I Never Had It Made (10 page)

Mr. Rickey's words meant a great deal to me but not as much as something he did. Howie Schultz, the player who had been mentioned as a possible replacement for me during the bad days of my slump, was sold by the club.

That 1947 season was memorable in many ways. Some of the incidents that occurred resulted in far-reaching changes for the club. In late August we played the St. Louis Cardinals. In one of the last games, Enos Slaughter, a Cards outfielder, hit a ground ball. As I took the throw at first from the infielder, Slaughter deliberately went for my leg instead of the base and spiked me rather severely.

It was an act that unified the Dodger team. Teammates such as Hugh Casey of the poker game incident came charging out on the field to protest. The team had always been close to first place in the pennant race, but the spirit shown after the Slaughter incident strengthened our resolve and made us go on to win the pennant. The next time we played the Cards, we won two of the three games.

I had started the season as a lonely man, often feeling like a black Don Quixote tilting at a lot of white windmills. I ended it feeling like a member of a solid team. The Dodgers were a championship team because all of us had learned something. I had learned how to exercise self-control—to answer insults, violence, and injustice with silence—and I had learned how to earn the respect of my teammates. They had learned that it's not skin color but talent and ability that counts. Maybe even the bigots had learned that, too.

The press had also changed. When I came up to the majors, the influential
Sporting News
had declared that a black man would find it almost impossible to succeed in organized baseball. At the end of the season, when they selected me as Rookie of the Year, that same publication said:

 

That Jackie Roosevelt Robinson might have had more obstacles than his first year competitors, and that he perhaps had a harder fight to gain even major league recognition, was no concern of this publication. The sociological experiment that Robinson represented, the trail-blazing that he did, the barriers he broke down, did not enter into the decision. He was rated and examined solely as a freshman player in the big leagues—on the basis of his hitting, his running, his defensive play, his team value.

Dixie Walker summed it up in a few words the other day when he said: “No other ballplayer on this club with the possible exception of Bruce Edwards has done more to put the Dodgers up in the race than Robinson has. He is everything Branch Rickey said he was when he came up from Montreal.”

Rachel and I moved again. She had managed to find more satisfactory living quarters in Brooklyn, where we had our own kitchen and living room and even a guest bedroom. I was delighted when I learned that the man I had admired so much as a youngster, the Reverend Karl Downs, wanted to visit us. I had kept in touch with Karl over the years. Before I'd gone into service, he had left Pasadena to become president of Sam Houston State College in Texas. When I left UCLA, I heard from Karl who said he was on the spot. He needed a coach for his basketball team. There was very little money involved, but I knew that Karl would have done anything for me, so I couldn't turn him down. I went to Texas and took the job but could only stay for a few months before financial pressures caught up with me. When Rachel and I were married, Karl, insisting on paying his own expenses, had set aside all his duties in Texas to fly to Los Angeles and officiate at our wedding. I was delighted by the prospect of his visit to Brooklyn.

One day, during his visit, Karl had come out to see one of the games. Suddenly he felt sick and decided to go back home to rest and wait for us. I had no idea his sickness was serious. That evening when I reached home, Rachel had taken him to the hospital. Several days later, apparently recovered, Karl had returned to Texas. In a few days, he was dead.

Karl's death, in itself, was hard enough to take. But when we learned the circumstances, Rae and I experienced the bitter feeling that Karl Downs had died a victim of racism. We are convinced that Karl Downs would not have died at that time if he had remained in Brooklyn for the operation he required.

When he returned to Texas, Karl went to a segregated hospital to be operated on. As he was being wheeled back from the recovery room, complications set in. Rather than returning his black patient to the operating room or to a recovery room to be closely watched, the doctor in charge let him go to the segregated ward where he died. We believe Karl would not have died if he had received proper care, and there are a number of whites who evidently shared this belief. After Karl's death the doctor who performed the operation was put under such pressure that he was forced to leave town.

Karl Downs ranked with Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in ability and dedication, and had he lived he would have developed into one of the front line leaders on the national scene. He was able to communicate with people of all colors because he was endowed with the ability to inspire confidence. It was hard to believe that God had taken the life of a man with such a promising future.

I especially missed Karl at the opening day of the 1947 world series. Seventy-five thousand fans, many of whom were black, turned out for that first series game. During the game, the fans were very kind to me, and there was an avalanche of crowd approval in the first inning as I drew a base on balls from Frank Shea and stole second. Pete Reiser hit a ground ball to shortstop and I tried for third, but I was caught in the run down. Fortunately my stops and starts gave Reiser a chance to reach second and, from that position, to score the first run of the game. In that series, our team was the underdog. We were up against that spectacular New York Yankees team that included some of the greats in baseball: Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Yogi Berra, Johnny Lindell, Phil Rizzuto, and George McQuinn. We fought hard, but the Yankees were a great baseball club. Even though we lost we still felt we had acquitted ourselves well.

During the winter I went on a speaking tour of the South. It was a successful tour except for the fact that almost every night we were treated to some of the best Southern cooking available in private homes. We ate like pigs, and for me it was disastrous.

V

“Just Another Guy”

W
hen I reported for spring training in the Dominican Republic in 1948, I was twenty-five pounds over playing weight. Leo Durocher was manager and Leo has always been long on sarcasm. He had every right to be angry, and he wasn't going to resist making cracks about my weight whenever they occurred to him. He made several in the presence of newsmen who gleefully reported that my overeating was eating Durocher. In fact, the press had a field day with my excess poundage and Leo's remarks. I couldn't blame them.

To get me in shape, Leo put me through some furious physical paces. They were humiliating because rookies, reporters, and teammates were all onlookers. Leo also kept after me verbally, and as the world knows, he is a magnificent tongue-lasher. At the time I thought he was being excessive, but later I realized he was only doing what was necessary, and even though his comments hurt, I could not forget that Durocher had done all he could the previous year to help ease my way into the majors.

Mr. Rickey had booked several exhibition games in the Southwest and Deep South during spring training and the turnout at these games established new attendance records. In Fort Worth, Texas, close to 16,000 fans came out to one Sunday game. In Dallas, it was 12,000, and half of the fans were black. This was proof that Southerners were accepting black players, and that black fans in large numbers would attend integrated games, not only in the North, but all around the country.

I wasn't hitting, and, in fact, the whole season started badly for the Dodgers. The experience of being out of shape was a sobering one. After that I vowed it would never happen again. Almost any athlete who has had the same experience knows how grim it can be.

As late as the middle of the season we were still struggling. I wasn't hitting. However, Leo's urging and my response to it had just begun to tell. I was starting to hit again when Leo left us and took over our long-time enemies, the Giants. Burt Shotton came back as manager just at the time my weight had come under control and I got back into stride. The effort and determination I had put into whipping myself into shape while Leo was still with us had paid off, but the seemingly sudden transition the minute Burt Shotton reappeared made Leo madder than ever. I think that Leo felt I had not given him my best effort and was working harder for Shotton. That wasn't true, but on the playing field Leo and I got into a number of hassles that were picked up by the press. Leo and I were alike in many ways, and that could have been part of our problem. But no matter how many verbal insults we exchanged, I believe we never lost the respect we had for each other's abilities.

At the time Leo left in July, Rachel, Jackie, and I moved into half of a very pleasant duplex in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Although we were much more at ease here, we soon learned that when our black landlady rented us part of her place, she had been in trouble herself. There had been a petition by the predominantly Jewish neighbors to try to keep her from occupying the house.

Rachel and I are both proud. It wouldn't occur to us to run after people who might be unreceptive to us. Therefore we largely ignored the neighbors. Jackie, however, with the innocent purity of a child, was sometimes the cause of breaking the ice between us and our hostile neighbors. He would disappear into one of their backyards, knock on a door, ask for a cookie. Rae or I would go looking for our wandering son only to find that Jackie had enchanted another white person out of his hang-up about their black neighbors.

There was one white youngster—a little guy of maybe nine—who was a big Jackie Robinson fan. Every day, when I came out of the house, he would be right there, staring at me. At first, this puzzled me, until I began to understand that he was just like a lot of other people—many much older than he. He just wanted some attention. Once I knew that he was not one of our hostile neighbors, I began to talk to him and cultivate his friendship. After a few days of this, I couldn't have had a better little buddy.

We had another neighbor, Mrs. Sarah Satlow, who lived two houses from us on Tilden Avenue in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Sarah was one of the whites on the block who had refused to sign the petition protesting our black landlady's presence. The Satlow family and the Robinson family became very close friends and still are today. Sarah had children also who loved little Jackie and played with him almost every day. One Christmas Eve Rachel and I were decorating the Christmas tree with Jackie doing his share. Sarah's children were at our house, and suddenly I was aware of how wistful they looked as they watched us hang ornaments and lights. It occurred to me that perhaps the Satlows couldn't afford to have a tree. I slipped out of the house and drove around the neighborhood until I found one of those Christmas Eve hucksters who still has trees left. I went home and split up half of the lights and decorations and delivered tree and trimmings to Sarah's house. She was flabbergasted, and I felt like a true Good Samaritan. I returned home, and then the thought came to me that maybe we should have volunteered to help the Satlows decorate their tree. I mentioned it to Rae and she immediately agreed to go over and see. When Rachel got to our friends' home, she was puzzled to find the whole family sitting around staring at the tree. They seemed fascinated, but they hadn't begun to set the tree up, or decorate it. After an uncomfortable silence, Sarah leveled with Rae. “Rachel,” she said, “we have a problem. We appreciate your thoughtfulness but, you see, you and Jack must have forgotten that we don't celebrate Christmas exactly like you do—you know, being Jewish.”

Rachel's eyes widened and then she realized how funny the situation was. So did all the Satlows, and everybody started laughing. The payoff was, however, that Sarah Satlow decided to throw caution to the winds.

“We're putting that tree up,” she said. “If my mother and father come by to visit, they'll have a fit, but this is one Christmas this Jewish family is going to have a Christmas tree.”

And they did.

During that unspectacular 1948 season there was one valuable development. Pee Wee Reese was at shortstop and I had been moved to second base. We worked together exceptionally well and developed into a magnificent double-play combination.

I had had a miserable start, but I ended the season batting .296 with twelve home runs and eighty-five runs batted in. I led the league in being hit with seven pitched balls (a dubious distinction) and in fielding average for a second baseman with a .983.

The most important thing that happened to me in 1948, as far as I am concerned, is that I got thrown out of a game for heckling an umpire. It happened in Pittsburgh. The umpire was Butch Henline. In the fourth Henline called a strike on Gene Hermanski. Along with other Dodgers on the bench, I gave Henline what we called the bench jockey treatment, booing and raucously protesting what we felt was a bad decision.

Henline gave us a warning to quit. I continued the heckling.

He whirled around, snatched off his mask, and pointed at me. “You! Robinson. Yer out of the game.”

He didn't pick on me because I was black. He was treating me exactly as he would any ballplayer who got on his nerves. That made me feel great, even though I couldn't play anymore that day. One of the newspapers said it in the best headline I ever got:
jackie just another guy.

I certainly could use it. Because the next season, in 1949, there were going to be some pretty rough headlines.

I thought I had learned the worst there was to learn about racial hatred in America. The year 1949 taught me more. A black man, even after he has proven himself on and off the playing field, will still be denied his rights. I am not talking about the things that happened to me in order to portray myself as some kind of martyr. I am recording them because I want to warn the white world that young blacks today are not willing—nor should they be—to endure the humiliations I did. I suffered them because I hoped to provide a better future for my children and for young black people everywhere, and because I naïvely believed that my sacrifices might help a little to make America the kind of country it was supposed to be. People have asked me, “Jack, what's your beef? You've got it made.” I'm grateful for all the breaks and honors and opportunities I've had, but I always believe I won't have it made until the humblest black kid in the most remote backwoods of America has it made.

It is not terribly difficult for the black man as an individual to enter into the white man's world and be partially accepted. However, if that individual black man is, in the eyes of the white world, an “uppity nigger,” he is in for a very hard time indeed. I can just hear my liberal white friends and a lot of Negroes who haven't yet got the word that they are black, protesting such an observation.

The late Malcolm X had a very interesting comment on the “progress” of the Negro. I disagreed with Malcolm vigorously in many areas during his earlier days, but I certainly agreed with him when he said, “Don't tell me about progress the black man has made. You don't stick a knife ten inches in my back, pull it out three or four, then tell me I'm making progress.”

Malcolm, in a few well-chosen words, captured the essence of the way most blacks, I believe, think today. Virtually every time the black stands up like a man to make a protest or tell a truth as he sees it, white folks and some white-minded black folks try to hush or shame him by singing out that “You've come a long way” routine. They fail to say that we've still got a long way to go because of the unjust headstart the founding fathers of this country had on us and the handicaps they bestowed on the red men they robbed and the blacks they abducted and enslaved.

Whites are expert game-players in their contests to maintain absolute power. One of their time-honored gimmicks is to point to individual blacks who have achieved recognition: “But look at Ralph Bunche. Think about Lena Horne or Marian Anderson. Look at Jackie Robinson. They made it.”

As one of those who has “made it,” I would like to be thought of as an inspiration to our young. But I don't want them lied to. The late Dr. Ralph Bunche, a true black man of our time, felt the same way. The “system supporters” will point to the honors heaped on a Ralph Bunche. They will play down the fact that he and his son were barred from membership in the New York Tennis Club because of blackness. They will gloss over the historical truth that Mr. Bunche was once offered a high post in the State Department and did not accept because it would have meant Jim Crow schools for his children. Look at Lena Horne, they say. The show business world took this lovely woman and tried to make her into a sepia Marilyn Monroe. They overlooked her dramatic ability and her other talents and insisted that she be cast only in the role of a cheap sexpot. When she refused they white-listed her out of the film colony. They point to her as a success symbol, but they will go easy on reminding you that she defied the United States Army when she was programmed to sing Jim Crow concerts for black troops and separate concerts for whites and German prisoners of war in a Southern installation. Lena sang for the black troops only.

If a black becomes too important or too big for his racial britches or if he has too much power, he will get cut down. They will cut him down even when the power the black has doesn't come from the white man, but from grass-roots black masses, as was the case of Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell. With all his faults, Adam was a man who rocked the establishment boat, and the establishment lynched him politically for it. I don't think anyone in or out of sports could ever seriously accuse Willie Mays of offending white sensitivities. But when he was in California, whites refused to sell him a house in their community. They loved his talent, but they didn't want him for a neighbor.

Name them for me. The examples of blacks who “made it.” For virtually every one you name, I can give you a sordid piece of factual information on how they have been mistreated, humiliated.

Not being able to fight back is a form of severe punishment. I was relieved when Mr. Rickey finally called me into his office and said, “Jackie, you're on your own now. You can be yourself now.”