Rickey and Robinson

by Harvey Frommer

  Rickey picked up a piece of paper from his desk. He looked it over for a couple. of moments. “About the Kansas City Monarchs—do you have a written or oral agreement to play for the Monarchs for the rest of the season?”

  “No, sir. We just play from one payday to the next.”

  “How about next year?”

  “No. There is no agreement of any kind. All the players on the Monarchs go from payday to payday. They pay me a certain amount each payday, but either side could end the arrangement at the end of the month if they wanted to, Mr. Rickey. That’s the way it works.”

  “That was my impression too, Jackie, but I wanted to see how much of the situation you understood.”

  The older man then proceeded to reveal to the astonished Robinson how extensively he had investigated Robinson’s life. Rickey knew that Robinson was, like himself, a Methodist and a nondrinker. He had visited California, where Robinson had grown up and made a name for himself in high school and college sports. Rickey had spoken with a Californian who was close to Robinson during his days at UCLA and had criticized Jackie for being too competitive.

  Rickey was also aware of Robinson’s army career. Drafted in I942 at the age of twenty-three, Robinson was designated for limited service as a result of bone chips in his ankle caused by an old football injury. At basic training in Fort Riley, Kansas, Jackie applied for Officer’s Candidate School, only to be told off the record that Fort Riley did not accept members of his race for such training.

  Robinson had had a chance meeting and a few rounds of golf with the most famous black athlete of the time, Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion of the world, who was stationed at Fort Riley for a brief time. Robinson got in touch with Louis, and Louis called Truman Gibson, a black civil rights leader and adviser to the Secretary of Defense. Gibson came to Fort Riley to investigate. OCS opened its doors for Robinson and a few of his black fellow soldiers.

  Robinson’s regard for the army was understandably not too high at this point, but just about the time of his birthday in 1943, he was awarded his second lieutenant’s bars and was transferred to a Negro provisional truck battalion, where he was made morale officer for the troops.

  Again Robinson found prejudice and segregation firmly entrenched in army life. At the PX, just a half dozen seats were assigned to black personnel. There were other empty seats, but they were reserved for the white soldiers. Blacks stood for long periods of time waiting to claim their six seats as they were vacated.

  In his capacity as morale officer, Robinson phoned the provost marshal, Major Hafner, and complained. He was told that things were better the way they were and that nothing could be done. “Lieutenant Robinson,” Hafner had concluded, “let me put it this way—how would you like your wife sitting next to a nigger?”

  Robinson was enraged. Hafner, realizing now he was speaking to a black man, hung up. But the exchange had not gone unnoticed. The office of battalion commander Colonel Longley was near where Robinson had made the phone call. Longley had heard the screaming, and after interviewing Jackie sided with the highly agitated black man. He sent a scorching letter of reprimand to Hafner and a letter of commendation to Robinson for standing up for his men. The incident led to a change in the PX seating arrangements.

  Lieutenant Robinson was getting into shape to play football for the Fort Riley team when he was suddenly granted a two-week leave. When he returned, he learned that the leave was given so that he would not be on the scene when Fort Riley played against the University of Missouri. That institution had served notice that it would not participate in a football game against a team with a black athlete. Robinson quit the Fort Riley team, saying that he would not play on a squad that yielded to racial prejudice. ”You can order me to play,” he told the colonel in charge, “but you can’t control the quality of my performance.” Shortly afterward, Robinson was transferred to a tank battalion at Camp Hood, Texas.

  One blisteringly hot summer day in August 1944, the third and most potentially dangerous incident in Robinson’s army career took place. A bus driver ordered him to move to the back of the bus in direct violation of a federal ruling against segregated buses on army posts. Robinson refused. There was a heated exchange between him and the bus driver, followed by another argument between Jackie and a captain in the military police. The incident led to a courtmartial based on two charges : that 2d Lt. Jack R. Robinson behaved· insolently and impertinently to Capt. Gerald Bear, the military police officer; and that 2d Lt. Jack R. Robinson had disobeyed Bear’s order to remain seated on a chair on the far side of a receiving room. Robinson’s acquittal on the charges was a victory, but also another one in a series of humiliating incidents. He had simply demanded his legal rights, but those rights so freely given to others were rights he had to fight for. Because he demanded his rights, he was subjected to the ignominy of a trial.

  “I’ll level with you, Jackie,” Rickey now said to the young man he had met just that morning but knew so much about. “I heard about racial problems that you supposedly had. I made a thorough investigation. I know that if you were white, they would never call you a troublemaker. I’m satisfied on that count.

  “I know all about your battles, Jackie. I know all about your fighting spirit. It’s fine. We are going to use all those qualities.”

  For Robinson, the interview was becoming more and more astonishing—the plans being made for him, the questions being asked, the insights into his life, all from this legendary figure. A $400-a-month shortstop for the Kansas City Monarchs who thought what he was doing was “a pretty miserable way to make a buck,” he was excited at the opportunity being offered. Whatever it was, whatever it took, he thought, it was better than the segregated hotels, the two-day bus rides from Kansas City to Philadelphia for the long doubleheaders and the long bus ride the next day. He was confident of his ability to succeed in organized baseball. And yet there was doubt. He knew firsthand about opportunity seeming so close and then being pulled away.

  Rickey stood up. He took off the jacket of his dark threepiece suit. “Have you the guts to play the game? Have you the guts to play no matter what happens? That’s an answer I want to get from you today.”

  “I can play the game,” Robinson answered. Rickey moved next to him, his face very close to the black man’s. Rickey’s look was suddenly mean, antagonistic.

  “Let’s say I’m a hotel clerk, Jackie. I look up at you from behind the desk register. I snarl at you, ‘We don’t want any niggers sleeping here I’ What do you do then?

  “You’re standing in the batter’s box,” Rickey continued, before Robinson could answer. “It’s a very tense situation. I’m a beanball pitcher.” Rickey used his smudgy cigar as a weapon, pointing it toward Jackie’s chin. “I wing a fast ball at you. It just grazes your cap and sends you jumping back for cover. What do you do?”

  “It would not be the first time a pitcher threw at me, Mr. Rickey. I’d just pick myself up and dig in.”

  “All right—another game situation now. I am playing against you in a crucial game. I smack the ball into the outfield. I’m rounding first, and I come in to second. It’s close. It’s a very close play. We untangle our bodies. I lunge toward you.” Rickey lunged at Robinson, his big fist coming close to Jackie’s face.” ‘Get out of my way, you black son of a bitch, you black bastard!’ What do you do now?”

  Not giving Robinson a chance to answer, Rickey continued, shouting now: “You’re positioned at shortstop. I am at first base. I come down at you on a steal. I slide. My spikes are high. I cut you in the leg. As the blood starts to show through your uniform, I grin. I laugh at you. ‘Now, you black nigger, how do you like that?’ What do you do now?”

  Robinson was angered, but he also realized that Rickey was playacting. “Mr. Rickey, what do you want? Do you want a coward, a ballplayer who’s afraid to fight back?”

  “I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back,” Rickey said firmly. His hair matted and wet, his tie loosened, Rickey took a
few paces to the right, away from Robinson. “It’s kind of a coincidence, Jackie, and I think a happy coincidence, that you share the same birth date as my son. He was born on January 31, 1914, and my records show you were born five years later to the day. Branch Jr., you may know, came to Brooklyn before me to handle their minorleague clubs. A couple of years later he was my main reason for coming to Brooklyn. Branch Jr. is a wonderful human being, religious and fair-minded. Yet he has expressed to me on various occasions the fear that signing a Negro player will dry up sources of talent for the Dodgers in the South, sources that he, in particular, has worked on.

  “Mrs. Rickey also has been quite upset about the ramifications of my course of action. Why you, Branch?’ she asks me. ‘Why not someone else for a change?’ She is fearful of my health deteriorating as a result of the controversy signing a colored player is certain to generate.”

  Rickey walked over to the window and adjusted the venetian blind against the rising morning sun. “I want you to know, Jackie,” he continued, “that there is no way for us to fight our way through this situation.” He turned back, facing Robinson once again. “There is virtually no group on our side. No umpires, no club owners, maybe a few newspapermen. We will be in a very tough spot. I have a great fear that there will be some fans who will be highly hostile to what we are doing. Jackie, it will be a tough position to be in, an almost impossible position. But we can win if we can convince everyone that you are not only a great ballplayer but also a great gentleman.”

  “Mr. Rickey,” Robinson said, leaning forward in his chair, his hands clasped tightly together, “the way you’re talking it sounds like a battle.”

  “Yes, exactly, a battle!” Rickey’s voice rose again. “But it’s one we won’t be able to fight our way through. We have no army, no soldiers. Our weapons will be base hits and stolen bases and swallowed pride. Those will do the job and get the victory—that’s what will win . . . and Jackie, nothing, nothing else will do it.”

  Now Rickey was once again very close to Robinson. Waving his hand under the black man’s chin, Rickey became the fan screaming obscenities, the rival manager cursing Robinson’s parentage, the teammate refusing to acknowledge his presence, the reporter baiting him with rigged questions. Rickey spilled out the litany of prejudice, all the while probing for the strength of character that he knew would be needed.

  “All right,” Rickey continued, “you have an argument with another player and he makes a statement subjecting you to the lowest depths of scurrility—a sexual reference to you and your mother. What would you do?”

  “I’d kill him!”

  Robinson’s answer showed Rickey that the strength of character was there, but the Dodger general manager was not pleased. He wondered how he could be assured that Robinson would keep that strength and, at the same time, control it in order to survive.

  “That would not serve any purpose,” Rickey lectured. “The taunts and the goads will be aimed at making you react, at infuriating you enough to set off a race riot in the ballpark. Then they’ll say that is proof that Negroes shouldn’t be allowed in the major leagues. They’ll think that’s a good way to frighten fans and make them afraid to attend games.”

  Robinson nodded as he listened. “I understand, Mr. Rickey. I know what you’re getting at.”

  “All right. You have played for Montreal and you come up to the Brooklyn Dodgers.” Rickey was moving about the room, gesticulating. “You get into the World Series. There they play for keeps. It’s no holds barred.” The older man’s face wrinkled into an evil frown. “I hate niggers. I also want to win in the worst possible way. I come into second base and my spikes are sharp. I aim them right at you. You move out of my way and you jab me in my rib cage with the ball. I’m out. I have an aching side. I’m humiliated. I jump up. ‘You tar baby son of a bitch,’ I scream. ‘You can’t do this to me, you coon.’ I punch you in the face.” Rickey was close to Robinson as he said this, and he swung his clenched fist under Robinson’s chin. Robinson didn’t flinch. “What do you do now, Jackie? What do you do now?”

  “I get it, Mr. Rickey. I’ve got another cheek. I turn the other cheek.”

  “Wonderful!” Rickey was finally satisfied. “Wonderful. You will hear much worse before you are through. I merely was testing you, and I apologize for it. But you are a pioneer, and this whole experiment depends on you. You can never forget that for a moment.”

  The role playing was concluded. Returning to the swivel chair behind his desk, Rickey smoothed his hair and wiped the sweat from his face with a large white handkerchief. He reached for a sheet of paper. “Jackie, I’d like you to read this and sign it.”

  Robinson took the paper and read the two-paragraph statement carefully. It was a contract with the Montreal Royals-an agreement for a $3,500 bonus and a salary of $600 a month for the 1946 season. The second paragraph held Rickey harmless against any oral or written claims that Robinson was under contract to any other person or organization.

  Robinson looked up. “It seems fine, Mr. Rickey.” Unscrewing the top of his fountain pen and twisting it into its bottom, Rickey handed it to Robinson. He thought of all the times he had handed a pen across his desk to a ballplayer. There were drinkers, dreamers, brave men, and cowards, some with limitless talent and limited desire, others with limited talent and limitless desire. The scene had been repeated many times before; yet the sense that this was a historic moment caused a slight flutter in his heart.

  Robinson signed the agreement. “Mr. Rickey, this seems like a dream come true. But it seems like there will be trouble ahead for you, for me, for baseball, for my people.”

  “Trouble ahead.” Rickey rolled the phrase about as he leaned back in his chair, his hands folded high across his chest. “Trouble ahead. Many years ago, the Rio Grande Railroad used to give tourists in Colorado a thrill. They would put the tourists on a flatcar and haul them up a canyon. Mrs. Rickey and I took that ride years ago, and on the ride the walls were so narrow and so limited our view that all we were able to see was the blue sky up at the very end of the canyon. It was a frightening ride. As we got near the top, Mrs. Rickey remarked to me, ‘Branch, there’s qouble· ahead. I’m afraid we’re going to run right over the top.’

  Rickey sat forward now, struck a match and ignited his half-smoked cigar. “Well, Jackie, the engineers had figured it all out. Just before we reached the top, the road veered off and went through a tunnel, so there was no trouble ahead at all. And that is the way it is with much of the trouble ahead in the world. We simply have to use the courage and common sense God gave us. The important thing is to study and. unaerstand the hazards and build wisely.”

  The yellow pad on Rickey’s desk bore a few words he had jotted down, closing remarks he had prepared in advance. Rickey quickly glanced at them and looked up at Robinson.

  “I want to beg two things of you, Jackie. Give it all you have as a ballplayer. As a man, give continuing loyalty to your race and to the critical cause you are going to symbolize. And above all, do not fight. No matter how vile the abuse, you must ignore it. You are carrying the reputation of a race on your shoulders. Bear it well, and the day will come when every team in baseball will open its doors to Negroes.”

  Rickey thought to himself that punch for punch was by experience, inheritance, and desire Jackie’s natural reaction to attack and insult. He wondered how such self-imposed control would work on this strong-willed young man. There would be a price, he had no doubt.

  As the meeting ended, Rickey pulled open a desk drawer, took out a book, and handed it to Robinson. It was The Life of Christ by Giovanni Papini, an Italian priest. Rickey read often from the book, claiming it instructed him along the corridors of humility. “Jackie, I would like you to read silently from a few passages of Papini’s philosophy just now. I think it will be valuable for you.”

  Settling back in the comfortable leather chair, Robinson turned to the place Rickey indicated and began to read:

  Ye have heard that
it hath been said. An eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. . . . There are three answers which men can make to violence: revenge, flight, turning the other cheek. The first is the barbarous principle of retaliation. . . . Flight is no better than retaliation. . . . The man who takes flight invites pursuit. . . . His weakness becomes the accomplice of the ferocity of others. . . . Turning the other cheek means not receiving the second blow. It means cutting the chain of the inevitable wrongs at the first link. Your adversary is ready for anything but this. . . . Every man has an obscure respect for courage in others, especially if it is moral courage, the rarest and most difficult sort of bravery. . . . It makes the very brute understand that this man is more than a man. . . . To answer blows with blows, evil deeds with evil deeds, is to meet the attacker on his own ground, to proclaim oneself as low as he. . . . Only he who has conquered himself can conquer his enemies.

  Robinson closed the book gently and handed it back to Rickey. “I understand,” he said.

  Chapter Two

  Pasadena: The Making of an All-American

  Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia, on January 31, 1919, the fifth and last child of Mallie and Jerry Robinson. Mallie’s father had been a slave, and the feel of those times was always close by. Her mind often tarried in the vestibule of bondage. Jerry earned $12 a month for his labors on the Jim Sasser plantation near the Florida border. His wages were barely enough to feed the young family.

  One December day, Jerry came home late after his hogkilling chores were completed. “Just liver, lights, and chitterlings,” Mallie shouted at her husband. “Butchering all day and that’s what they let you bring home. No tenderloin, not even a neckbone?”