Beyond Home Plate: Jackie Robinson on Life After Baseball

1. On Baseball and Golf

1 1 On Baseball and Golf Trouble Ahead—for You, for Me, for My People, and for Baseball Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in August 1945 when he signed a letter of agreement that bound him to the Brooklyn Dodgers . The plan to shatter baseball’s color barrier was the brainchild of Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Dodgers. Two months after signing the letter of agreement, Robinson received a formal contract to play for the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers’ top farm team, and he made his Major League debut with the Dodgers on April 15, 1947. Throughout his early days in the Major Leagues, Robinson held himself back from “popping off,” as he liked to put it, at the fans, players, and managers who taunted him about his race.1 Rickey had instructed Robinson, for the sake of integrating baseball, to follow the biblical admonition to “turn the other cheek” when facing racist slurs on and off the diamond.2 Below is Robinson’s positive reflection on those early days. Source: “Trouble Ahead Needn’t Bother You,” in Faith Made Them Champions, edited by Norman Vincent Peale (Carmel, NY: Guidepost Associates, 1954), 238–41. I’ll never forget the day Branch Rickey, former president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, asked me to join his baseball organization. I would be the first Negro to play in organized baseball—that is, if I were good enough to make the grade. 1. See, for instance, New York Post, March 30, 1960, 15. 2. See Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography, 127 (see the introduction, n. 3). 2 • Beyond Home Plate Mr. Rickey’s office was large and simply furnished. There were four framed pictures on the wall. One was a Kodachrome snapshot of Leo Durocher, the field manager of the Dodgers, and now manager of the New York Giants. Another was a portrait of the late Charlie Barrett, one of the greatest scouts in the game. A third was of General Chennault. And the fourth and largest smiled down on me with calm reassurance, the portrait of the sad, trusting Abraham Lincoln who had pleaded for malice toward none. . . . This was the never-to-be-forgotten day when our Marines landed on the soil of Japan, August 29, 1945. It was a hot day, with Venetian blinds shutting out the sun, and the Brooklyn clamor of Montague Street mingled with noisy traffic around borough hall. From behind his desk the big, powerful, bushy-browed Branch Rickey, who seemed a combination of father and boss, mapped out to me his daring strategy to break the color line in major league baseball. I was excited at the opportunity. It was a tremendous challenge. But was I good enough? “Mr. Rickey,” I said, “it sounds like a dream come true—not only for me but for my race. For seventy years there has been racial exclusion in big league baseball. There will be trouble ahead—for you, for me, for my people, and for baseball.” “Trouble ahead.” Rickey rolled the phrase over his lips as though he liked the sound. “You know, Jackie, I was a small boy when I took my first train ride. On the same train was an old couple, also riding for the first time. We were going through the Rocky Mountains. The old man sitting by the window looked forward and said to his wife, ‘Trouble ahead, Ma! We’re high up over a precipice and we’re gonna run right off.’ “To my boyish ears the noise of the wheels repeated ‘Trouble-a-headtrouble -ahead. . . .’ I never hear train wheels to this day but what I think of this. But our train course bent into a tunnel right after the old man spoke, and we came out on the other side of the mountain. That’s the way it is with most trouble ahead in this world, Jackie—if we use the commonsense and courage God gave us. But you’ve got to study the hazards and build wisely.” I’ve never forgotten that little story. It helped me through many of the rough moments I was to face in the future. I signed my contract that On Baseball and Golf • 3 day with a humble feeling of great responsibility. I prayed that I would be equal to the test. “God is with us in this, Jackie,” Mr. Rickey said quietly. “You know your...