Baseball's Great Experiment PDF Download

Author: Lee Lowenfish
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496213459
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 605

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Book Description
He was not much of a player and not much more of a manager, but by the time Branch Rickey (1881-1965) finished with baseball, he had revolutionized the sport--not just once but three times. In this definitive biography of Rickey--the man sportswriters dubbed "The Brain," "The Mahatma," and, on occasion, "El Cheapo"--Lee Lowenfish tells the full and colorful story of a life that forever changed the face of America's game. As the mastermind behind the Saint Louis Cardinals from 1917 to 1942, Rickey created the farm system, which allowed small-market clubs to compete with the rich and powerful. Under his direction in the 1940s, the Brooklyn Dodgers became truly the first "America's team." By signing Jackie Robinson and other black players, he single-handedly thrust baseball into the forefront of the civil rights movement. Lowenfish evokes the peculiarly American complex of God, family, and baseball that informed Rickey's actions and his accomplishments. His book offers an intriguing, richly detailed portrait of a man whose life is itself a crucial chapter in the history of American business, sport, and society.

Author: Jules Tygiel
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195106206
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Offers a history of African American exclusion from baseball, and assesses the changing racial attitudes that led up to Jackie Robinson's acceptance by the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Author: Harvey Frommer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 163076003X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Blending exclusive rare interviews with Rachel Robinson (Jackie’s widow), Mack Robinson (Jackie’s brother), Hall of Famers Monte Irvin, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Ralph Kiner, and others, celebrated author Harvey Frommer evokes the lives of general manager Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson by describing how they worked together to shatter baseball's color line. Rickey and Robinson is a dual biography tracing the convergence of the lives of two of baseball's most influential individuals in a marker moment in sports and cultural history.

Author: Sharon Robinson
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 1338153706
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
A warm, intimate portrait of Jackie Robinson, America's sports icon, told from the unique perspective of a unique insider: his only daughter. Sharon Robinson shares memories of her famous father in this warm loving biography of the man who broke the color barrier in baseball. Jackie Robinson was an outstanding athlete, a devoted family man and a dedicated civil rights activist. The author explores the fascinating circumstances surrounding Jackie Robinson's breakthrough. She also tells the off-the-field story of Robinson's hard-won victories and the inspiring effect he had on his family, his community. . . his country! Includes never-before-published letters by Jackie Robinson, as well as photos from the Robinson family archives.

Author: Roger Kahn
Publisher: Rodale Books
ISBN: 1623366011
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
In Rickey & Robinson, legendary sportswriter Roger Kahn reveals the true, unsanitized account of the integration of baseball-a story that for decades has relied largely on inaccurate, secondhand reports. Focusing on Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson, Kahn's account is based on exclusive reporting and his personal reminiscences, including revelatory material he buried in his notebooks in the '40s and '50s. Rickey and Robinson were chiefly responsible for making integration happen. Through in-depth examinations of both men, Kahn separates fact from myth to present a truthful portrait of baseball and its participants at a critical juncture in American history.

Author: MichaeL G Long
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479805610
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Explores Jackie Robinson’s compelling and complicated legacy Before the United States Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools, and before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the twentieth century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him. Many are familiar with Robinson as a baseball hero. Few, however, know of the inner turmoil that came with his historic status. Featuring piercing essays from a range of distinguished sportswriters, cultural critics, and scholars, this book explores Robinson’s perspectives and legacies on civil rights, sports, faith, youth, and nonviolence, while providing rare glimpses into the struggles and strength of one of the nation’s most athletically gifted and politically significant citizens. Featuring a foreword by celebrated directors and producers Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, this volume recasts Jackie Robinson’s legacy and establishes how he set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from Black Lives Matter to Colin Kaepernick.

Author: Jackie Robinson
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786257831
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Autobiography of baseball legend Jackie Robinson, beginning with his athletic career and dealing particularly with baseball and the first step toward equal participation by African Americans in this great sport. “I believe that a man’s race, color, and religion should never constitute a handicap. The denial to anyone, anywhere, any time of equality of opportunity to work is incomprehensible to me. Moreover, I believe that the American public is not as concerned with a first baseman’s pigmentation as it is with the power of his swing, the dexterity of his slide, the gracefulness of his fielding, or the speed of his legs.”—From Foreword by Branch Hickey

Author: Jackie Robinson
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006228729X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
The bestselling autobiography of American baseball and civil rights legend Jackie Robinson Before Barry Bonds, before Reggie Jackson, before Hank Aaron, baseball's stars had one undeniable trait in common: they were all white. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke that barrier, striking a crucial blow for racial equality and changing the world of sports forever. I Never Had It Made is Robinson's own candid, hard-hitting account of what it took to become the first black man in history to play in the major leagues. I Never Had It Made recalls Robinson's early years and influences: his time at UCLA, where he became the school's first four-letter athlete; his army stint during World War II, when he challenged Jim Crow laws and narrowly escaped court martial; his years of frustration, on and off the field, with the Negro Leagues; and finally that fateful day when Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers proposed what became known as the "Noble Experiment"—Robinson would step up to bat to integrate and revolutionize baseball. More than a baseball story, I Never Had It Made also reveals the highs and lows of Robinson's life after baseball. He recounts his political aspirations and civil rights activism; his friendships with Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, William Buckley, Jr., and Nelson Rockefeller; and his troubled relationship with his son, Jackie, Jr. I Never Had It Made endures as an inspiring story of a man whose heroism extended well beyond the playing field.

Author: John C. Chalberg
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780882959528
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
On August 28, 1945, a scout for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team escorted an intriguing, if not exactly youthful, prospect into the intriguing, if not exactly welcoming, office of a veteran baseball man who had already revolutionized the sport at least once. Jackie Robinson meet Branch Rickey. What actually happened in that cluttered room over the course of the next few hours will never be known for certain, but without a doubt this meeting set in motion changes in major league baseball and in the nation that would echo long after the postwar became the Cold War. Though baseball necessarily lies at the heart of this fascinating dual biography, the stories of these two remarkable men touch many of the most important issues and changes in American life from 1895-1970-the transition from rural to urban America, two World Wars and the war in Vietnam, the Red Scare, the evolution of mass media, and, of course, the Civil Rights movement-their lives spanning most of the century that they helped to shape. Alone, each story is a good one. Combined-and they can hardly be separated-the Rickey-Robinson story becomes compelling, even mythical. For those readers not particularly interested in baseball, Rickey and Robinson will surely help them appreciate the game's place in American history. At the same time, those who do not have to be persuaded that baseball truly is America's game will treasure this remarkable work. This unique book is certain to make informative and entertaining reading for a variety of courses in sport history, recent America, popular culture, and the U.S. survey.

Author: Michael G. Long
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 142992019X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 517

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Book Description
Never-before-published letters offer a rich portrait of the baseball star as a fearless advocate for racial justice at the highest levels of American politics Jackie Robinson's courage on the baseball diamond is one of the great stories of the struggle for civil rights in America, and his Hall of Fame career speaks for itself. But we no longer hear Robinson speak for himself; his death at age fifty-three in 1972 robbed America of his voice far too soon. In First Class Citizenship, Jackie Robinson comes alive on the page for the first time in decades. The scholar Michael G. Long has unearthed a remarkable trove of Robinson's correspondence with—and personal replies from—such towering figures as Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Hubert Humphrey, Nelson Rockefeller, and Barry Goldwater. These extraordinary conversations reveal the scope and depth of Robinson's effort during the 1950s and 1960s to rid America of racism. Writing eloquently and with evident passion, Robinson charted his own course, offering his support to Democrats and to Republicans, questioning the tactics of the civil rights movement, and challenging the nation's leaders when he felt they were guilty of hypocrisy—or worse. Through his words as well as his actions, Jackie Robinson truly personified the "first class citizenship" that he considered the birthright of all Americans, whatever their race.