Jackie Robinson Day
by harendaman365 on Apr 15, 2007 3:56 PM PDT
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PrintToday was Jackie robinson day in baseball today. players wore the number 42 to honor the man for breaking the color barrier.
But you must ask the question what exactly did he do? People say he had courage to break the color barrier. That he did. But maybe we should give some credit to Branch Rickey. Branch Rickey has been considered the smartest baseball GM in history. It was said of him (during the cold war) that if he sat down with russia all theyd have left was siberia and some left handed pitchers. He had an eye for talent. However, his best and most revolutionary idea was that we should allow blacks to play baseball. Branch Rickey, who was the GM for the dodgers had the idea to sign Robinson. He was the initiator. Robinson only agreed to play. Rickey had the courage to come up with the idea of ending the racism that had permeated baseball. Rickey had the courage to seek value where nobody else was willing to see it. Yes, we should give credit to Robinson for being the one to do it. However, give Rickey his due.
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the thing is
if rickey's ideas failed; he could find a job somewhere doing something else. if jackie robinson failed the civil rights movement and the thoughts.preceptions of the majority of the country as a whole would have suffered MAJOR, for a lack of a better word, setbacks. rickey fails, it affects himself and himself only. jackie fails, it affects the entire minority population. it's bigger than baseball.
by ucla kid on Apr 15, 2007 5:36 PM PDT reply actions
yes this is all true
but give rickey his due. it took some courage to do it
by harendaman365 on Apr 15, 2007 5:51 PM PDT up reply actions
timing of this post was bad
when i saw this diary up, i was watching rachel robinson on espn. to me, it seems to diminish the legacy of a great man. if this was posted before today, the point would have been more poignant.
by ucla kid on Apr 15, 2007 6:29 PM PDT up reply actions
wikipedia quote
People noted that Rickey's determination to desegregate Major League Baseball was born out of a combination of idealism and astute business sense. The idealism was at least partially rooted in an incident involving a team for which Rickey worked early on. An African-American player was extremely upset at being refused accommodation at the hotel where the team stayed because of his race. The business element was based on the fact that the Negro Leagues had numerous star athletes, and logically, the first Major League team to hire them would get first pick of the players at a reasonable price
Robinson's greatest accomplishment is
succeeding at such a high level. You are correct that Rickey does deserve some credit. However, as ucla kid said, it would have be a total failure if Robinson hadn't been a good player or if Robinson did not succeed under the microscope that he was put under. Robinson put Rickey's money where his mouth was. That is why we honor him.
by nateboegel on Apr 15, 2007 6:51 PM PDT reply actions
Rickey didn't do what he did out of nobility.
He did it because he figured there was some great unsigned talent out there that he could get his hands on. That talent happened to be black.
Credit where it's due for making it work? Sure, but what he went through isn't 1/100th of what Robinson went through - and any number of other black players, even today.
But is that a bad thing?
For Rickey to evaluate based on talent? If anything it says that he deserves some credit, definitely not the majority of it but some, for bringing up Jackie Robinson and seeing him as a great baseball player with an amazing set of talents and skills instead of being black. I think that's a great thing in and of itself, Rickey judging his players based on the talents that they possessed and the skills they practiced. That's the standard every person wants to be judged by, to be judged by one's accomplishments and actions.
What you seem to be missing is this:
Rickey never got called racist names by other GMs.
Rickey never got death threats.
Great eye for talent? Okay, but that puts him in the same category as Billy Beane, not Jackie Robinson.
You're right
That Rickey was in nowhere near the difficult position that Robinson was in. That being said, he's in a different category than Billy Beane in that he was willing to have a great eye for a talent that was African American. Rickey's reputation was really on the line. And, by all accounts, he worked to keep the talent he found able to play by strong-arming his own players and other players who didn't want to take the field with an African American.
In no way is what Branch Rickey did near the accomplishment of Jackie Robinson. But Branch Rickey should be recognized for opening the door for Robinson to be as successful as he could.
by nateboegel on Apr 16, 2007 5:23 PM PDT up reply actions
I think it is a bit overkilled.
The whole week prior to today's game there has been talk of Jackie Robinson. I realized what he did was a big step forward in the civil rights movement, but I'm tired of all the questions to other black athletes of what do you think Jackie would think of the lack of black players in the majors.
There is never a big deal of "lack of asians or hispanics players or coaches" in sports.
I'm always embarrassed for them because
they all are basically asked to say the same things. What response wasn't something along the lines of, "Yeah, he was a great man and a great ball player. If he hadn't done that, then I don't know if I would be here today. You really have to respect Jackie for what he's done for all of us." And all of that is true, but to have 15 people in one broadcast say the same thing over and over, it totally gets old.
Especially when Chris Young is busy getting shelled out there and they can barely find time to talk about that.
I have thought the same thing
about Branch Rickey also. He does not get the credit he deserves for his contribution to the end of segregation in baseball. Of course the level of vitriol directed at Jackie far exceeds what Rickey was subjected to, but less people forget, 1947 was a far different era. The consequences to Ricky were very real. At a minimum his professional life were at stake. Baseball would never have forgiven him has his and Jackie's experiment failed. He would have been finished. Not to mention the social consequences he subjected himself and his family to. The risks he faced were real, if somewhat veiled, as those faced by Jackie.
He made the Jackie Robinson we know and respect today possible. That is something not to be dismissed out of hand. I think the lesson that can be learned here is what two people who can look past social conventions and peer pressure and recognize what is good and right can achieve. I think that they showed what can be accomplished by working together with concern for your fellow mans position in life taking precedent over your own. Something that I think is lacking in todays world. The fight may have moved past racism, and the arena has surely changed. But if we are to learn anything, it is that we should question societal assumptions and challenge them on their merits. And I most certainly don't mean the "politically correct" conventions. In the words of a sports writer from a bygone era, both men were a credit to their race. The human race.
http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/sports/spe
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