an author of Consultant of Major League Baseball. Finally the last child , David Robinson, is a coffee farmer in Tanzania.
Let’s say we didn’t have no Jackie Robinson, there would not be Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods or many others. If Jackie Robinson wouldn’t have broke the color barrier the sports will be very disparate in this generation. Someone maybe would have come along and broke it. But that person couldn’t have done it with as much backbone and respect as Jackie Robinson. The way he handled himself both on and off the field is outstanding. He took every racist comment and didn’t respond to them. But every year on April 15, the anniversary of Robinson’s breaking the color barrier in 1947, the baseball world spends a day reinforcing the importance of that legacy by celebrating Jackie Robinson Day.