69 years ago, Jackie Robinson changed baseball forever. He didn't do so by hitting a game winning home run or making an outstanding play in the field. He did this by simply stepping onto the dirt at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to play for the Dodgers. By stepping onto the field, Robinson was ending 50 years of segregated baseball. Instead of people playing on certain teams to make everyone feel better, Robinson rejected that ideal and changed the game.
Robinson was pretty good on the field too. Robinson hit .311 during his 10 year career and only struck out 291 times. That's less than two seasons for Adam Dunn for reference. Robinson cranked 54 triples in his career and compiled a .440 on base percentage in 1952. Over the course of his career, he slugged .474 and got on base over 40 percent of the time. He won the Rookie of The Year in 1947 and the MVP in 1949.
Robinson's highest salary was $39,500 dollars and he made less than $300,000 for his career. For the sabermetrical crowd, Robinson's WAR in 1951 was 9.7. He played primarily second base and third base with some first base work and left field action. He was versatile, quick and hustled like no other. If you laid up on a Robinson single into the gap, he would turn it into a double. His career high in steals was 37 but he made pitchers nervous with his quick step.
Robinson only played 10 years of baseball because of how hard hard the game was on him physically and psychologically. Think of the worse thing you have been called in the past year and it pales in comparison to some of the things Robinson was called on a daily basis during his first few years in the game. The Jim Crow law prevented him from staying in team hotels and eating in the same restaurants as his teammates in the South. Just imagine someone telling your best friend on the team they couldn't enter a particular building due to the color of the skin they were born with.
Robinson played in a harsh world and got the best of it, being selected an All Star six times, winning multiple awards, and being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1962. In 1997, Bud Selig retired Robinson's #42 from both leagues in Major League Baseball, the first time that has ever happened. That was 50 years after Robinson took those first steps on Ebbets Field to a ferocious array of boos.
In a time of pure hatred and oppression, Robinson changed the game of baseball forever. When African Americans step on the field today to get paid to play the greatest game on earth, they can look up thank and Jackie for making it possible. He weathered ugliness swirling around him and turned in a fine career and was a hero for all time.
Players honor him every year by wearing #42 on one day across the entire league. If you go watch a baseball game today and sit in the stands to take in the sights and sounds of America's greatest pastime, think about Jackie Robinson.
