Some Opening Day Inspiration
After a winter of uncertainty, the Omicron wave, a war in Ukraine, and an MLB lockout, baseball is back today — and not a moment too soon.
We all needed baseball to return — not for the fantasy leagues or even the pennant race that inevitably comes in the fall. No, we need baseball for the rare inspiration from the best moments in the sport — both on and off the field.
Recently, I showed my three kids (12, 8, and 5) “42,” the biopic about the great Jackie Robinson and starring the late Chadwick Boseman (who they knew of course, from “Black Panther”). They enjoyed the film and mostly grasped the importance of Robinson and the barrier he broke back in 1947. But to children of the 21st century, despite all of the racial and political unrest they have witnessed over the last few years, a person of color playing baseball — of course — isn’t at all strange.
I tried my best to impart to my kids just how inspirational and important Robinson really was for the sport and for the country. I told them that he was a good ballplayer, sure (.311 career batting average, a World Series championship, 947 runs, 197 stolen bases, and admittance into the Hall of Fame). But the most important part of Jackie’s story — and the reason he was chosen by Dodgers owner Branch Rickey in the first place — was his impeccable and unimpeachable character.
At a time when many African-Americans still were unable to vote in this country and segregation was the law of the land, Robinson signed a contract with the Dodgers, understanding that whatever was thrown at him (figuratively or literally), he would have to stand and just take.
And take, he did.
As was depicted in the movie, baseball fans and players alike hurled racial epithets at him constantly throughout his first season. They didn’t want a man who looked like Robinson playing America’s pastime under any circumstances anywhere in the country.
The worst of the attacks against him came not from a fan, but the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, Ben Chapman. A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Chapman — as seen in the movie — was a vile, disgusting man who yelled all of the worst at Robinson, attempting to rile him up. In an interview with Dick Cavett shortly before he died in 1972, Robinson admitted that Chapman was by far the worst offender.
“You name it in terms of race and they were yelled [at me] — everything, I think it was quite vicious,” said the Hall of Famer. “I think the Philadelphia Phillies, with Ben Chapman, was perhaps the most vicious of any of the people in terms of name-calling.”
Robinson had to take it from Chapman without the ability to fight back. Most of us couldn’t imagine what he had to endure.
But as I told my children, there is a silver lining and a happy ending to that story.
Before the end of the movie, I asked them if they could remember the name of the character who was mean to Robinson.
They could not.
“Good,” I said. It’s great that most Americans don’t know who Ben Chapman was (He was fired in 1948 and only managed once more, in 1952. He died in 1993 at the age of 84).
I told my children how — every April 15th — the anniversary that Robinson played his first game with the Dodgers to break the color barrier, all of Major League Baseball celebrates “Jackie Robinson Day.” On that day, every single player in the sport wears the number 42, which is also the only number retired from all of baseball in a symbolic capstone of a life and career that changed the world.
This year, Jackie Robinson Day will mark 75 years since the first time Jack Roosevelt Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field on a sunny day in Brooklyn to watch Dem Bums take on the Boston Braves, forever changing the sport and inspiring generations of baseball fans everywhere.
Thankfully, I told my kids, there is no “Ben Chapman Day.”
It’s just another example of how baseball can inspire us as we head into another MLB season and the tumult around the world, regretfully, continues.
