Fifty years ago this week, Jackie Robinson stepped one final time into the breach after a lifetime of fighting good fights and squashing stubborn enemies. He was 53 but looked much older than his years, ransacked by diabetes, his hair a snowy white, his eyesight all but gone.
A quarter-century earlier, Robinson had changed the way baseball looked forever, shattering the color barrier — a so-called “gentleman’s agreement” — that had existed for decades. He did so with an uncommon dignity and an unyielding courage, enduring all manner of slander and prejudice, thriving on the field even as he raged off it.
There had been a long period of estrangement, both with baseball and with the Dodgers, when he’d retired following the 1956 season, and he’d suffered more than his share of heartache. His close friend, Gil Hodges, had died earlier in 1972 of a heart attack. His eldest son, Jackie Jr., had died less than a year before that in a car accident, after climbing back from a substance-abuse habit he’d developed in Vietnam and becoming a counselor at the rehab facility where he’d sought treatment.
Still, on that afternoon of Oct. 15, 1972, a sunny and seasonable day in Cincinnati, Robinson had come to Riverfront Stadium to throw out the first pitch of Game 2 of the World Series between the Reds and the Oakland Athletics. He’d recently had his number retired by the Dodgers, and MLB was eager to recognize all he had done in shaping the game’s future.
Just before he took the field to loud applause from the 53,224 at Riverfront, a man approached in the tunnel. At first, Jackie couldn’t recognize him because his sight was so poor. But as soon as the men embraced he realized it was Pee Wee Reese, his old friend, teammate, and on a day in 1947, in that very city, his protector against the sneers and death threats Robinson had been receiving.
As Kostya Kennedy described it in his elegant book “True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson”:
“There, at old Crosley Field, Reese made his noted public connection with Robinson — whether with an arm across the shoulder as legend describes it, or with a clasp of hands near home plate, or by standing beside him to talk between innings. Reese’s visible physical closeness with Robinson served to rebuke the hatred that spewed from the stands.”
Then it was time for Robinson to address the crowd, and his words were both hopeful and haunting, a tribute of all the progress he’d helped push, a reminder of all that was still left to be done.
“I was really just a spoke in the wheel of the success that we had some 25 years ago,” Robinson said. “And I personally want to say thank you to a great captain, who was the leader of our ballclub and who really set the pace in many, many areas. Pee Wee, thanks so much for being here today.”
He then saluted Branch Rickey, who’d signed him to the Dodgers organization late in 1945, recognizing, “my untiring love and gratitude for the things that he has done over the years.”
He thanked his family. He thanked baseball. He held in his hands a trophy he’d just been presented with, and made sure to recognize everyone who’d come to Cincinnati that day to honor him. But he also had one final message for his sport, and for his country.
“I’m extremely proud to be here this afternoon. But I must admit that 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. Thank you very much.”
He walked off the field, took his seat by the home-team dugout, threw out the first pitch to Reds catcher Johnny Bench. Nine days later, he died at home in Connecticut, so he never did see Frank Robinson — who’d idolized Jackie as a child in Oakland — become the game’s first African-American manager, for Cleveland in 1975.
But he’d left one last challenge behind him, one last glass ceiling for someone else to shatter. In a city where he’d been slathered with bile just 25 years before, he took a final public bow to cheers and a standing ovation. He deserved at least that much.
Vac’s Whacks
You know who deserves to be paid off? Jets fans. And the Jets can pay off their most loyal and ardent supporters by playing a full football game against the Dolphins on Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium.
Godspeed, Bernard McGuirk. Anyone who provided that many laughs for that many people has done quite well on this mortal coil.
There simply aren’t enough ways to tell you just how good “The Mosquito Bowl,” Buzz Bissinger’s new book remembering a remarkable football game in the depths of the Pacific theater of World War II, is. Here’s one: It’s every bit as good — and maybe even better — than “Friday Night Lights.”
Also worth your while: “The Greatest Beer Run Ever,” just a terrific movie in every way, about an old Inwood character named Chickie Donohue and the time, in 1968, when the ex-Marine decided to deliver beers to his buddies in Vietnam. The fact that it actually happened in real life only makes it all better.
Whack Back at Vac
John Cody: I think it’s time Roger Maris goes into the Hall of Fame. How many two-time MVPs are not in the Hall? And just think: It took 61 years for someone to break his home run record. Like Gil Hodges, Roger Maris was terrific in the field with a strong and accurate arm. He should be elected the next time the appropriate committee of electors meet.
Vac: The highest Maris ever polled when he was on the ballot was 43.1 percent in his 15th and final year, 1988. Ted Simmons, to name one, only received 3.7 percent in his only year on the ballot. To name another, Bill Mazeroski’s high was 42.3 percent. Maris is worth a closer look.
Steve Giegerich: If Proctor & Gamble doesn’t sign up Aaron Judge as their new Mr. Clean, they’ve missed an opportunity (see what I did there?).
Vac: And maybe the first thing the new Mr. Clean could do is scrub the MLB record books.
@CaptainJustic15: Amazing! Aaron Judge moved into the Top Six of all time!
@MikeVacc: So maybe not everyone was quite as enthralled by No. 62 as those of us in New York (mostly) were.
John Wagner: The Yankees are the one New York team that has had postseason success in Atlanta. They are 5-0 in their history in World Series games in Atlanta (1996, 1999). Actually, “Yankees” have always had success in Atlanta dating back to Gen. Sherman.
Vac: Whenever you can bring William Tecumseh Sherman into the conversation, you bring William Tecumseh Sherman into the conversation.