Jackie Robinson's 100th Birthday - 1/31/2019

Jack Roosevelt Robinson, better known as Jackie Robinson, was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when the Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base on April 15, 1947.

Today, January 31, 2019, would have been Robinson’s 100th birthday.

Jackie was born in Cairo, GA into a family of sharecroppers, the youngest of five children. After his father left the family in 1920, the family moved to Pasadena, CA. Growing up in relative poverty in an otherwise affluent community, Jackie joined a neighborhood gang, but a friend persuaded him to abandon it.

As is often true with athletically gifted people, Jackie excelled at several sports. In high school, he lettered in baseball, football, basketball, and track. He was also a member of the tennis team. After high school, he attended Pasadena Junior College where he participated in football, baseball, basketball, and track, breaking the school’s broad jump record. After graduating from PJC, Jackie enrolled at UCLA where he became the school’s first athlete to letter in four sports: baseball, football, basketball, and track. He won the NCAA championship in the long jump in 1940.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Robinson was drafted into the Army and applied for Office Candidate School (OCS) and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1943.

Robinson ended his major league playing career by striking out in the 7th game to end the1956 World Series. He retired from baseball at age 37 on January 5, 1957. Complications from heart disease and diabetes had weakened him and made him almost blind. He died of a heart attack on October 24, 1972, nine days after appearing at the World Series at the relatively young age of 53.

I saw Jackie play his first year in the major leagues. My Dad took me to a game in Philadelphia at what was then Shibe Park (later called Connie Mack Stadium) on Lehigh Avenue to see the then Brooklyn Dodgers play the Philadelphia Phillies. It was a memorable experience for a 12-year-old baseball fan. In those days Philadelphia had two major league baseball teams: the Phillies in the National League and the Athletics in the American League. Both teams used Shibe Park as their home field.

Jackie Robinson, a truly remarkable icon of the 20th century.

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