Facts About Jackie Robinson
If Jackie Robinson had just been part of a baseball team, that alone would have been enough to ensure a place in the history of the game. But Robinson did more than make baseball the true national pastime. It is easy to overlook the kind of baseball player he was. He led the Brooklyn Dodgers to six championships in ten years (in addition to its only World Series) and was selected Rookie of the Year in 1947 and MVP in 1949.
When the Dodgers also had to Halls of Fame, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese and Roy Campanella, Robinson forced by their example, to raise their game, as he did with all his other teammates. The second baseman for the Cardinals, Red Schoendienst once, "but for him the Dodgers would be in second division," he said. Led by history and temperament, Robinson puzzled pitchers to dance to first base and had enough speed to steal rubber 19 times, 5 times in a season. He improved his average to .300 for six consecutive seasons, and retired with a .311 average. It was a first, second and third regular basis and left fielder and second baseman led the league in double plays four consecutive years (1949-1952).
The first man four letters of UCLA (baseball, basketball, football and tennis) went ahead and entered the Army Cadet School. There he underwent a court-martial, then resigned when he refused to sit in the back of a bus. After stints with the Kansas City Monarchs and the Montreal Royals Club training Dodgers, he made his major league debut with the Dodgers in 1947 at the ripe age of 28; Robby hit .297, scored 125 runs, and led his team to a championship. That fall was second in a survey in front of Bing Crosby as the most popular man in America.
Robinson, in just his second year, he became the team leader of the Dodgers. It started in the All-Star team for the first time six times (four at second base) in 1949; he led the league in batting, was selected as MVP, and led the Dodgers to another championship.
The last day of the 1951 season, Brooklyn needed a win to force a tie with the Giants, Robinson made a spectacular catch saving Game line Eddie Waitku to take the game into extra innings, then he won on the fourteenth inning with a homer. The Dodgers won the pennant that year thanks to Bobby Thomson, but recaptured the pennant in four of the final five seasons of Robinson.
Fifteen years after he joined the baseball, Robinson entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
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