"42"

We have seen many baseball movies give an inaccurate description of our National Pastime.  Whether it was the “For the Love of the Game’s” boring plot, the hyperbolic far-fetched characters in “The Rookie of the Year, how Kevin Costner controls the genre like the Yankees controlled baseball, or the way the “Sandlot” series reflects Jamie Moyer’s career- never ending, baseball movies are usually average at best.  Other than my personal favorites, “Little Big League” and “Angels in the Outfield,” I have yet to see a really good baseball movie.

That all changed last night, when I saw “42.  Chadwick Boseman portrayed probably the most influential person to ever play a sport, and possibly to live, Jackie Robinson.  Robinson was much more than a baseball player, or even the first African American in baseball, he integrated the root of the American society, pop culture, paving the way for than just African American ballplayers. Going into the movie, I was a bit skeptical over how an entire baseball season/career could be captured into a movie, but what ever Warner Brothers did, it worked.

At Citi Field, in the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, there is a quote given by the namesake, reading, “A live is not important, except in the impact it has on others.” If this quote is true, Jackie had one of the most important lives ever. The movie captured a young African American boy named Edward who followed Robinson around Spring Training. It turns out that boy would grow up to become the 1969 World Champion Ed Charles.  Charles, among others, would have not been able to be given that opportunity, if it was not for Branch Rickey and Jackie.  Those two men became pioneers for baseball and did more for the game than Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb did combined, and more for the country than Abraham Lincoln and FDR.  When Jackie’s father left him and his mother, he was just six months old.  He had no idea who or what the abandoned child would grow up to become.

Possibly the best way to describe Jackie’s challenge in baseball was this dialogue between him and Rickey:

Robinson: “You want a player who doesn’t have the guts to fight back?”

Rickey: “No. I want a player who has the guts not to fight back.”

Robinson: “You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back, and I’ll give you the guts.”

Whether it was the ruthless threats and mockery from opposing players, managers, fans, and teammates, Jackie did not fight back, and that is why he is honored every Jackie Robinson day with every MLB player wearing his 42.