Jackie Robinson In Baseball

Words: 700
Pages: 3

Do you know who the first African American baseball player to play in a Major League game was? It was Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson was the one to break the color barrier to sports. The road for Jackie to be able to do this wasn’t easy because of all the racist comments made to him, but he handled himself on and off the field remarkably. In this essay, I am going to talk about how Jackie became integrated in baseball, his career, and what he did after he retired from baseball. At first, I’m gonna talk about how Jackie became integrated in baseball. When he left the Army, he played for the Kansas City Monarchs in what was known as the Negro Leagues. In his article, “Jackie Robinson”, Paul Finkelman writes, “He was hitting .387 in August 1945 when Branch Rickey, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, asked Jackie to come meet him in Brooklyn. Jackie thought Rickey wanted to start a Negro League called the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers. Rickey shocked Jackie by declaring that the time had come to “break the color line” by bringing black players into the Major Leagues, and that Jackie was the man to do it” (1). In October of 1947, Rickey shocked America by announcing that he had signed Jackie Robinson to play for the Montreal Royals. The …show more content…
Robinson became an important figure in the civil rights movement, acting as a spokesman and fundraiser for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He took a more active role in politics, campaigning for the Republican Party nominee Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential race. In his article, “Jackie Robinson: A Biography”, Hoyt Purvis writes, “At the 1972 World Series, only a short time before his death, baseball honored Jackie on the 25th anniversary of his Major League entry. He took the occasion to argue for black managers in baseball” (1). Almost every ballpark, especially in the big-leagues, has a display honoring Jackie