...Jackie Robinson Jackie Robinson, the best baseball player in the twentieth century, was the first African American to play in the Major League Baseball and opened up the generation for colored people to play baseball. He courageously changed and challenged the deeply rooted custom of racial segregation in both the north and the south. He also gave the African Americans a different focus for life then just stepping back and letting them get walked all over by the words form the whites. Jackie proved a lot from when he made major achievements in high school from a one parent family, to trying out for the Major Leagues. Then put in his will to create a foundation after he was deceased to help out teens that struggled through life like him. Jackie Robinson came from a hardworking single-parent family with the strength to shake the world. He attended John Muir High School and also Pasadena Junior College (Jackie Robinson Foundation). At UCLA, Jackie became the first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football, and track (Official website). After he was turned away for wanting to play major league baseball, he put a lot of thought in to it and decided he needed to do something else first. He volunteered for the Army one year before war was declared and got sent on April 3rd (Mary 33). From 1942 to 1944, Robinson served as a second lieutenant in the United States Army in World War II, and was discharged from the Army in 1944 (The Biography)....
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...During 1947 Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play baseball. 1919 Jackie Robinson was born, and he was the youngest child in his family. He started playing baseball in 1947. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in New York City. The owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers wanted to break the color barrier of baseball. He was watching one of the Negro Leagues, and he saw Jackie Robinson performing very well. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, because he was the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball, he had to deal with the racism, and also he had to fight against segregation. Jackie Robinson had many racists said to him when he played baseball. “In light of his outstanding performance, it was clear that Robinson...
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...Batter Swing! Into the History of the legend Jackie Robinson. A hero to me is someone who goes above and beyond to help someone, or make a change. An example is Martin Luther King Jr. because he helped a lot with by giving a speech to help inspire people that just because someone has different colored skin doesn’t mean you should think different of that person. Jackie Robinson was a great example of a hero because of the symbolism he showed towards the Civil Rights Movement and his accomplishments as the first African American Major League Baseball Player. The early life of Jackie Robinson really opened a door for the man that he became. “Jackie Robinson was born on January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia” ("Jackie Robinson" Encyclopedia...
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...30, 2014 Jackie Robinson Robinson, Jackie (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) baseball player, civil rights activist was born in Cairo, Georgia the youngest of five children. His parents were Jerry and Mallie Robinson. Mallie Robinson worked several different jobs after her husband Jerry left the family in 1920. At Muir Tech, Robinson played several sports at the varsity level and lettered in four of them: football, basketball, track, and baseball. Robinson attended Pasadena Junior College (PJC), where he continued his athletic career by participating in basketball, football, baseball, and track. After graduating from PJC in spring 1939, Robinson transferred to UCLA, where he became the school's first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football, and track. Robinson was one of four black football players on the UCLA Bruins football team. Robinson was also the 1940 NCAA Track and Field Champion in the long jump. Ironically baseball was Robinson worst sport at UCLA he only hit .098. While at UCLA, he met his future wife, Rachel Isum. Robinson's eligibility ended at the end of 1941, UCLA asked Robinson to stay and even offered financial support to him. He didn’t have much money, but he turned down the offer respectively. An interesting fact is Robinson never graduated from UCLA. Robinson then became an assistant athletic director with the government's National Youth Administration (NYA) in Atascadero, California. Robinson moved to Honolulu...
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...Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia. He was the youngest of five children. Jackie’s father left the family shortly after he was born. Jackie never saw his father again. His mother raised him and his three brothers and one sister. About a year after Jackie was born, the family moved to Pasadena, California. There Jackie grew up watching is older brother excelling in sports. His brother became a track star who won a silver medal in the 200 meter dash the 1936 Olympics. Jackie loved to play sports. In high school he ran track like his older brother and also played other sports like football, baseball, tennis, and basketball. He was the quarterback of the football and the star player on the baseball team. Jackie had a deal to racism all through high school. Most of his teammates were white. Most of the white people would cheer him on the field. He was treated second class citizen off the field. After college, Robinson went to play professional football, but his career to a quick end with the start of World War II. He was drafted into the army. Jackie met the famous boxing champion Joe Lewis at basic training and they became friends. Joe helped Robinson get accepted into officer training. Once Jackie finished his officer...
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...1700 Baseballs Great Experiment, Jules Tygiel 11/1/13 The book Baseballs Great Experiment shows how people under the right circumstances can change history in the making. Tygiel starts out the story by telling how baseball started out segregated which allowed the reader to see through the eyes of Jackie Robinson and experience his life and how he and Rickey Branch changed the game of baseball. Tygiel’s thesis in this book is that Jackie Robinson was the best example on how to produce a change in a society that has unfair prejudice by maintaining class and composure, never giving up in the face of racism and even harm to himself. Tygiel also refers to Robinson impact on the other African American baseball players who wanted to join the major league and African Americans as a whole to change the Jim Crow league. One of the strengths in Tygiel’s book is his attention to detail. The detail he put into this book had to have taken hours and hours of research to compile all the data he used. Tygiel tells the story the African American baseball leagues as well as Jackie Robinsons and even feeds information on how the leagues were formed and how the desegregation affected the players. One of the weaknesses of the book can be the long list of statistics. For a baseball fanatic who understands the game, the statistics may be a strength considering that the stats make sense for the book to go along. But for the average readers that might not know anything about baseball or the...
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...There were many inspirational African Americans who changed the way of life for others. African Americans have broken down many barriers most would have thought to be impossible. However, one African American has broken down the wall to Major league baseball. Jackie Robinson was the first negro player in the major leagues. Jackie robinson was born on January 31st in Georgia. But he moved to Pasadena, California with his mother in 1920. He would later exceed in five sports at his high school and went on to play basketball, football and baseball at UCLA. Due to financial struggles he was forced to leave UCLA and decided to enlist in the army. Unfortunately Jackie was discharged because of racial discrimination in 1944. In 1945 jackie...
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...Jackie Robinson, Why Him? The story of Jackie Robinson has become one of America's most iconic and inspiring stories. Since 1947, American history has portrayed Jackie Robinson as a hero, and he has been idolized as a role model to the African American baseball community. It is an unarguable fact that he was the first to tear down the color barriers within professional baseball. The topic of Robinson’s role in integration has long been a point of discussion amongst baseball historians. Researchers have accumulated thousands of accredited documents and interviews with friends and team mates such as short stop, Pee Wee Reese, and team owner, Branch Rickey. However, few journalists have asked why Robinson was selected and what was Branch Rickey’s motivation? While Robinson was the first Negro player to break into the ranks of professional baseball, it can be argued that he was not the first to attempt the undertaking. In actuality, Jackie possibly was not even the first player the Brooklyn Dodgers’ organization considered for the job. The Warner Brothers film, 42, The Jackie Robinson Story (2013), highlights the accomplishments of Jackie and rightfully so, as he was an amazing man. The story actually starts prior to 1947 and ends years later in 1959, three years after his retirement in 1956. Early in his career at Ohio Wesleyan University, where Branch Rickey played and coached baseball, an incident occurred with one of his young black players, Charlie Thomas, which...
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...the first African American athlete play major league baseball game. #2 Jackie Robison started his professional athletic career in football. in 1941 he played briefly with the Honolulu bears & the los Angeles. Both teams were part of the Pacific coast league during an area when black players were explicitly banned from NFL. #3 In 1945 Jackie Robison signed on with the Kansas city monarchs baseball team, the Negro American team. #4 sixty years ago Jackie Robinson became the first professional baseball player in North America to cross over from black to white baseball when he joined the Montreal Royals, a farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers. A year later, Robinson was moved into the Dodger lineup at second base, a...
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...The Life of Jackie Robinson “ Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about myself ”- Jackie Robinson , who was born on January 31st in Cairo, Georgia. He was the youngest of five children, and his middle name in honor of Theodore Roosevelt former president who had died 25 days before he was born. His family moved to Pasadena, California after their father left them and they grew up in relative poverty. Jackie Robinson is one of the best and most important player that ever played the game of baseball, he was also the first African american to play the game. Not only did he play baseball, but he played football and was a track star in college. He also served in the military for a while. Robinson Attended John Muir high school after graduating, he went to Pasadena Junior college, where he was an excellent athlete. He played four sports including running back in...
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...influential on the sports side of smashing the racial barriers. Branch Rickey was the most influential person, in baseball, to break down these barriers, who many will over look. If it were not for people like Branch Rickey, we may have never known the names of people like Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente. It is crazy to think how different baseball could have been if these players never were given the opportunity to play the game, and it is mostly all thanks to Branch Rickey. History...
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...sports were one of the major entertainments for most Americans due to the fact that television did not yet exist (Breaking the Color Line: 1940 - 1946). In 1946 Jackie Robinson was the first African-American person to play in a professional baseball league (Krogstad). Also in 1946 football began desegregating (African American Celebrity and the Civil Rights Movement). Four African-American athletes were added to the football roster (African American Celebrity and the Civil Rights Movement). Bill Willis...
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...Extended Writing Project By Kyler Brennan Melba Beals, Feng Ru, Jackie Robinson are the people I will be writing about. I chose these people because they changed their country. Feng Ru changed his country by going to California and building airplanes after he figured out how to build them he brought them to China. That's why China has airplanes. Jackie Robinson was the first black person to play baseball in the major leagues. That's why today there is black people playing baseball. Melba Beals was one of nine black people to go to a white persons high school. These are really important people. Jackie Robinson is the first black baseball player to baseball with white people. Mr. Rickey was the person who brought Jackie from the black leagues...
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...The Integration of Baseball & its Effect on Social Movements The integration of baseball during 1947-1959 was a time period where barriers were broken resulting in positive social changes that would alleviate class conflicts. Social changes through integration of baseball helped the Civil Rights movements although its major impacts weren’t made until the late 1960s. Baseball players were praised within the sport of baseball; however, their social status still remained the same. What was the impact of the integration of baseball on the Civil Rights movement and the social status of African Americans? These players did great things to help change the game of baseball, but were not respected by majority of their peers. The challenges that did players had to face were ridiculous. Recognized as superstars on the field, baseball players like Jackie Robinson were looked down upon by society because of their skin color. Therefore, the effects of baseball integration on society was crucial for the Civils Rights movement, but its impact was limited at best for individual baseball players and for the collective African American society since their social status as a whole remained the same. This would lead to residual class conflicts. Even the process of baseball integration was not smooth as some teams embraced integration for various reasons such as competitive advantage or box office potential, but others such as the American League’s old guard faced public pressure to limit the integration...
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...complex and unusual also comes with activity of this nature, and this is the ability to forget the destitution and difficulty of everyday life and the capability to be on a level playing field with many people that believe the same way, no matter what socio-economic class they represent. One sport in particular has transcended all other games, has continually been a psychological shelter from pain and hardships of life, and also a cultural rocket breaking through the social barriers in the American society. That sport is simply the most beloved American game of all, baseball. The purpose of this essay is to critically explore a myriad of aspects of life that have been changed due to sports, all the while concentrating on baseball as the main focal point. Further, this work will continually pose the question of how it is conceivable that a single and simple sport could greatly impact a country the way baseball has the United States. At the time of the first foreign inhabitants of North America, life was more difficult than someone of the twenty-first century could have imagined. The hardships were endured by every colonist nearly twenty-four hours a day, with little to relieve their minds of the complexities of early American life. Nonetheless, there was at least one aspect of life that offered them the ability to escape the perennial cruelties of life, and that was sports. Throughout the colonies, no matter north or south,...
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