Word: rickey
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...Apple is, not coincidentally, the site of Jackie Robinson's breaking of baseball's color barrier in 1947. Where else could Branch Rickey have pulled off integrating the national pastime during the Jim Crow era--very liberal...
...implacable color line in major league baseball and changed American race relations forever. First from his mother, and later from a black Methodist minister who befriended him in his troubled adolescence, Jackie imbibed the belief that God had plans for him. Sure enough, an implausible design took shape. Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, plucked Robinson out of the obscurity of the Negro league Kansas City Monarchs in 1945 and asked him if he could accept the terms of making history, with all the abuse that would ensue. "I'm looking," Rickey famously said, "for a ball player...
Robinson's teammates were no better. With the exception of players like Pee Wee Reese and Dodger president Branch Rickey, whites on the team left Robinson alone to struggle against racial hatred and intolerance. Off the field, Robinson was subjected to the perpetual threat of violence hanging over his head. A weaker man would have understandably crumbled under the pressure and perhaps delayed the racial integration for years. Had Robinson been a mediocre player his actions would have been amazing enough. Yet Jackie Robinson was one of the most outstanding players to ever play the game. His decade...
...broke the color barrier, it was not baseball who welcomed Robinson with open arms. I get the impression that the recent celebrations of Robinson's remarkable feat tend to have the look-how-we-let-Jackie-Robinson-integrate-baseball feel to it. While there were some men like Rickey, the ruling brass of baseball did not look to kindly on having a black player in the majors. Robinson's class and integrity was enough to gain the respect of some of the most stubborn racists. Baseball's--and Nike's--present preoccupation with selling Robinson's image tends to place...
Conversely, superstars such as Rickey Henderson, Barry Bonds and Albert Belle have been vilified in the press as self-centered millionaires whose attitude negates their talent...