100 Facts About Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt Jackie Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era.

Jackie Robinson broke the baseball color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.

Jackie Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

Jackie Robinson played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers' 1955 World Series championship.

Jackie Robinson influenced the culture of and contributed significantly to the civil rights movement.

Related searches

Jackie Robinson was the first black television analyst in MLB and the first black vice president of a major American corporation, Chock full o'Nuts.

Jack Roosevelt Jackie Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, into a family of sharecroppers in Cairo, Georgia.

Jackie Robinson was the youngest of five children born to Mallie and Jerry Robinson, after siblings Edgar, Frank, Matthew (nicknamed "Mack"), and Willa Mae.

Jackie Robinson's mother worked various odd jobs to support the family.

In 1935, Jackie Robinson graduated from Washington Junior High School and enrolled at John Muir High School.

At Muir Tech, Jackie Robinson played numerous sports at the varsity level and lettered in four of them: football, basketball, track, and baseball.

Jackie Robinson played shortstop and catcher on the baseball team, quarterback on the football team, and guard on the basketball team.

In 1936, Jackie Robinson won the junior boys singles championship in the annual Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament and earned a place on the Pomona annual baseball tournament all-star team, which included future Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Bob Lemon.

Year, Jackie Robinson was one of 10 students named to the school's Order of the Mast and Dagger, awarded to students performing "outstanding service to the school and whose scholastic and citizenship record is worthy of recognition.

The event motivated Jackie Robinson to pursue his athletic career at the nearby University of California, Los Angeles, where he could remain closer to Frank's family.

Jackie Robinson was one of four black players on the Bruins' 1939 football team; the others were Woody Strode, Kenny Washington, and Ray Bartlett.

Jackie Robinson led the NCAA in punt return average in the 1939 and 1940 seasons.

Jackie Robinson took a job as an assistant athletic director with the government's National Youth Administration.

In 1942, Jackie Robinson was drafted and assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit at Fort Riley.

When Jackie Robinson later confronted the investigating duty officer about racist questioning by the officer and his assistant, the officer recommended Jackie Robinson be court-martialed.

Jackie Robinson was acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers.

Jackie Robinson took the former player's advice and wrote to Monarchs co-owner Thomas Baird.

Jackie Robinson then accepted an offer from his old friend and pastor Rev Karl Downs to be the athletic director at Samuel Huston College in Austin, then of the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

In early 1945, while Jackie Robinson was at Sam Huston College, the Kansas City Monarchs sent him a written offer to play professional baseball in the Negro leagues.

Jackie Robinson had grown used to a structured playing environment in college, and the Negro leagues' disorganization and embrace of gambling interests appalled him.

Related searches

Jackie Robinson appeared in the 1945 East–West All-Star Game, going hitless in five at-bats.

Jackie Robinson left the tryout humiliated, and more than 14 years later, in July 1959, the Red Sox became the final major league team to integrate its roster.

On October 23, it was publicly announced that Jackie Robinson would be assigned to the Royals for the 1946 season.

In what was later referred to as "The Noble Experiment", Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player in the International League since the 1880s.

Jackie Robinson was not necessarily the best player in the Negro leagues, and black talents Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson were upset when Robinson was selected first.

Larry Doby, who broke the color line in the American League the same year as Jackie Robinson, said, "One of the things that was disappointing and disheartening to a lot of the black players at the time was that Jack was not the best player.

Rickey's offer allowed Jackie Robinson to leave behind the Monarchs and their grueling bus rides, and he went home to Pasadena.

Jackie Robinson was not allowed to stay with his white teammates at the team hotel, and instead lodged at the home of Joe and Dufferin Harris, a politically active African American couple who introduced the Robinsons to civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune.

Jackie Robinson made his Royals debut at Daytona Beach's City Island Ballpark on March 17, 1946, in an exhibition game against the team's parent club, the Dodgers.

Jackie Robinson thus became the first black player to openly play for a minor league team against a major league team since the de facto baseball color line had been implemented in the 1880s.

Later in spring training, after some less-than-stellar performances, Jackie Robinson was shifted from shortstop to second base, allowing him to make shorter throws to first base.

Pitching against Jackie Robinson was Warren Sandel who had played against him when they both lived in California.

Whether fans supported or opposed it, Jackie Robinson's presence on the field was a boon to attendance; more than one million people went to games involving Jackie Robinson in 1946, an astounding figure by International League standards.

Jackie Robinson made his debut in a Dodgers uniform wearing number 42 on April 11, 1947, in a preseason exhibition game against the New York Yankees at Ebbets Field with 24, 237 in attendance.

Jackie Robinson became the first player since 1884 to openly break the major league baseball color line.

Jackie Robinson's promotion met a generally positive, although mixed, reception among newspapers and white major league players.

Jackie Robinson nonetheless became the target of rough physical play by opponents.

However, Jackie Robinson received significant encouragement from several major league players.

Jackie Robinson named Lee "Jeep" Handley, who played for the Phillies at the time, as the first opposing player to wish him well.

Jackie Robinson talked frequently with Larry Doby, who endured his own hardships since becoming the first black player in the American League with the Cleveland Indians, as the two spoke to one another via telephone throughout the season.

Related searches

Jackie Robinson had 175 hits including 31 doubles, 5 triples, and 12 home runs, driving in 48 runs for the year.

Jackie Robinson led the league in sacrifice hits, with 28, and in stolen bases, with 29.

Racial pressure on Jackie Robinson eased in 1948 when a number of other black players entered the major leagues.

In February 1948, he signed a $12, 500 contract with the Dodgers; while a significant amount, this was less than Jackie Robinson made in the off-season from a vaudeville tour, where he answered pre-set baseball questions and a speaking tour of the South.

Jackie Robinson lost the weight during training camp, but dieting left him weak at the plate.

At Sisler's suggestion, Jackie Robinson spent hours at a batting tee, learning to hit the ball to right field.

Jackie Robinson noted that "Sisler showed me how to stop lunging, how to check my swing until the last fraction of a second".

Jackie Robinson was reluctant to testify, but he eventually agreed to do so, fearing it might negatively affect his career if he declined.

In 1950, Jackie Robinson led the National League in double plays made by a second baseman with 133.

The New York Times wrote that Jackie Robinson, "doing that rare thing of playing himself in the picture's leading role, displays a calm assurance and composure that might be envied by many a Hollywood star.

Jackie Robinson was disappointed at the turn of events and wrote a sympathetic letter to Rickey, whom he considered a father figure, stating, "Regardless of what happens to me in the future, it all can be placed on what you have done and, believe me, I appreciate it.

O'Malley was quoted in the Montreal Standard as saying, "Jackie Robinson told me that he would be both delighted and honored to tackle this managerial post"—although reports differed as to whether a position was ever formally offered.

Jackie Robinson kept the Dodgers in contention for the 1951 pennant.

Jackie Robinson had what was an average year for him in 1952.

That year, on the television show Youth Wants to Know, Jackie Robinson challenged the Yankees' general manager, George Weiss, on the racial record of his team, which had yet to sign a black player.

Jackie Robinson believed that everything unpleasant that happened to him happened because of his blackness.

Jackie Robinson's interests began to shift toward the prospect of managing a major league team.

Jackie Robinson had hoped to gain experience by managing in the Puerto Rican Winter League, but according to the New York Post, Commissioner Happy Chandler denied the request.

Jackie Robinson was not dissuaded, however, from addressing racial issues publicly.

Jackie Robinson openly criticized segregated hotels and restaurants that served the Dodger organization; a number of these establishments integrated as a result, including the five-star Chase Park Hotel in St Louis.

Related searches

The following autumn, Jackie Robinson won his only championship when the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series.

Jackie Robinson missed the game because manager Walter Alston decided to play Gilliam at second and Don Hoak at third base.

Jackie Robinson ended his major league career when he struck out to end Game 7 of the 1956 World Series.

The trade, however, was never completed; unbeknownst to the Dodgers, Jackie Robinson had already agreed with the president of Chock full o'Nuts to quit baseball and become an executive with the company.

Since Jackie Robinson had sold exclusive rights to any retirement story to Look magazine two years previously, his retirement decision was revealed through the magazine, instead of through the Dodgers organization.

Jackie Robinson's breaking of the baseball color line and his professional success symbolized these broader changes and demonstrated that the fight for equality was more than simply a political matter.

Jackie Robinson's career is generally considered to mark the beginning of the post–"long ball" era in baseball, in which a reliance on raw power-hitting gave way to balanced offensive strategies that used footspeed to create runs through aggressive baserunning.

Jackie Robinson exhibited the combination of hitting ability and speed which exemplified the new era.

Jackie Robinson accumulated 197 stolen bases in total, including 19 steals of home.

Jackie Robinson has been referred to by author David Falkner as "the father of modern base-stealing".

Jackie Robinson'storical statistical analysis indicates Robinson was an outstanding fielder throughout his ten years in the major leagues and at virtually every position he played.

Jackie Robinson led the league in fielding among second basemen in 1950 and 1951.

Robinson was the subject of a 2016 PBS documentary, Jackie Robinson, which was directed by Ken Burns and features Jamie Foxx doing voice-over as Robinson.

Jackie Robinson once told future Hall of Fame inductee Hank Aaron that "the game of baseball is great, but the greatest thing is what you do after your career is over.

In October 1959, Jackie Robinson entered the Greenville Municipal Airport's whites-only waiting room.

At a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People speech in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackie Robinson urged "complete freedom" and encouraged black citizens to vote and to protest their second-class citizenship.

Jackie Robinson was elected on the first ballot, becoming the first black player inducted into the Cooperstown museum.

In 1965, Jackie Robinson served as an analyst for ABC's Major League Baseball Game of the Week telecasts, the first black person to do so.

In 1966, Jackie Robinson was hired as general manager for the short-lived Brooklyn Dodgers of the Continental Football League.

From 1957 to 1964, Jackie Robinson was the vice president for personnel at Chock full o'Nuts; he was the first black person to serve as vice president of a major American corporation.

Related searches

Jackie Robinson always considered his business career as advancing the cause of black people in commerce and industry.

Jackie Robinson chaired the NAACP's million-dollar Freedom Fund Drive in 1957, and served on the organization's board until 1967.

Jackie Robinson was angered by the 1964 presidential election candidacy of conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who had opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Jackie Robinson became one of six national directors for Nelson Rockefeller's unsuccessful campaign to be nominated as the Republican candidate for the election.

Jackie Robinson later became special assistant for community affairs when Rockefeller was re-elected governor of New York in 1966 and in 1971 was appointed to the New York State Athletic Commission by Rockefeller.

Jackie Robinson protested against the major leagues' ongoing lack of minority managers and central office personnel, and he turned down an invitation to appear in an old-timers' game at Yankee Stadium in 1969.

Jackie Robinson gratefully accepted a plaque honoring the twenty-fifth anniversary of his MLB debut, but commented, "I'm going to be tremendously more pleased and more proud when I look at that third base coaching line one day and see a black face managing in baseball.

Jackie Robinson's became an assistant professor at the Yale School of Nursing and director of nursing at the Connecticut Mental Health Center.

Jackie Robinson's served on the board of the Freedom National Bank until it closed in 1990.

Jackie Robinson enlisted in the Army in search of a disciplined environment, served in the Vietnam War, and was wounded in action on November 19, 1965.

On October 24, 1972, Jackie Robinson died of a heart attack at his home on 95 Cascade Road in North Stamford, Connecticut; he was 53 years old.

Jackie Robinson's youngest son, David, who has ten children, is a coffee grower and social activist in Tanzania.

Jackie Robinson was among the 25 charter members of UCLA's Athletics Hall of Fame in 1984.

Jackie Robinson has been honored by the United States Postal Service on three separate postage stamps, in 1982, 1999, and 2000.

Jersey that Jackie Robinson brought home with him after his rookie season ended in 1947 was sold at an auction for $2.