The American History of Baseball

Jackie Robinson

He was born on January 31st, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia and then shortly moved to Pasadena, California. He was the first African- American Major league baseball player and is very well known for that. His first team was the Montreal Royals in 1946. Until he got a call from the Brooklyn dodgers in 1947 and was officially signed April 15, 1947. He also won rookie of the year in 1947 too. He was the National league batting and bases stealer champion. He had a very hard time in the MLB. People hated him just because he was black and would always say racial slurs to him. Making it very hard for him to play the sport he loved and to live the life he wanted.

Before, all of that happened, he was actually in the army. But before, I tell you about that I’ll inform you more about Jackie’s life. Jackie was the youngest of five kids. He attended John Muir high school and that's where he started his baseball career. And made the all star team for a baseball tournament for all negroes. Then in 1942, he was drafted into the army. As a result of doing a good job in the army. He was then commissioned as a lieutenant. Then was actually discharged from his duty for not listening to a duty officer telling him to sit in the back of a bus. He then was a military athletics coach where people thought he should go and tryout for the Monarchs in the Negro national league. He then signed a contract for the Kansas City Monarchs.

Secondly, Jackie actually went to UCLA home of the bruins, where he met his beautiful wife Rachel Islum his senior year in 1941. But they married in 1946. They ended up having 3 kids. That’s the same year he signed with the Montreal Royals. Then the very next year he signed with one of the more well known teams, the (Brooklyn Dodgers). That’s when you would think his life would get better and easier. But at the same time it got harder. At every game he would get called out for being black. When he first went to the Brooklyn dodgers, none of his teammates really liked him because of his color. Which made it hard for him and his family and his team itself. But as they kept playing, his teammates learned to love him and felt bad for him because of everything that he had to take from all the fans and other players that he had to play against. That’s why he was such a big movement in black history, because he was the first black to play in a major baseball league and from there on, that’s when other black players started to join the league. He was a six time all star and got the