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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Hey, welcome back to the show. Ridiculous Romance.

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Speaker 1: I'm Eli here was my Yeah, sure, yeah, that is

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Speaker 1: how we usually do it. I don't know why I

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Speaker 1: was trying to the bend thing. I was like, i'm Eli,

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Speaker 1: I'm here with my lovely wife Noel. I think that's

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Speaker 1: we got to do their ridiculous romance. Yeah, we do romance.

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Speaker 1: The romance been a Noel one day full episode. Well,

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Speaker 1: I am Eli, I'm Diana. Those are our two names separately. Now,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm very grateful to have you back listening

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Speaker 1: to another episode. Yeah, how's everybody doing? Yeah, get into it.

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Speaker 1: We never talk. We never talked, you know. I guess

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Speaker 1: it's not really a mail call. But we got a

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Speaker 1: review from Jay her her her oh yeah, who said that, Um,

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Speaker 1: they love the podcast. But we can't just say that

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Speaker 1: the second book of dust Book is out because they

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Speaker 1: went so arched for it on audible you couldn't find it.

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Speaker 1: And I just wanted to say, j her or, how

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Speaker 1: are you saying? I didn't see it right now and

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Speaker 1: I can't help here. It's like a j h e

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Speaker 1: you are you are? You are? It's like anywhere yeah,

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Speaker 1: rebble reb ruggle. But I just want to say thank

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Speaker 1: you for your lovely review. But I did find it

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Speaker 1: on audible. It's called The Secret Commonwealth if that helps. Yes, Um,

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Speaker 1: it's definitely available, so try again because it's out there.

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Speaker 1: I promise I've read it yet. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: it's good, but I bet it is because Philip Pullman. Right,

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Speaker 1: just just one more little just you know, it won't

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Speaker 1: be the last time. Just going to toss out there

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Speaker 1: that everybody. As soon as this episode is over, Uh,

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Speaker 1: lock your phone in the box and go find his

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Speaker 1: Dark Materials, the book trilogy and read it or get

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Speaker 1: or keep your phone and get the audio version either way,

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Speaker 1: kindle or whatever. So good, amazing? All right, Well, yeah

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Speaker 1: we got a good one today. Yes, oh, just name

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Speaker 1: you know and love. Jackie Robinson broke the unwritten rule

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Speaker 1: of segregation in Major League Baseball when he joined the

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Speaker 1: Brooklyn Dodgers in and when the manager Branch Rickey signed Jackie,

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Speaker 1: he asked him do you have a woman? Fortunately, Jackie

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Speaker 1: had the absolute best woman on his side, a beautiful

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Speaker 1: nursing student named Rachel isam Well. Branch continued, you'll need her,

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Speaker 1: and he was right. Together they withstood America's ugliest behavior,

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Speaker 1: They dominated baseball, They contributed significantly to civil rights, and

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Speaker 1: they kept Jackie's legacy alive long after his death. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I really enjoyed getting into this. Even though I'm not

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Speaker 1: a baseball fan myself. I can't say that I'm a

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Speaker 1: big old sports person, but um, but there's so many

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Speaker 1: great stories in sports history, you know what I mean

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Speaker 1: that it's like it doesn't even matter, just ignore the

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Speaker 1: game part because the people all involved or the real story.

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Speaker 1: I am not a huge sports person myself, but I am.

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Speaker 1: I am a former baseball player. I had my time

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Speaker 1: playing second base for a while. Yeah, I was back,

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Speaker 1: um when I was what I want to say, eight, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: not not teen, just eight, eight, nine, ten, and I

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Speaker 1: think and then again when I was Yeah, I played

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Speaker 1: like when I was eight through eleven in my hometown

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Speaker 1: and then we moved and I stopped playing, and I

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Speaker 1: started again when I was about thirteen, and you know it,

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Speaker 1: those few years they really changed you. It was not

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Speaker 1: the player that I used to be. And um, and

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Speaker 1: I was in a much more competitive space than I

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Speaker 1: was when I was very small. So I didn't I

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Speaker 1: didn't stick with I I played for another two years.

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Speaker 1: I hit, I hit a triple knocked it out. You know.

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Speaker 1: It was like one of the first times I'd hit

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Speaker 1: the ball all year, you know, shocked everyone. And then

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Speaker 1: I was like, cool, I'm done, this will be my

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Speaker 1: last game. Well good call. It wasn't high note. It

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Speaker 1: was the last game of the season, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: I don't I didn't. This isn't the beginning of my comeback,

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Speaker 1: the great fluke to end on. This is a graceful

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Speaker 1: end to a checkered career. Yes, I think I never

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Speaker 1: tried to play baseball after I was on the T

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Speaker 1: ball league, you know, the T ball, the whiffleball and

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Speaker 1: a little stick and you're like three or whatever, and

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Speaker 1: I totally hit it the wrong way at the at

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Speaker 1: the guy behind and hit him in the face. And

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Speaker 1: so I just never did that again, as like sports

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Speaker 1: are just not my thing. Um, and that's okay. You know,

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Speaker 1: I'm gifted in other ways. But one guy who was

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Speaker 1: gifted in the sports way, certainly Jackie Robinson. So I

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Speaker 1: say we dive into this story. Play a ball. Hey,

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Speaker 1: their French condition, Well, Elia and Diana got some Choris

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Speaker 1: to tell there's no matchmaking all romantic tips. It's just

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Speaker 1: about pardiculous relationships, a love. It might be any type

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Speaker 1: of person at all, and abstract concept on a concrete wall.

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Speaker 1: But if there's a story with a second clanch, ridiculous roles.

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Speaker 1: A production of iHeart Radio. Rachel Isom was born in

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Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. She says in an interview that racial

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Speaker 1: discrimination was kind of subtle there in comparison to the

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Speaker 1: rest of the country. Like if she went to the movies,

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Speaker 1: the usher would just direct them to the balcony, you know, which,

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Speaker 1: of course was a segregated section. But it wasn't like

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Speaker 1: signs blaring it, I guess, and people being rude about it.

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Speaker 1: It was that that nice racism you know that people do,

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Speaker 1: which is almost worse. They're like, uh, right this way,

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Speaker 1: ma'am into a very separate section that you know, you

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Speaker 1: you actually have to go this way. I'm not really

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Speaker 1: offering it to you. I'm telling you exact but being

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Speaker 1: very polite about it. Yeah. Her quote was, we were

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Speaker 1: being segregated almost without knowing it. Of course, there was

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Speaker 1: segregation in terms of housing. Rachel's parents had gotten around

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Speaker 1: that cleverly by getting a light skinned friend of theirs

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Speaker 1: to buy the house they wanted, and then resell it

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Speaker 1: to them oster ward clever. Yeah, I mean anxiously unnecessary.

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Speaker 1: But what a whole series of events to go through

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Speaker 1: to buy the house you want to buy, Like that's insane.

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Speaker 1: Her father had served in World War One and on

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Speaker 1: the last his last day of active service, he was gassed.

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Speaker 1: He ended up permanently disabled au so Rachel's mom had

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Speaker 1: to work to support the family. She started a catering business,

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Speaker 1: like a high end Beverly you know, rich Beverly Hills

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Speaker 1: families type business. Very smart, You're in l A. Who

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Speaker 1: you gonna I mean, who's gonna sell to Beverly Hills.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing better than l A than just like selling

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Speaker 1: fancy food to rich people because there's always a demand

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Speaker 1: and they will spend any amount of money on it.

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Speaker 1: It's true. And like the smaller the food is the better,

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Speaker 1: so you can really stretch your budget. You know, you're like,

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Speaker 1: this would never work at home, but for y'all, I

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Speaker 1: make these little derbs, and I feel like it's one

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Speaker 1: of those where, um, the more something costs, the more

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Speaker 1: legitimate it is. You know, like this this is a

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Speaker 1: thirty dollar steak, but if I sell it for thirty dollars,

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Speaker 1: They're not going to buy it. But if I sell

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Speaker 1: it for it'll be the most popular steak in town. Yeah, true, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I hope she did some inflation from her prices in

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Speaker 1: that way. When she was in high school, Rachel also worked.

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Speaker 1: She helped her mom at this catering business. She also

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Speaker 1: worked the concession stand at the public library, and she

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Speaker 1: sewed baby clothes as part of FDR's New Deal programs

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Speaker 1: um In. She graduated from high school and she was

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Speaker 1: accepted to the prestigious nursing program at u c l A.

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Speaker 1: And Huffington Post notes that at the time, only five

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Speaker 1: of all women and less than two percent of black

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Speaker 1: women earned a college degree, So already breaking standards. Yeah yeah.

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Speaker 1: Rachel was like, well, I don't know whatever y'all are doing,

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Speaker 1: but I'm going to be doing whatever the funk I

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Speaker 1: want to do. And she did it very well. So

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Speaker 1: a U c l a. A football player introduced her

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Speaker 1: to one of his teammates. Rachel's a freshman at this time, remember,

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Speaker 1: and this guy is a senior and he is the

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Speaker 1: big man on campus. He earned national fame for lettering

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Speaker 1: in all four major sports on campus, football, baseball, basketball,

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Speaker 1: and track. All right. I mean that's a lot, so

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Speaker 1: many sports. Even at the stuff I was good at,

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't have lettered at all four you know, I

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Speaker 1: didn't even have time to to do well for I

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Speaker 1: did drama and chorus, and I used to do banded

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Speaker 1: not not by high school. I wasn't doing that anymore

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Speaker 1: because I didn't have time. I could only with the two,

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Speaker 1: you know. Anyway, this guy was making it work, and

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Speaker 1: he was also extremely handsome with a wonderful smile. Rachel

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Speaker 1: remembers in this Scholastic Books interview that she did that

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Speaker 1: will be citing often, she said, and he was clearly

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Speaker 1: comfortable and proud of being a black man in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen forties. I was very impressed by that, she says.

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Speaker 1: Not all of us could carry our racial identity with

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Speaker 1: such pride. He even wore white shirts to emphasize his

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Speaker 1: dark skin. He was self confident but not arrogant, and

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Speaker 1: he actually was kind of shy to meet her too,

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Speaker 1: which she found charming, right, because he's like the king,

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Speaker 1: like the king. She's just got there, you know what

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Speaker 1: I mean. So he's like, oh hey, he's all shy

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Speaker 1: and cute, and she's like he's got like one finger

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Speaker 1: in his dimple, twisting it like a hey, lady, you're

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Speaker 1: real pretty. A million letters on his jacket alphabet jacket, Shucks,

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Speaker 1: what letters do you get? Is it just the letters

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Speaker 1: of the call of the school? Think? So F A T,

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Speaker 1: A B and A B. No, I think it's just

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Speaker 1: the letter. I mean mine was the first letter of

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Speaker 1: the school. Okay, in high school. I assume it's the

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Speaker 1: same for college. Okay, So if you have a letterman's jacket, right,

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Speaker 1: that's what I'm assuming is the letter is that you

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Speaker 1: earned the letter? Do you have to see four of

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Speaker 1: them on his jacket? Or did you just have the

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Speaker 1: one letter and everyone knows it means for four things?

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Speaker 1: I got a letter for drama. I don't know. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know you could letter in drama, that's don't

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Speaker 1: I don't know why they gave it to me. I

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Speaker 1: didn't have the jacket. There's a little felt letter, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's like iron. Oh yeah, I think the jacket was Justin's.

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Speaker 1: You know who did the class rings? Like your books

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Speaker 1: like that one the big company that makes all the

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Speaker 1: money off high school students. Yeah, so I do not

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Speaker 1: have the answer to your question. Feel free to message

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Speaker 1: us if you know how the hell if you let

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Speaker 1: letters work, send me your multiple letter jacket or one

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Speaker 1: letter jacket that means something more. I don't know. I

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Speaker 1: want to know. I'm curious. Send us the info. Don't

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Speaker 1: send us the jacket, right, Please don't send me the jacket.

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Speaker 1: You said send us your jacket, right to send me

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Speaker 1: your jacket. It probably won't fit me anyway. I have

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Speaker 1: a really cool letter jacket actually from the timber Wolves

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Speaker 1: of Mystic Falls High School, because that was our rap

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Speaker 1: gift on vampire ares one year. That's true, and it

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Speaker 1: doesn't fit me, does it? No? I think it fits me,

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Speaker 1: but um, irrelevant, haven't. But we haven't even mentioned who

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Speaker 1: this king of the school was yet. What was this

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Speaker 1: guy's name? It was Jackie and mother fucking Robinson, that's who.

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Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson was born in nine in Cairo, Georgia, to

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Speaker 1: a family of sharecroppers. He was the youngest of five kids,

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Speaker 1: and when he was less than a year old, his father, Jerry,

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Speaker 1: abandoned the whole family, so his mother, Mallie, packed him

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Speaker 1: all up and moved to Pasadena all by herself. Five

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Speaker 1: kids moved across the country. I think that's crazy and awesome.

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Speaker 1: So he's coming from tenacity and dry. Yeah, and she

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Speaker 1: managed to purchase a home from her salary as a

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Speaker 1: domestic worker, and Rachel credits her with Jackie's sense of self.

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Speaker 1: She said she created an environment that was full of

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Speaker 1: positive values as well as love. She was the major

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Speaker 1: influence in Jack's life. But they were poor living in

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Speaker 1: a predominantly wealthy area, so a lot of the neighborhood

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Speaker 1: recreational activities his family was pretty much excluded from because

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Speaker 1: they couldn't afford him, you know. So apparently Jackie actually

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Speaker 1: briefly joined a gang because of this, because he's bored.

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Speaker 1: He's gotten ethan to do. This is a good lesson

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Speaker 1: about white gangs or a thing um nothing to do

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Speaker 1: what he was like, I guess this is it. But

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Speaker 1: his friend Carl persuaded him to abandon the gang. Thank you, Carl.

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Speaker 1: Rachel also says that Jackie experienced a more overt racial

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Speaker 1: discrimination in Pasadena than she was experiencing in l a Um.

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Speaker 1: She doesn't like go into details or anything like that,

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Speaker 1: but it was clearly something that was just more of

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Speaker 1: an everyday occurrence for him than it was for her.

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Speaker 1: It was a little more in his face. Yeah, Jackie

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Speaker 1: was great at sports his whole life. His older brothers,

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Speaker 1: Mac and Frank both really encouraged him. And actually his

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Speaker 1: brother Mac was a silver medalist in the ninety six

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Speaker 1: Olympics in track and field. Damn, okay, mally raising some kids.

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Speaker 1: I mean, these kids are accomplished. Yeah, um so it

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Speaker 1: must have this athletic prowess. Must have run in the family.

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Speaker 1: Get it run in a family, because they're running, and

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Speaker 1: you've got to run in baseball too, in the and

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Speaker 1: every sport them you have to run. Every involved running.

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Speaker 1: That's why I don't play sports. If there was a

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Speaker 1: set still sport, I guess that's video games, and I

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Speaker 1: do play those. That's true. There you go. I mean

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Speaker 1: there are sports you don't have to run in, like rowing,

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Speaker 1: or like darts, weightlifting, swimming, wrestling. All right, we could

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Speaker 1: list all the non running sports. They probably run keep

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Speaker 1: in shape though. Yeah no, yeah, you've gotta you've gotta run.

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Speaker 1: Oh god. Anyway, it ran into the family. Hilarious joke

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Speaker 1: by me backed on track. Uh So in high school

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Speaker 1: he lettered at the varsity level in football, baseball, track

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Speaker 1: and basketball. Um, he was shortstop and catcher in baseball,

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Speaker 1: and he was the quarterback in football. He was the

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Speaker 1: guard in basketball. He won awards for the broad jump

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Speaker 1: in track and field, so that was kind of his

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Speaker 1: special t was jumping. You know, I played shortstop in baseball.

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Speaker 1: Briefly I was thinking about, Yeah, maybe Jackie and I

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Speaker 1: have more in common than I thought. You have exactly

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Speaker 1: that one thing, and I'll see, we'll see there may

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Speaker 1: be more there could be. Um. He was also on

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Speaker 1: the tennis team and he won a singles championship in

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Speaker 1: so if it had a ball, like Jackie could do

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Speaker 1: whatever he needed to do with it. He was like,

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Speaker 1: I am ready to handle this whole situation. All this

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Speaker 1: accomplishment was at his high school, Mere Tech High School,

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Speaker 1: and then he went on to dominate all the same

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Speaker 1: sports at the Pasadena Junior College. Kid what like kept

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Speaker 1: all that talent somehow. He did have a bit of

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Speaker 1: a problem though. At Pasadena Junior College. He got arrested

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Speaker 1: in ninety eight for protesting against a black friend's detention

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Speaker 1: by police. He got a two year suspended sentence, but

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Speaker 1: that incident and several other similar clashes with the cops

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Speaker 1: got him the reputation of being combative in the face

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Speaker 1: of racial antagonism. Yeah, and it sounds to me like

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Speaker 1: he came from the don't start none, won't be none

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Speaker 1: school of fighting, right right, which, of course the rest

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Speaker 1: of the school of fighting says, but if you start some,

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Speaker 1: it will be something and I will probably win. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And they started, and he he showed up. He was

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Speaker 1: the head of a student run police organization that monitored

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Speaker 1: campus activities, so maybe that's how he got involved in

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Speaker 1: these altercations. But then tragically, Frank, Jackie's brother and the

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Speaker 1: brother he felt closest to, died in a motorcycle accident,

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Speaker 1: and that prompted Jackie to enroll at u c l

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Speaker 1: A nine so he could be closer to Frank's family.

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Speaker 1: He was the first U c l A student to

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Speaker 1: letter in all four major sports. This guy, I mean,

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Speaker 1: said a lot of the letter box. He must have had.

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Speaker 1: You let me just file through all these letters. I

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Speaker 1: got U c l as football team was the most

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Speaker 1: integrated in the whole country. But Rachel does know in

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Speaker 1: her scholastic interview that he still had to deal with

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Speaker 1: discrimination when they played Southern teams, especially they'd gang up

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Speaker 1: on him and also the other black players during their

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Speaker 1: games who'd get a lot of unnecessary rough housing. They

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Speaker 1: just very clearly targeted the black players, especially in the South. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and she was like, and that's a game where you

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Speaker 1: can hide a lot of violence behind, you know, the game.

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Speaker 1: But it was clearly more than that. And in he

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Speaker 1: was introduced by his teammate to a charming nursing student

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Speaker 1: named Rachel Isom. In the Ken Burns Baseball documentary, he's

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Speaker 1: described as being impressed with her drive and determination that

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Speaker 1: was under this shy exterior, and he felt that he's

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Speaker 1: talking to her. They started dating and their first date

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Speaker 1: was to a bruined football dinner at the Biltmore a

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Speaker 1: little fancy, like he took her a little day. He

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Speaker 1: want to sweeper off for fee. Get all dressed up, babe,

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Speaker 1: but going out tonight show you off. But usually, you know,

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Speaker 1: they would just hang out around campus. They got engaged,

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Speaker 1: but right before he graduated, Jackie actually left U c

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Speaker 1: l A. His mother and Rachel were both against it,

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Speaker 1: but he just dropped out. Wait, so he left college. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's another thing. Jackie Robinson and I alright, not bad.

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Speaker 1: Keep a list sources disagree about why he dropped out

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Speaker 1: of college. Family sources say it with money problems. Jackie

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Speaker 1: said he was becoming disillusioned about the usefulness of a

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Speaker 1: college degree to a black man in America at that time,

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Speaker 1: and some biographers have said that he just wasn't like

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Speaker 1: super into academics. He was mostly there for the sports,

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Speaker 1: and he was behind on his schoolwork when he left anyway.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I mean, if you're becoming disillusioned with

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Speaker 1: your degree, you're gonna probably stop doing the work. So

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Speaker 1: that might be kind of one feeding the other. So

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Speaker 1: he took a job as an assistant athletic director with

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Speaker 1: the National Youth Administration, and then he went to Hawaii

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Speaker 1: to play with the semi professional integrated football team, the

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Speaker 1: Honolulu Bears, and then in December ninety one and came

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Speaker 1: back to California to play football with the Los Angeles Bulldogs.

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Speaker 1: So very possible that today we could be talking about

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Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson the football player. Yeah for real. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you asked me to go play football

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Speaker 1: in Honolulu, yeah, I'm there, I would drop my entire career,

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Speaker 1: Like I'd be the real ted Lasso out there and

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Speaker 1: have no idea how football works, but but yeah, I'll

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Speaker 1: do it. So we're thinking Jackie Robinson is going to

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Speaker 1: be the star football player at this point, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: except that we may remember something else big that happened

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Speaker 1: in December, which was the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which

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Speaker 1: pulled America into World War two. Boy, we love a sequel.

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Speaker 1: I that the Allies were like, where you been? I mean,

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00:20:02,560 --> 00:20:05,040
Speaker 1: we had this reboot waiting for you for years. Americans

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00:20:05,119 --> 00:20:09,199
Speaker 1: love a reboot. Where where are you? Well? Anyway, So

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00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:12,399
Speaker 1: all that put an end to Jackie's football career. Um

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Speaker 1: he received his draft notice and he went to fight

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Speaker 1: for his country. But the country was still being real

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Speaker 1: damn racist at the time, and when Jackie enrolled in

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Speaker 1: the Officers Candidate school, they delayed his application, even though

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00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:30,439
Speaker 1: they had said they were race neutral and he was

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Speaker 1: completely qualified for everything that he was trying to do.

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Speaker 1: Have Youweight boxing champion Joe Lewis had to write to

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Speaker 1: Washington to protest discrimination in the army before Jackie's and

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Speaker 1: several other black men's applications were accepted. I mean this

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00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:48,399
Speaker 1: is like if you had to get Hollywood Hulk Hogan

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Speaker 1: to call the President before you were allowed to get

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Speaker 1: a job in wrestling, right, I mean for real, It's

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Speaker 1: like I guess I just thought only got to the

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Speaker 1: speaker of the house, so let me get a few

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Speaker 1: more days. Sane Ati did totally fine an officer school.

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Speaker 1: He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in nine but

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00:21:05,880 --> 00:21:09,359
Speaker 1: he had fractured an ankle back in junior college playing football,

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Speaker 1: and that ended up delaying his deployment. Rachel meanwhile continued

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00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,479
Speaker 1: to attend the u c l A nursing program, and

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00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:19,280
Speaker 1: she also served her country by working as a riveter

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Speaker 1: at the Lockheed Aircraft factory in l a cool. Literally,

359
00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:27,360
Speaker 1: Rachel the Riveter. Where is that poster? I would love

360
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Speaker 1: to see that hanging in a dorm room. Anyway, Somebody

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00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:34,240
Speaker 1: make me a Rachel the riveter and printfully as I

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00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:38,359
Speaker 1: will buy it, so she so this was her wartime experience.

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00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 1: She would work the night shift of the factory, drive

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Speaker 1: to campus at dawn, changed clothes in her car, and

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Speaker 1: then go to class. Jackie sent her a box of

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Speaker 1: chocolates every Friday that he was way in the army.

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Speaker 1: Is so cute to me, um, And he also seems

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Speaker 1: to have gotten a little bit jealous maybe because he

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Speaker 1: mistakenly thought that her plan was to like enlist in

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Speaker 1: the army as a nurse after she graduated, and he

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00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 1: was like, oh, well, now are going to be around

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Speaker 1: all these men, and she's like, Rachel says she sent

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Speaker 1: his engagement ring back to him after that quote, so

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Speaker 1: he wouldn't think he could tell me what to do. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And obviously she took it back and they clearly got

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00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:28,440
Speaker 1: through that spat. But I think that's funny. She was like, oh, well,

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00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:36,159
Speaker 1: let me answer your question with another question. While he

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Speaker 1: was waiting to see if the tests on his ankle

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Speaker 1: were going to allow him to join his tank battalion

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Speaker 1: in the battlefield, Jackie boarded an army bus with the

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Speaker 1: wife of a fellow officer, even though the army had

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Speaker 1: commissioned its own desegregated bus line. The driver told Jackie

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Speaker 1: he had to sit in the back. Jackie refused, and

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Speaker 1: the driver backed down, but when they reached the end

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Speaker 1: of the line, he summoned military police, who then arrested Jackie.

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Speaker 1: I imagine, get the military police involved because somebody sat

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Speaker 1: on the bus robs like are you serious? And when

388
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 1: Jackie's commander refused to court martial him. They transferred Jackie

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Speaker 1: to another unit under a commander that would he was

390
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:20,440
Speaker 1: charged with a bunch of bullshit, including drunkenness, even though

391
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,399
Speaker 1: Jackie didn't drink Yeah, and he certainly was not drunk

392
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Speaker 1: when he was on that bus, So it was just

393
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: a totally made up, drop up charge. Rachel said in

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00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 1: the Scholastic interview, while we were at war overseas, jack

395
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:35,440
Speaker 1: was at war at home on the army base. I mean,

396
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 1: I think that says so much about black people trying

397
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Speaker 1: to serve in the military at that time, because it

398
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: just like the whole time, they're like, first of all,

399
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Speaker 1: I'm fighting for a country that won't fight for me,

400
00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to fight for the country, and you

401
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 1: won't even let me because you're so busy being racists

402
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 1: that you won't even let me help. I mean, on

403
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,639
Speaker 1: top of that, it was a draft. I mean, I

404
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: didn't even ask to be here. I'm trying to do

405
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: my mess and then you'll are telling me I shouldn't

406
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:04,240
Speaker 1: be here. Come on, Just so frustrating. He was acquitted

407
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 1: by an all white panel, but it did prevent him

408
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: from being deployed. Instead, he served as a coach for

409
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:15,639
Speaker 1: Army Athletics until he got his honorable discharge. So after

410
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:18,960
Speaker 1: his honorable discharge, he went back to football with the

411
00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 1: l A Bulldogs for a stint, and then he started

412
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:25,679
Speaker 1: coaching college basketball. And then he got an offer to

413
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: join the Kansas City Monarchs, which was a Negro League

414
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 1: team that Satchel Page made famous, and play professional baseball.

415
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:38,720
Speaker 1: And so that's cool. I was like, literally just spinning

416
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: these plates. I got playing football with the Bulldogs, I'm

417
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: coaching basketball, I'm getting offers for baseball. You know, He's like, hey, Track,

418
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: where are you right? What my chopped? I guess he

419
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 1: had enough hurdles in everyday life. Jump over track joke there,

420
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 1: You've got so many good track jokes, just cracking. Oh yeah,

421
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:04,160
Speaker 1: let me let me relay that to the kitchen real quick.

422
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:11,479
Speaker 1: You know you gotta do you want salt? Just a dash? Please?

423
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 1: Can't stop with those track jokes. I just can't stop.

424
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: I got a number of them. Sure, I don't know

425
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:28,640
Speaker 1: you used them all you want you want? You said

426
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 1: you wanted a dash of salt. Yes, but on the side,

427
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:42,400
Speaker 1: wait what hate it? Um? Oh? And goodbye to half

428
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:48,400
Speaker 1: our listeners. It was nice knowing you Jackie really liked

429
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 1: the camaraderie of the league. He was really impressed by

430
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:55,879
Speaker 1: the caliber and the style of play, but he really

431
00:25:55,880 --> 00:26:00,639
Speaker 1: felt that the organization was pretty disorganized. He hated that

432
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:04,880
Speaker 1: they embraced gambling. And of course, his least favorite thing

433
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: about playing with the Negro leagues where how the players

434
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: were treated. Um, because of segregation when they traveled, they

435
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: were unable to stop at hotels, they were unable to

436
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,679
Speaker 1: eat at restaurants, they couldn't use bathrooms, you know, for

437
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles out of time. So he was just

438
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 1: deeply humiliated by that as a human being. And uh,

439
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:27,159
Speaker 1: it made him super angry, as it would. So he

440
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,360
Speaker 1: played forty seven games with the Monarchs as a shortstop,

441
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: but he set his sights higher and in April, the

442
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 1: Boston Red Sox held tryouts at Fenway Park for black

443
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: players to join the major leagues. And this is where

444
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: Jackie really wanted to be. So he's like, let me

445
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: go try out for the Boston Red Sox. Um, no

446
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: black man had played for the major leagues since eighteen

447
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 1: eighty four, when Moses fleetwood Walker played for the Toledo Bluestockings.

448
00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 1: So it's been a lot of time, really like that

449
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 1: there was a team called the Blue Stockings. Can you

450
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: imagine it about socks and like the color of a

451
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 1: sock that was like everyone's baseball, just very unimaginative. When

452
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:10,919
Speaker 1: there's coming up with the name of the player, they

453
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: just look around the room and they're like, they're all

454
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: none of them will look at each other's eyes, just

455
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: glancing around like blue socks. Yeah, and we're like stockings, Okay,

456
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 1: sounds good to me. And your socks are red, so

457
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 1: you'll be the Red Sox and you're you're in the Rockies,

458
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: so you're going to be the Rockies. Sure sounds good.

459
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 1: But imagine now if you went to like one of these,

460
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: like the Atlanta Braves who need to change their name,

461
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: Like if you went to them and you were like,

462
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,160
Speaker 1: why don't you guys be the Blue Stockings, they'd lose

463
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: their minds? Are you kidding me? If the name is

464
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: the word stockings was in the team name, they go nuts.

465
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 1: Masculinity would just be stripped from them immediately. But this

466
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: Red Sox tryout thing turned out to just be a setup.

467
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 1: It was a total fake out by the Red Sox

468
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: to get this like powerful desegregation councilman off their backs.

469
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: So even though the stands were limited to management, it

470
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: was only the Red Sox management. You know, watching these tryouts,

471
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:15,360
Speaker 1: Jackie got pelted with racial slurs and epithets. They were

472
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 1: streaming at him from the stands, which is like, again,

473
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 1: you asked me to be here, you know what I mean,

474
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: and now you're here just to you just asked me

475
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: to abuse me. So they're like, the desegregation Council won't

476
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: leave us alone. So yeah, sure we'll have we'll have

477
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: a mixed racial tryout. We'll get some we'll get some

478
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 1: black players on our team. We'll go try them out.

479
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: But there they were never intending on actually doing it. No,

480
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 1: And maybe they were like and if we scream Adam

481
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:40,959
Speaker 1: a bunch of crazy ship, they'll play really badly and

482
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: you can say, oh, it's because they don't play well, so,

483
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: you know, monsters unbelievable. So of course he leaves the

484
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: field angry and humiliated. This is the theme I'll say.

485
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: It feels like he was often angry and humiliated by

486
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: the way people would treat people in this country. Um

487
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 1: and the Red Sox would be the last Major League

488
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 1: team to integrate in nineteen fifty nine, So they were

489
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:05,719
Speaker 1: like the first to pretend to do it, but they

490
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: were the last to actually do it. That's right. Boo children. Yes,

491
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm gonna have the the boo children's

492
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: sound effect in this one. I love the booing children

493
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: because I feel like it's it adds a lot more

494
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: judgment and coming from adults because children are innocent, right,

495
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 1: So children are booing you you really did something wrong?

496
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: Very true? And also because let's think about the world

497
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: we're leaving for the children. Yes, maybe it shouldn't be

498
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 1: full of this nonsense, right, So boo away kids, Boo

499
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: awake children, boo for racism. Uh, you know. Disappointed in

500
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: Boston also historically at this moment, because Boston's had some

501
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 1: good moments and you know, Boston's had some bad moments.

502
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 1: But I will say I thought a lot about Ellen

503
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: William Kraft doing this episode. Oh yeah, building that's our

504
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: episode about the the escaped slaves who were married and

505
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:04,080
Speaker 1: ran up North escaped to Boston, and Boston had their

506
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 1: backs so hard that it was like an amazing story

507
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: about them running these these uh slave catcher like dudes

508
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 1: out of Boston and being like you ain't taken anybody

509
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: out of here, and it was like, yes, Boston's awesome,

510
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: and then it was like, oh not forever. There there

511
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: were times keep an eye in your city because how

512
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: it's behaving now maybe the subject of a podcast in

513
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 1: the next, you know, sixty years or so, and we're

514
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: gonna have some disparaging things to say if you, if

515
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: you behave poorly, so you know, keep your city in check. Yeah,

516
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: there's nothing bad to say about Atlanta. Oh yeah, Oh

517
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: my god, don't get us started. But fortunately there were

518
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: some people in Major League Baseball who were a bit

519
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: more long headed than the Boston Red Sox, for example,

520
00:30:55,280 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: branch Rickey, the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. That sounds

521
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: like a story worth hearing, it is, I hope, so,

522
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: so I don't just stick around, and we will be

523
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 1: back with it right after this commercial break, and we're back.

524
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 1: It's the bottom of the second. Uh, there's two men

525
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: on base, two strikes, three balls, it's a full count.

526
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: This could make it make it is that good or bad?

527
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: That's exciting? It's exciting. I mean it's the bottom of

528
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: the second, so it's not that exciting. There's a lot

529
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: of game left. But but the next the next pitch,

530
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: could could really decide something. Okay, yeah, alright, I'm with

531
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: it baseball. That's that's the extent of my memory of

532
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: baseball right there. That was all of my terminology yet

533
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 1: that I have for baseball, and pulled it all out

534
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: right after the first commercial break. Al right. So branch Ricky,

535
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, had played professional football

536
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: as well as major and minor league baseball, and then

537
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: he became a baseball coach and eventually manager and ultimately executive.

538
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:08,959
Speaker 1: He had his own minor league farm club set up

539
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: that helped him find, train, and then place promising young

540
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: players into the major leagues. This is the pretty much

541
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 1: the same system that they use in baseball today to

542
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: find new players, and branch Ricky set that all up.

543
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: It seems like the guy did everything in baseball you

544
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: could do. He was hired as the president and GM

545
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 1: of the Dodgers in two and he innovated a lot

546
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 1: of things that were very used to today, like a

547
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: spring training program, or using batting cages and pitching machines

548
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:41,239
Speaker 1: and batting helmets, and the use of statistical analysis. I

549
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: love the idea that somebody was like, hey, I know

550
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: we're throwing a bunch of balls really fast at your

551
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: breaking head, but you don't need any anything there. One day,

552
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: soft hat should do One day branch Rickey was like, boy,

553
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: that's the nineteenth player this reason that we've lost to

554
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: a ball to the head. Maybe we should do something

555
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: about it. What about a hard hat or something. Ricky

556
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: was already anticipating the integration of baseball. He saw that coming,

557
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: so he started seeking and getting permission from the Dodgers

558
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 1: board to start looking for the right man to break

559
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: the color barrier. According to ken Burn's Baseball documentary, this

560
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: is partly due to business sense and partly due to idealism.

561
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 1: So back in the day when branch Ricky was managing

562
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 1: the Ohio Wesleyan University team, Charles Thomas, who was the

563
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: only black player on the team, was barred from staying

564
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: in the team hotel because of his race, and Charles

565
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 1: was pissed, so was branch. Branch found him a room

566
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: for the night, but he never forgot the incident. He

567
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: said later, I may not be able to do something

568
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 1: about racism in every field, but I can sure do

569
00:33:55,520 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 1: something about it in baseball. Great sentiment. Look about you,

570
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: you know what, yes, where you are with what you have.

571
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 1: The business sense came in, um because Branches no idiot,

572
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: and he realized that the Negro leagues had tons of

573
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: huge stars that were pretty popular. Actually they were very

574
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 1: good players, and he's like ding ding ding the first,

575
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 1: the first major league team to sign them, will get

576
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: the best players at the best prices. It's simple math, guys,

577
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: let's get on this. So he formed the United States League,

578
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: which is basically a cover to find and train black players.

579
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: It's not clear if the United States League ever played

580
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: a game or if they were just a ruse for integration,

581
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: but it kind of looks like they just invented this

582
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: whole league with a bunch of what would be black

583
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,799
Speaker 1: black only teams that were totally fake. It was just

584
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: for them, as like a guys, to find this right player,

585
00:34:57,239 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: which is amazing, like what a weird conspiracy to like never, so,

586
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 1: Branch held tryouts of black players for Austin, sensibly for

587
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers that we're going to be their

588
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: own thing, and there were tons of talented players to

589
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: choose from. In fact, Jackie was not the best that

590
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 1: the negro leagues had to offer in terms of sheer

591
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:21,240
Speaker 1: talent um. There's a guy, Josh Gibson, who was probably

592
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 1: better overall according to some. I mean, you know this

593
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: is coming from me who knows nothing about baseball. But

594
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: I read some names, hundreds of hours of dates of

595
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,760
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson and did not understand what I was looking

596
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: at the battle. But the thing was was Branch wasn't

597
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 1: just looking for the best player. He was looking for

598
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 1: the player who could handle it. He knew that this

599
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,479
Speaker 1: guy would, first of all, he'd be the only black

600
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: player on a white team. He would become going up

601
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: against the fans, the press, the managers, the players of

602
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: the other team, the players of his own team, who

603
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 1: would be against him, who jeer him, provoke him, try

604
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: to fight with him, cause him violence, And that this

605
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 1: person would have to still play damn good baseball. And

606
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:12,280
Speaker 1: that is a hard order. And you have to admit

607
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:14,399
Speaker 1: that's a tall order. Yeah, because I can't play good

608
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,359
Speaker 1: baseball on a good day. I know, right, people are

609
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 1: saying nothing but nice things, and I still did the

610
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,439
Speaker 1: tea ball the wrong way, you know what I mean?

611
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: Uh So, Wendell Smith, who was a black sportswriter. He

612
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 1: was helping branch Ricky scout the negro leagues for the

613
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: right candidate. Um and he is the one who influenced

614
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:40,239
Speaker 1: branch Ricky to select Jackie Robinson. Apparently he did not

615
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: get enough credit for this. So I want to really

616
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 1: highlight Wendel Smith. Good job, Ronel Smith. You saw something

617
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: in Jackie and that's why Branch branches eyes fell on him.

618
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: So Branches like, great, let's talk to Jackie Robinson. And

619
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 1: in a famous three hour meeting on August, Jackie sat

620
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 1: down in branches office. Branch asked him over and over again,

621
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 1: can you do it? He posed as all these different

622
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: shitty white people. He was like, we're gonna do some

623
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: scene work here. I'm gonna give you a situation. You

624
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta react, right, He said, Uh, you know,

625
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you what do you do if you're

626
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: barred from a restaurant or a hotel, or if someone

627
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: screams racial splurs at you. You know what if a

628
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 1: sportswriter writes deliberately biased article about you? And at one

629
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 1: point Jackie asked him, Hey, are you looking for a

630
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: ballplayer who's afraid to fight back? And Branch replied, I'm

631
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: looking for a ballplayer who has enough guts not to

632
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: fight back. You gotta do this job with bass hits

633
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 1: and stolen bases and fielding groundballs Jackie nothing else. And

634
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: so he pretended to be another player who Jackie strikes out,

635
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: and he gets so mad that he punches Jackie in

636
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: the face, and Branch takes a swing at him in

637
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: the office, gets his fist right up against Jackie's nose,

638
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: almost hits him, and Jackie didn't need a flinch, he says, Mr. Rickey,

639
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:10,279
Speaker 1: I got two cheeks that it. Branch. Rickey's like, damn yes.

640
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 1: Also seems like just I was like, I'm seeing Kevin

641
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 1: Costner or something like pasting around yelling this be a

642
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: good Kevin Klein role. Kevin so Branch signed Jackie first

643
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 1: to their International League farm club, the Montreal Royals, and

644
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:33,799
Speaker 1: for now he had to keep it a secret, but

645
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 1: by October it was announced that he would join the

646
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: Royals for the nineteen forty six season. Rachel by this

647
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 1: time had graduated with her nursing degree in She and

648
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: Jackie got married in February six, and two weeks later

649
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: they left l A for dayton Florida for spring trading

650
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: with the Royals. There's a culture shock, right, We're going

651
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: from l A to the Deep South, and immediately the

652
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 1: white nonsense began. Uh their flight to Florida had to

653
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 1: layover in New Orleans and they were bumped from their flight.

654
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 1: Then they got to Pensacola for their next flight, they

655
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: were bumped again, so they had to take busses over

656
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: four hundred miles to get to Daytona Beach. And Rachel

657
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 1: wrote in her book Um Jackie Robinson An Intimate Portrait,

658
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: that Jackie was ordered to go to the back of

659
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 1: the bus, which we all know by now. Jackie did

660
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: not like being told that ship, but he had made

661
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: his pact with branch Ricky not to fight, and so

662
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: he quietly assented. And it made Rachel cry um because

663
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: he was so proud, and she knew what it cost

664
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,840
Speaker 1: him to have to follow that and just say, okay,

665
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: I'll go sit in the back. And things did not

666
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:52,800
Speaker 1: get any better. First off, the manager of the Royals

667
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:56,400
Speaker 1: asked branch Ricky to place Jackie and any other affiliate

668
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 1: than his own. He did not want to deal with Jackie,

669
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: but branch of course refused He's like, sorry, I'm the boss.

670
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:03,880
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing. So the manager is not

671
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: into this noble experiment as everyone was calling it at

672
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: the time. Jackie, of course, couldn't stay at the same

673
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,319
Speaker 1: hotel as his white teammates. He had to be put

674
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: up at a house with a black activist couple named

675
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: Joe and Dufferin Harris, the Royals didn't have their own

676
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 1: spring training facility, so they would just use local fields

677
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 1: and stadiums. But guess what, the local fields and stadiums

678
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: wouldn't let Jackie play in them. When the team played

679
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 1: in Stanford, the police chief interrupted the third inning to

680
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 1: threaten to arrest the Royals manager unless he removed Jackie

681
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: from the lineup. Are you kidding me? I mean, like,

682
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: y'all got time, is all I have to say for

683
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: some silly ship. In Jacksonville, the stadium was padlocked shut

684
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: on game day by order of the city's Parks and

685
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 1: Public Property director, and in the land a game was

686
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:58,879
Speaker 1: postponed because the stadium lays were at working, even though

687
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 1: it was a daytime game and they didn't need the lights.

688
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 1: They just were like, yeah, the lights don't work. I

689
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:08,359
Speaker 1: don't know the bathroom flull stopped up coming over. I'll

690
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 1: get to it. Well, I pooped my pants, so we

691
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 1: can't have a game today. That sounds more accurate. Yeah,

692
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: and they just said that it would have been like, well,

693
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 1: at least they're being truthful. Oh my god, the fear

694
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: these people are displaying, just like, I need to shut

695
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: the whole game down so a black person doesn't come

696
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: play like unbelievable. Now, Like we said, Jackie is the

697
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 1: kind of guy who would quickly fight back against this

698
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 1: kind of behavior. But of course he did make this

699
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 1: pact with branch Ricky not to lose his temper whatever

700
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:45,879
Speaker 1: the provocation, and according to quite a few accounts, it

701
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: was Rachel who made it possible for Jackie to maintain

702
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: his cool in the face of all this discrimination. She

703
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: also realized why she had been allowed to join Jackie

704
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: at spring training. Usually wives weren't invited, but Jackie needed

705
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:05,320
Speaker 1: someone in his corner more than most players. She wrote,

706
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:08,720
Speaker 1: quote from the moment we were bumped from the American

707
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 1: Airlines flights, my role had begun to unfold. My most

708
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: profound instinct as Jack's wife, was to protect him, an

709
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: impossible task I could, however, be a consistent presence to

710
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:26,240
Speaker 1: witness and validate the realities, love him without reservation, share

711
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 1: his thoughts and miseries, discover with him the humor in

712
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: the ridiculous behavior against us, and most of all, helped

713
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:38,759
Speaker 1: maintain our fighting spirit. And this also takes me back

714
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:41,719
Speaker 1: to William and Ellen Craft in that episode as as

715
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 1: they were escaping the South, because if you go back

716
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 1: and listen to that episode, she disguised herself as a

717
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 1: white man and and her husband was was meant to be,

718
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,839
Speaker 1: you know, the servant she was bringing with her right

719
00:42:56,080 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: and the number of the discrimination they saw while she's

720
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 1: playing a white man against her husband, I mean, unbelievable

721
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 1: and outrageous and terrible and monstrous. But the amount of

722
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: times they ended up you know, laughing about it later

723
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:17,239
Speaker 1: of how just ridiculous and absurd. Yeah, you would have to.

724
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 1: I mean you would have to, I guess, because it

725
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 1: would just be like just to despairing otherwise. I also

726
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,319
Speaker 1: just for her saying to witness and validate the realities

727
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 1: is so such a powerful line, because it's like clearly

728
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: so hard. Of course, people want to dismiss when you

729
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: say that was a racist thing you did, that was

730
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: that was because of racism. We got bump bump from

731
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:45,240
Speaker 1: our flight. And of course you might be telling somebody

732
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: like branch Rickey years you know, somebody white, and be like, no,

733
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 1: don't jump to that conclusion. It could be anything, could

734
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,399
Speaker 1: be anything. And you're like, I can't help but jump

735
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 1: to that conclusion because it's so often the right answer.

736
00:43:57,200 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: And unless until you stop giving me a reason to

737
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: think that, I'm gonna think it, like there's it's gonna

738
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:07,680
Speaker 1: come up in my brain. It's going to Yeah, sure,

739
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 1: white people get bumped from their flights every once in

740
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: a while, but twice in a row, only when you

741
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 1: hit the South, only when I hit the step. Come on,

742
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:18,440
Speaker 1: it's very that's what happened here. Come on, it wasn't full.

743
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: Don't tell me that ship. But it's clear how important

744
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:26,360
Speaker 1: Rachel was for Jackie to maintain this pact with branch

745
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,760
Speaker 1: Rickey because there actually was another black player with the Royals.

746
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 1: His name was Johnny Wright. He was a pitcher who

747
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: had been signed in January, so he and he and

748
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 1: Jackie were spring training at the same time they were

749
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: dealing with Daytona and Sandford and all the other horrible

750
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:44,839
Speaker 1: ship and he was another contender to break the Major

751
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: league's color line, but he was having a harder time

752
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 1: with this constant racism and prejudice that was always happening

753
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:55,840
Speaker 1: around him. Jackie wrote in his memoirs that quote it

754
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: affected his pitching, that he had to keep his temper

755
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,840
Speaker 1: under control all the time. M HM. And Johnny was

756
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: married too, but they had two kids, so his wife

757
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 1: had stayed home. So he's taken all this basically alone,

758
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: where Jackie had Rachel to lean on and witness those

759
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:14,840
Speaker 1: realities and help and find that humor and all of

760
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 1: that sort of invisible stuff that happens in two people

761
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:22,799
Speaker 1: at home that Johnny didn't have. And Johnny didn't make

762
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: it to the major leagues, you know, and Jackie did,

763
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: so I think, you know, you just can't overstate what

764
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 1: Rachel was doing exactly. So Ricky Branch lobbied officials about

765
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: how the Royals were being treated, and finally they let

766
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:39,320
Speaker 1: them play a damn game with Jackie playing in Daytona

767
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 1: Beach on March seventeenth, ninety and for his first few games,

768
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:49,760
Speaker 1: he didn't play remarkably well, probably about at like my level,

769
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 1: you know, like much in common, like good, but not

770
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: not great, but he played better than Eli. Don't tell

771
00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: you I said this, but I think he just out

772
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: for a second. I couldn't hear what you said. So

773
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:05,080
Speaker 1: he's not playing that well in his first few games,

774
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 1: but by April they had shifted him to second base

775
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:12,959
Speaker 1: and he was doing great. Hello, I played second base,

776
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry. It's just the more this story goes on,

777
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: the more I believe me and Jackie Robinson are got

778
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 1: a lot in common. What can I say? He got

779
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:25,080
Speaker 1: named the league m v P at the end of

780
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 1: the season, and in Montreal, the hometown fans loved Jackie.

781
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,359
Speaker 1: Rachel was surprised at how easy it was to find

782
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: housing and the warm welcome that she got from her

783
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:37,959
Speaker 1: landlord and her neighbors. After the Royals won the Little

784
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 1: World Series, Jackie was overrun with fans. Journalist Sam Malton

785
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:46,760
Speaker 1: famously noted it was probably the only day in history

786
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,640
Speaker 1: that a black man ran from a white mob with

787
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: love instead of lynching on its mind. Out that is

788
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: a potent statement. All of it was the fact that

789
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 1: she was surprised to find housing easier is like such

790
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: in and like that was like a knife in my heart.

791
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: And she was like, Wow, I actually got a house

792
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:07,959
Speaker 1: I asked for and had the money to pay for it,

793
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:13,360
Speaker 1: Like that's insane. On biography dot Com, they describe Dodgers

794
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:18,440
Speaker 1: executive Buzzy Bivasi. I have to say some of the

795
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: stories I included just because the names are so good.

796
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:24,319
Speaker 1: Baseball names are so good. Branch Ricky is a great name,

797
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:28,320
Speaker 1: Buzzy Vassi. I mean, come on, that's a great name. Anyway,

798
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 1: Buzzy is watching a Royals game to kind of like

799
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 1: check up on Jackie's progress, see how everything's going, and

800
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 1: quote taking note of the magnetic Rachel. He reported to

801
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: branch Ricky, if Jackie was smart enough to pick her

802
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 1: as his wife, he's the guy you want. And Branch agreed.

803
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:49,560
Speaker 1: So in the Dodgers called Jackie up. It was time

804
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: for the major leagues and the season would start and

805
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 1: only six days fast training montage, I know, right, I

806
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 1: kind of wonder if they left it for the last minute,

807
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 1: just so he wouldn't have to deal with like a

808
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:04,400
Speaker 1: bunch of not makes sense, Like they were like just

809
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: just like right up to the end, and then we'll

810
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:09,439
Speaker 1: tell him, a it's you six days get up here.

811
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 1: We're just gonna shock an off. Rachel had their first kid,

812
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: Jackie Jr. By this time, and the whole family relocated

813
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:22,280
Speaker 1: a bed sty. At first, the team was not cool

814
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:25,320
Speaker 1: with Jackie being there. Some of them signed a petition

815
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:28,239
Speaker 1: to force him out, and some said they would sit

816
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: out games rather than play with Jackie. But these jerks

817
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: were silenced when the manager, Leo Durocher told the whole team, Hey,

818
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 1: this is a this is a direct quote. I don't

819
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 1: care if the guy is yellow or black, or if

820
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: he's got stripes like a fucking zebra. I'm the manager

821
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:51,319
Speaker 1: of this team, and I says he plays. What's more,

822
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:53,719
Speaker 1: I say, he can make us all rich, and if

823
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 1: any of you cannot use the money, I will see

824
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:00,440
Speaker 1: to it that you are all traded. That's pretty great.

825
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's sad that he had to

826
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 1: be like, also, y'all will make money, Like let me

827
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 1: play on your greed. But hey, whatever works. Yeah. I

828
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:12,720
Speaker 1: was just like, how how much does your racist bullshit

829
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 1: mean to you? Does it mean more than like you're living?

830
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 1: I didn't think so. It's just some stupid thing you've

831
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 1: got stuck in your head. Get it out, quit it. Yeah,

832
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: we're playing a game. Guys. Yeah, So Jackie made his

833
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:31,400
Speaker 1: major league's debut on April nineteen in a game against

834
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: the Boston Braves. Eddie Stanky great name, and next does

835
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: Eddie Stinky. Edy Stanky was their second baseman, So Jackie

836
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:46,879
Speaker 1: started his career as a first baseman. Rachel was there,

837
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:50,359
Speaker 1: of course, and she wrote in her book, as jack

838
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 1: took his place in the batter's box at Ebbottsfield, the

839
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 1: meaning of the moment for me seemed to transcend the

840
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:59,560
Speaker 1: winning of a ball game. The possibility of social change

841
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:03,359
Speaker 1: seemed more concrete and the meaning of it more imperative.

842
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: And she was right. Historians do link a lot of

843
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 1: America's social progress at that time to the integration of baseball.

844
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 1: It fueled a lot of change, and a lot of

845
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:19,520
Speaker 1: integration in education, a lot of integration in hospitality and everything,

846
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 1: you know, because it's America's pastime. Well, and I think

847
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:27,080
Speaker 1: it's very similar to like seeing the importance of diversifying

848
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:30,759
Speaker 1: a lot of media today, you know, the TV and

849
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: movies and stuff, not just actors, but you know, especially

850
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 1: now that we're I think with social media, we know

851
00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: the writers and directors and producers more than we used to,

852
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:46,919
Speaker 1: and Obviously video content is like untouchably huge now, so

853
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 1: that's it's I I see a similar thing. They're like,

854
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 1: you know, if you're diversifying that, then you're changing people's

855
00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:56,439
Speaker 1: you know, whole attitudes. Yeah, that's I mean, that's what's

856
00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 1: funny is that culture is one of those things that

857
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:00,919
Speaker 1: when you're in the middle of it, it doesn't seem

858
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: very important. You're kind of rolling your eyes at it

859
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: and like everything's the same. But it's one of those

860
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: things in history and context that you look back and go,

861
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:15,319
Speaker 1: the culture changed everything. Branch. Rickey's biographer Lee Lowenstein says

862
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 1: that Martin Luther King Jr. Gave Branch a book with

863
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:22,239
Speaker 1: an inscription inside that read to Branch, who made my

864
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:26,720
Speaker 1: work that much easier? And Rachel summed it up nicely.

865
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 1: She said, I believe the single most important impact of

866
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:34,520
Speaker 1: Jack's presence was that it enabled white baseball fans to

867
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 1: root for a black man, thus encouraging more whites to

868
00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:42,920
Speaker 1: realize that all of our destinies were inextricably linked. And

869
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:46,320
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point. Yeah, right, because

870
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 1: she's like, if you want him to play badly, then

871
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 1: you want your team to lose because that's the deal.

872
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:56,040
Speaker 1: So his success is all wrapped up in your own success,

873
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:58,680
Speaker 1: and that's what made it really shift for people in

874
00:51:58,719 --> 00:52:02,399
Speaker 1: their brain. And that's such a really powerful like observation.

875
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,440
Speaker 1: And a lot of people had predicted that if they

876
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 1: tried to integrate baseball it would cause riots in the

877
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 1: streets and in the stands and amongst the teams, which

878
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:15,720
Speaker 1: is why branch Ricky had been so insistent about Jackie

879
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 1: not losing his temper against all the racists that he

880
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:20,799
Speaker 1: was going to be up against, that they couldn't prove

881
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:25,120
Speaker 1: the racist right because it might halt the conversation for integration,

882
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 1: not only of baseball but of everything. Yeah, I think

883
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 1: that's why he was so insistent that Jackie liked stay

884
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 1: on his best behavior. You know, if you give in

885
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:37,439
Speaker 1: to their taunts and we start fights, then they start saying,

886
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:40,560
Speaker 1: oh see he's he's causing ship. We can't do this.

887
00:52:40,560 --> 00:52:44,640
Speaker 1: This was a bad idea and it's so annoying because

888
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: it ends up tone policing and forcing people to behave

889
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 1: in a way that they don't want to and forces

890
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 1: people to just live with discrimination and just deal with

891
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: it when they shouldn't have to. Yes, exactly, and he

892
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:00,920
Speaker 1: had to swallow so much of his own personality and

893
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 1: his own instincts about this exact thing where he was

894
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 1: like clearly grew up being like I will never take

895
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 1: that lying down. I will always let people know how

896
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 1: I feel about that inequality. And now the only way

897
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:19,839
Speaker 1: to help integration and civil rights is to not do that.

898
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 1: And it must have been just incredibly hard at the

899
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:24,880
Speaker 1: times that I've had to keep my temper and I

900
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 1: have not been able to, like, I can't even imagine.

901
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:31,239
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine the strength it must take to

902
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: just swallow so much. And I think that you know,

903
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:38,799
Speaker 1: clearly it the way they did it worked, And not

904
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:41,879
Speaker 1: to give too much credit to Branch, I think that

905
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: it was you know, we say it was Branches packed

906
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 1: that he had with Jackie. It was Jackie's decision to

907
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 1: go with it, to say yes, I think that is

908
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: what I'll do, you know, and his behavior that made

909
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 1: the change. So I'm amazed by how he played it. Yes, again,

910
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:04,400
Speaker 1: you just can't overstay how strong he was, like morally

911
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: in personality, you know what I mean, not just in body,

912
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:12,399
Speaker 1: but like in character because Jackie, you know, his own

913
00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:14,839
Speaker 1: team barely wanted him there, so of course the other

914
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:18,759
Speaker 1: teams were even worse and more blatant about it. There

915
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 1: was a rumor that the St. Louis Cardinals were going

916
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:24,960
Speaker 1: to plan they were planning to walk out of their

917
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:27,759
Speaker 1: first game against the Dodgers because they were going to

918
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:30,560
Speaker 1: be like, we won't play against Jackie. Yeah, they're going

919
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 1: to do a strike and do a walkout. But it's

920
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:36,879
Speaker 1: kind of a convoluted story. It was sort of like, oh,

921
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:42,000
Speaker 1: this reporter said that somebody's someone in Major League Baseball

922
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 1: told him about the strike, so he wrote the report,

923
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 1: and then the President of Baseball was like, had this

924
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:51,800
Speaker 1: noble speech about how any citizen of America should be

925
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,800
Speaker 1: able to play baseball. But then it came out later

926
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 1: that the President of Baseball was the original source for

927
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 1: the strike story and that maybe his speech never happened.

928
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:04,719
Speaker 1: So it might have just been a totally fabricated thing

929
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 1: to make the Dodgers and Jackie look really great and

930
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:11,880
Speaker 1: to make the St. Louis Cardinals look like assholes. Like

931
00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:14,239
Speaker 1: that might have been the might have been all made up,

932
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:18,840
Speaker 1: completely made up. But anyway, whether or not the Cardinals

933
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:22,399
Speaker 1: were really trying to strike, they were still particularly mean

934
00:55:22,680 --> 00:55:25,839
Speaker 1: to Jackie. They played really, really rough. They were one

935
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 1: of several teams that like to play real, real rough

936
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:31,360
Speaker 1: with Jackie. They would throw pitches at his head, you know,

937
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 1: trying to hit him. Good thing they invented that helmet.

938
00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:36,920
Speaker 1: I know right. He actually got a seven inch gash

939
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:41,440
Speaker 1: in his leg from Eno Slaughter, the Cardinal's right fielder. Well,

940
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 1: there's your problem. The guy's name is enos Slaughter. Of

941
00:55:46,600 --> 00:55:49,399
Speaker 1: course he's putting gashes in people's legs. Do you think

942
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:50,920
Speaker 1: people have these names? And they go, I mean, what

943
00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:53,840
Speaker 1: else can I do but play baseball? Name is Eno Slaughter?

944
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:58,800
Speaker 1: What am I gonna do? Be a lawyer? Comet Slaughter

945
00:55:58,880 --> 00:56:03,040
Speaker 1: and Bevazzi law firm. Have you been gashed in the leg?

946
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:08,839
Speaker 1: Well it was probably on April twenty two. The Philadelphia

947
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:12,719
Speaker 1: Phillies were playing the Dodgers. Their manager Ben Chapman was

948
00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:15,960
Speaker 1: in the stands and he screamed at Jackie, called him

949
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 1: the N word. He told him to go back to

950
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:22,839
Speaker 1: the cotton fields. A lot of other unimaginative, horrible ship

951
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 1: like that. Um. But branch Rickey said later that Chapman

952
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: quote did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers when

953
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:33,520
Speaker 1: he poured out that string of unconscionable abuse. He's solidified

954
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 1: and united thirty men, which I love because it's you know,

955
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 1: it's like they say, you make your own enemies. You

956
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:43,960
Speaker 1: create what you fear, and he clearly feared a United

957
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:47,560
Speaker 1: Dodgers team with a strong black player on it. And sorry, Ben,

958
00:56:47,719 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 1: but that's what you can and in true Jackie Robinson fashion,

959
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 1: he won them all over. The Dodgers advanced to the

960
00:56:55,520 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: World Series that year, and Jackie was named Rookie of

961
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:01,120
Speaker 1: the Year, and in a radio poll he came in

962
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:07,839
Speaker 1: second to Bing Crosby as the most popular person in America. Why,

963
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:09,759
Speaker 1: I mean, you lose it being Crosby. That's not bad.

964
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it's being Crosby, Bing Crosby, Voice of Christmas.

965
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:21,080
Speaker 1: The next year, Eddie Stanky was traded to the Boston

966
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 1: Braves and Jackie moved into second base, and he played

967
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:28,600
Speaker 1: even better. But the goal hadn't quite been met yet.

968
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: As Rachel says in her Scholastic interview, jack always said

969
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,120
Speaker 1: that being the first to break the color barrier was important,

970
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:37,640
Speaker 1: but it didn't prove anything in the long run if

971
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:40,680
Speaker 1: there was not a second. In other words, he wanted

972
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 1: to see the door opened for minorities. So when Larry

973
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: Darby and Roy Campanella and Satchel Page and several other

974
00:57:48,560 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 1: black players got signed to the major leagues, that was

975
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:54,360
Speaker 1: the real triumph. Rachel says. It meant to us that

976
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:59,360
Speaker 1: real social change was occurring in that system. Amazing. Yeah,

977
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 1: A that that really says it all too, because one

978
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:06,200
Speaker 1: person doing something is amazing, but two is a copycat.

979
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:08,120
Speaker 1: Three's a trend, isn't that what they say? Yeah? Right,

980
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:10,360
Speaker 1: and there you go. So I think that's true. And

981
00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:13,320
Speaker 1: it kind of shows you about the fighting too, because

982
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:17,360
Speaker 1: I bet it was more like Jackie. Once you're in,

983
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: you're probably in. It's not like if they get mad,

984
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:24,600
Speaker 1: if we're fighting, you'll get kicked out or fired necessarily.

985
00:58:24,880 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 1: But there might not be another one. That's the thing.

986
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:30,600
Speaker 1: There might not ever be another black player. If if

987
00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:34,040
Speaker 1: we can't get you in as seamlessly as possible, we

988
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:36,280
Speaker 1: can't get anyone in. It's so much weight to put

989
00:58:36,280 --> 00:58:38,400
Speaker 1: on a person. I know he carried it. I mean

990
00:58:38,880 --> 00:58:41,560
Speaker 1: it's amazing. Well, it's the bottom of the sixth The

991
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:48,960
Speaker 1: score is Jackie Robinson a billion racist zero and we're

992
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 1: gonna be coming into the seventh inning stretch. Get your peanuts, popcorn,

993
00:58:53,720 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: hot dogs and the eighteen dollar two beers. We'll be

994
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:09,800
Speaker 1: right man. He us swing about. We're back with the show. Uh,

995
00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:15,760
Speaker 1: we got a basis loaded. There's a thousand strikes. Wowly

996
00:59:15,840 --> 00:59:23,920
Speaker 1: ship four balls. The score is Jackie Robinson infinity, racists

997
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:28,040
Speaker 1: negative infinity. A lot changed in the commercial break. Yeah,

998
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:31,360
Speaker 1: you missed a big inning head. We're at the top

999
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 1: of the ninth and uh we're heading into the final

1000
00:59:34,520 --> 00:59:39,800
Speaker 1: chapter of the game. It's chapters, right, Yeah. Sure. Jackie

1001
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:44,120
Speaker 1: and Rachel had two more kids, Sharon and David. Jackie

1002
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 1: played himself in a film biography about his life with

1003
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 1: Ruby d playing Rachel. Two good reviews. They said he

1004
00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 1: did a good job playing himself. Good job, Jackie played yourself.

1005
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:00,600
Speaker 1: Rachel was like, I will not be playing myself. I much.

1006
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:04,080
Speaker 1: I got three kids. I'm good, thank you so much.

1007
01:00:04,720 --> 01:00:06,760
Speaker 1: But Ruby D, oh, yeah, she could plaint me that

1008
01:00:08,400 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 1: he was named m v P. And he got a

1009
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:14,200
Speaker 1: lot more outspoken about racism in baseball because his pact

1010
01:00:14,240 --> 01:00:18,160
Speaker 1: with branch Rickey was just for two years. I gave

1011
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:22,840
Speaker 1: you two years. I'll swallow my tongue days, Rachel said,

1012
01:00:22,840 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 1: She's like the only reason he was able to hang

1013
01:00:24,480 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 1: on because he had that light at the end of

1014
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:31,040
Speaker 1: the tunnel and then I'm gonna start taking swings. So yeah,

1015
01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:34,280
Speaker 1: he that two year period was over. There's many more

1016
01:00:34,320 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 1: players black players in the league, and he was able

1017
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:39,920
Speaker 1: to kind of let that leash off a little bit.

1018
01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:44,040
Speaker 1: So on TV he challenged the Yankees manager about not

1019
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:46,640
Speaker 1: having any black players. He was like, what you're gonna

1020
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 1: do about it? Um. He was also openly critical of

1021
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 1: the segregated hotels and restaurants that served the Dodgers organization,

1022
01:00:54,360 --> 01:00:57,320
Speaker 1: which made a bunch of them integrate in a big hurry,

1023
01:00:57,360 --> 01:00:59,640
Speaker 1: which there you go kind of says something about when

1024
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:01,960
Speaker 1: they were listen, if we integrade baseball, we integrate a

1025
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 1: lot of things because a lot of things are around

1026
01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:09,080
Speaker 1: their Their whole industry is around this game. So if

1027
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 1: you integrate this, you have to integrate that. You have

1028
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:13,080
Speaker 1: to integrate that. The next thing, you know, it's like

1029
01:01:13,080 --> 01:01:17,080
Speaker 1: a ripple effect kind of thing. Um, And that seems

1030
01:01:17,120 --> 01:01:19,760
Speaker 1: to kind of happen, especially again once he was like,

1031
01:01:20,080 --> 01:01:23,800
Speaker 1: I'm a big celebrity, I'm a baseball hero, and I'm

1032
01:01:23,840 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 1: calling you out, and they were like that I think

1033
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 1: the Chase Hotel in New York was one that was like,

1034
01:01:29,040 --> 01:01:31,720
Speaker 1: like the next week they were like, hey, we're good,

1035
01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:35,400
Speaker 1: like just kidding about just about to do that. Actually,

1036
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:38,800
Speaker 1: it's so funny you mentioned that we just picked out

1037
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:42,600
Speaker 1: our signs about the different bathrooms. So funny you called

1038
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 1: us out on national television. We were just about to

1039
01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:50,280
Speaker 1: change all that. Unrelated but of course his success and

1040
01:01:50,480 --> 01:01:54,040
Speaker 1: his outspokenn resulted in a lot of death threats, a

1041
01:01:54,040 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 1: lot of hate mail. Um. When they moved to their

1042
01:01:57,040 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 1: house in Stanford, Connecticut in ninety I've a bunch of

1043
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 1: their neighbors put their houses up for sale. Oh my god.

1044
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: Again the fear, the fear, the disgusting fear of like,

1045
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:12,000
Speaker 1: I need to sell my whole damn house because one

1046
01:02:12,040 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: of the richest and most famous people in the country

1047
01:02:14,200 --> 01:02:16,480
Speaker 1: just moved in next exactly. Yeah. That's the other thing

1048
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:18,680
Speaker 1: is that Jackie is making really good money at this point,

1049
01:02:18,720 --> 01:02:23,520
Speaker 1: so it's like, what what what it's just the skin color,

1050
01:02:23,720 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 1: You're insane, is oh honey, the second most popular person

1051
01:02:28,600 --> 01:02:31,080
Speaker 1: in America just moved in next door. We better get

1052
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:33,360
Speaker 1: the hell out of this neighbor. The neighborhood's gone straight

1053
01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:38,200
Speaker 1: to hell? Are you a complete idiot? When a white

1054
01:02:38,200 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 1: friend tried to sponsor Jackie to the country club, they

1055
01:02:40,600 --> 01:02:43,560
Speaker 1: rejected him by a majority vote because, as you say,

1056
01:02:43,640 --> 01:02:46,040
Speaker 1: even though he's a national baseball hero and one of

1057
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:48,760
Speaker 1: the most popular people in the country, he's not good

1058
01:02:48,840 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 1: enough to play golf with a bunch of retirees I

1059
01:02:52,080 --> 01:02:55,360
Speaker 1: guess or whatever. Fortunately, though he still had Rachel by

1060
01:02:55,360 --> 01:02:58,400
Speaker 1: his side, they were able to stand it together and

1061
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:00,920
Speaker 1: uh get through this peer it where he was ten

1062
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 1: years with the Dodgers, and by nineteen fifty seven, Jackie's

1063
01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:08,200
Speaker 1: abilities were diminishing a bit. He was suffering from diabetes

1064
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:10,480
Speaker 1: he didn't know he had. I think it was one

1065
01:03:10,520 --> 01:03:13,600
Speaker 1: diagnosed for a while, um, and that was kind of

1066
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:17,160
Speaker 1: affecting his game. The Dodgers had a plan to trade

1067
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:19,440
Speaker 1: him to the New York Giants, but unbeknownst to them,

1068
01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:22,800
Speaker 1: Jackie had already made a deal to retire from baseball

1069
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:27,160
Speaker 1: and become the vice president and director of Personnel for

1070
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:30,280
Speaker 1: the Chock Full of Nuts Coffee Company, which is like,

1071
01:03:30,360 --> 01:03:33,280
Speaker 1: what a shift, But I love it, And that made

1072
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:36,280
Speaker 1: him the first black person to be a vice president

1073
01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:41,920
Speaker 1: of a major American corporation. Another first, but Jackie Robinson, Yeah, uh,

1074
01:03:41,960 --> 01:03:45,280
Speaker 1: you know, already dominated every sport there is. Now I'm

1075
01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:47,960
Speaker 1: going into the private sector of the corporate world, and

1076
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:50,000
Speaker 1: I'm going to take that on too. I found it

1077
01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:51,760
Speaker 1: funny because I was like, why is it called Chock

1078
01:03:51,800 --> 01:03:54,640
Speaker 1: full of Nuts Coffee Company because there's no nuts involved.

1079
01:03:54,800 --> 01:03:56,440
Speaker 1: I always thought it was just a bunch of cookie

1080
01:03:56,440 --> 01:04:00,600
Speaker 1: guys that ran it improv group. But then he turned

1081
01:04:00,600 --> 01:04:04,560
Speaker 1: into company. Come see Chuck full of Nuts tonight at seven.

1082
01:04:06,240 --> 01:04:08,920
Speaker 1: Well it turns out that actually they were a nut shop.

1083
01:04:09,800 --> 01:04:12,920
Speaker 1: And then in the Great Depression, he changed the business

1084
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:14,919
Speaker 1: to be like a lunch counter with a really cheap

1085
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:17,480
Speaker 1: cup of coffee and a sandwich, like a five cent

1086
01:04:17,560 --> 01:04:20,960
Speaker 1: sandwich or something like that. And um, the sandwich was

1087
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:26,200
Speaker 1: called a nutted cheese sandwich tasty, which is like some

1088
01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:29,680
Speaker 1: nuts on like a cream cheese, but nutted cheese is

1089
01:04:29,760 --> 01:04:36,560
Speaker 1: like the least appetizing. I've been fired for making a

1090
01:04:36,680 --> 01:04:40,320
Speaker 1: nutted cheese sand ust. That's what you do on your

1091
01:04:40,360 --> 01:04:47,120
Speaker 1: last day. Are fired? And okay, just another note about

1092
01:04:47,160 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 1: Chuck Full of Nuts. Apparently they he actually was one

1093
01:04:50,520 --> 01:04:54,800
Speaker 1: of the first companies to desegregate his lunch counters to

1094
01:04:55,040 --> 01:04:58,880
Speaker 1: so it was right along the business values and ethos

1095
01:04:59,000 --> 01:05:03,160
Speaker 1: was right alongside Jacky's ethos, so he was he was like, yes,

1096
01:05:03,280 --> 01:05:06,200
Speaker 1: Chuck flaets Well. Jackie also got more involved in the

1097
01:05:06,200 --> 01:05:09,000
Speaker 1: civil rights movement in the late fifties and the early sixties.

1098
01:05:09,040 --> 01:05:10,440
Speaker 1: Here he was served on the board of the n

1099
01:05:10,440 --> 01:05:14,280
Speaker 1: double a c P and led civil disobedience protests that

1100
01:05:14,360 --> 01:05:18,120
Speaker 1: led to the desegregation of the Greenville, South Carolina Airport.

1101
01:05:18,600 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 1: Nice just desegregating the ship out every Yeah, left and right,

1102
01:05:22,880 --> 01:05:26,200
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson is just shutting it down, kicking down doors,

1103
01:05:26,200 --> 01:05:29,280
Speaker 1: shutting people up. Yeah, making things happen, Like if black

1104
01:05:29,320 --> 01:05:31,640
Speaker 1: people aren't allowed in a place, I'm gonna go tell

1105
01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:35,040
Speaker 1: you why this should be. Yeah. At this point, Rachel

1106
01:05:35,160 --> 01:05:38,160
Speaker 1: is looking around like, m okay, I got a whole

1107
01:05:38,280 --> 01:05:40,720
Speaker 1: nursing degree here and I'm just hanging out collecting us.

1108
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:43,680
Speaker 1: So she told Jackie she wanted to go back to

1109
01:05:43,720 --> 01:05:46,360
Speaker 1: school for a graduate degree and go back to work,

1110
01:05:47,160 --> 01:05:50,720
Speaker 1: and he wasn't that in doing it right, But she says,

1111
01:05:51,240 --> 01:05:56,520
Speaker 1: fortunately we struggled with this issue. I love that fortunately

1112
01:05:56,600 --> 01:06:01,000
Speaker 1: we struggled with this issue because, like it says so much,

1113
01:06:01,120 --> 01:06:03,240
Speaker 1: if I can just go on a tangent. I was

1114
01:06:03,320 --> 01:06:05,640
Speaker 1: just like, first of all, it says so much that

1115
01:06:05,720 --> 01:06:08,600
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, we struggle with the issue, Like he

1116
01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:12,160
Speaker 1: wasn't about to tell me one thing. I knew what

1117
01:06:12,320 --> 01:06:16,080
Speaker 1: was going to happen. But also it kind of says, fortunately,

1118
01:06:16,160 --> 01:06:18,400
Speaker 1: he's willing to fight with me about these things. He

1119
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 1: wasn't very authoritarian, you know what I mean, He's very

1120
01:06:22,040 --> 01:06:24,520
Speaker 1: He was a kind of guy that knew she had

1121
01:06:24,560 --> 01:06:27,160
Speaker 1: so much to offer that he's like, all right, even

1122
01:06:27,160 --> 01:06:28,920
Speaker 1: though I prefer you to be at home with the

1123
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:31,960
Speaker 1: kids and like be in my backbone and my strength,

1124
01:06:33,120 --> 01:06:34,680
Speaker 1: it's true that I don't need you as much as

1125
01:06:34,720 --> 01:06:36,720
Speaker 1: I did, and you should go off and do your

1126
01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:39,200
Speaker 1: own things. So that's how I see it. Well, and

1127
01:06:39,240 --> 01:06:42,520
Speaker 1: here's a guy who speculation station a little bit about

1128
01:06:42,560 --> 01:06:45,680
Speaker 1: about how this conversation went. But here's a guy who

1129
01:06:45,800 --> 01:06:49,560
Speaker 1: is very combative and stands up strongly and proudly for

1130
01:06:49,600 --> 01:06:53,240
Speaker 1: what he believes in, but also is likely very aware

1131
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:56,160
Speaker 1: that you need to change your position sometimes, like you're

1132
01:06:56,200 --> 01:06:58,880
Speaker 1: not always right. And so she came to him and

1133
01:06:58,960 --> 01:07:00,680
Speaker 1: was like, I want to go back to school, and

1134
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:03,400
Speaker 1: you're keeping me from doing that. If you're you're trying

1135
01:07:03,440 --> 01:07:05,200
Speaker 1: to say that I shouldn't do what I want to do.

1136
01:07:05,760 --> 01:07:07,320
Speaker 1: You know, can you think about that for a second,

1137
01:07:07,760 --> 01:07:11,000
Speaker 1: And he, again speculating, was like, yeah, I guess I

1138
01:07:11,040 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 1: should think about that for a second, and you know

1139
01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:16,400
Speaker 1: what that's up to you? Yeah, you should do your thing. Yeah,

1140
01:07:16,560 --> 01:07:19,280
Speaker 1: so he did relent. In nineteen fifty nine, she enrolled

1141
01:07:19,320 --> 01:07:22,680
Speaker 1: in n y US Psychiatric Nursing program and earned her

1142
01:07:22,760 --> 01:07:26,920
Speaker 1: master's degree. She worked as a nurse therapist and researcher

1143
01:07:26,960 --> 01:07:30,760
Speaker 1: at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine after that, which

1144
01:07:31,040 --> 01:07:33,080
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about schools of medicine, but that

1145
01:07:33,160 --> 01:07:35,960
Speaker 1: sounds like a good one to me. As someone was like, well,

1146
01:07:36,080 --> 01:07:37,360
Speaker 1: you're really sick, We're going to take you to the

1147
01:07:37,400 --> 01:07:40,080
Speaker 1: Albert Einstein School of Medicine, I feel like I'm in

1148
01:07:40,160 --> 01:07:44,120
Speaker 1: good hands. If someone was like, uh, oh, you're really sick.

1149
01:07:44,320 --> 01:07:47,920
Speaker 1: The Albert Einstein Garbage Company is here to help you,

1150
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:50,919
Speaker 1: I'd be like, great, these guys can do anything they want.

1151
01:07:51,920 --> 01:07:55,160
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two, which was the very first year

1152
01:07:55,240 --> 01:07:58,560
Speaker 1: that Jackie was eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame,

1153
01:07:59,200 --> 01:08:01,800
Speaker 1: he was inductive. It was just that they took the

1154
01:08:01,920 --> 01:08:04,520
Speaker 1: very first opportunity to induct him into the Baseball Hall

1155
01:08:04,560 --> 01:08:07,520
Speaker 1: of Fame, and Rachel says he was not expecting it

1156
01:08:07,880 --> 01:08:13,160
Speaker 1: because he was so often antagonizing sportswriters about racism in baseball,

1157
01:08:14,080 --> 01:08:16,080
Speaker 1: and the sports writers were the ones who had to

1158
01:08:16,160 --> 01:08:19,320
Speaker 1: vote for him to get the honor, and he got.

1159
01:08:19,360 --> 01:08:21,160
Speaker 1: He got a lot. I think it was like seventies

1160
01:08:21,200 --> 01:08:24,000
Speaker 1: seven point seven percent of the vote or something like

1161
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:28,880
Speaker 1: a pretty big majority. I mean, he was so he

1162
01:08:29,000 --> 01:08:32,439
Speaker 1: was such a force. You could not deny that he

1163
01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:36,320
Speaker 1: deserved to be there. Exactly changed the whole game. If

1164
01:08:36,320 --> 01:08:39,639
Speaker 1: I hated you as a person, I cannot you deserve

1165
01:08:39,680 --> 01:08:41,759
Speaker 1: to be in the Hall of Fame. You're freaking Jackie

1166
01:08:41,840 --> 01:08:45,320
Speaker 1: Robinson um So, Rachel says, this was a real high

1167
01:08:45,400 --> 01:08:48,360
Speaker 1: point for Jackie. He was very honored by that and

1168
01:08:48,439 --> 01:08:51,720
Speaker 1: just just stoked that they just took the first opportunity,

1169
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:54,759
Speaker 1: you know, to do that. That's pretty cool. In nineteen

1170
01:08:54,840 --> 01:08:58,000
Speaker 1: sixty three, he went to March with Martin Luther King Jr.

1171
01:08:58,920 --> 01:09:01,960
Speaker 1: And they started holding these famous jazz concerts in their

1172
01:09:02,000 --> 01:09:05,160
Speaker 1: backyard to raise money for bail funds for activists who

1173
01:09:05,200 --> 01:09:07,519
Speaker 1: had been jailed to bail amount man, I want to

1174
01:09:07,680 --> 01:09:12,759
Speaker 1: go jazz concert in Rachel and Jackie Robinson's backyard. Please

1175
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:16,840
Speaker 1: I'll give I'll give some money to the cause. Sure,

1176
01:09:16,880 --> 01:09:22,360
Speaker 1: we couldn't afford. And Rachel said that was my particular involvement.

1177
01:09:22,880 --> 01:09:25,880
Speaker 1: So she clearly like, you know, she was like, maybe

1178
01:09:25,920 --> 01:09:28,519
Speaker 1: I can't travel. You know, she's working real hard at

1179
01:09:28,520 --> 01:09:33,880
Speaker 1: her jobs. Maybe can't travel to march on Washington. But

1180
01:09:34,000 --> 01:09:36,000
Speaker 1: she's like, you know what I can do is raise money.

1181
01:09:36,080 --> 01:09:37,920
Speaker 1: I know y'all need money. I can do this ship

1182
01:09:38,040 --> 01:09:40,280
Speaker 1: out of that. And that is exactly what she did.

1183
01:09:40,680 --> 01:09:43,719
Speaker 1: Jackie started a black owned bank in Harlem in nineteen

1184
01:09:43,800 --> 01:09:48,160
Speaker 1: sixty four. In nineteen sixty five, Rachel became a professor

1185
01:09:48,200 --> 01:09:51,759
Speaker 1: at Yale's School of Nursing and the director of nursing

1186
01:09:51,800 --> 01:09:55,719
Speaker 1: at the Connecticut Mental Health Center. She's got jobs on jobs.

1187
01:09:56,200 --> 01:10:00,000
Speaker 1: I was like, that sounds like too many jobs. Um.

1188
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:02,880
Speaker 1: Huffington Post says that Yale asked her to join the

1189
01:10:02,880 --> 01:10:07,040
Speaker 1: board of trustees, and she told them, no, not unless

1190
01:10:07,040 --> 01:10:09,400
Speaker 1: you put another black or another woman on the board.

1191
01:10:09,520 --> 01:10:13,280
Speaker 1: You won't get a two for from me. Amazing, awesome.

1192
01:10:15,280 --> 01:10:18,080
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm not checking all your boxes. I'm not

1193
01:10:18,080 --> 01:10:21,800
Speaker 1: going to be the one person. But they still had

1194
01:10:21,920 --> 01:10:26,720
Speaker 1: some struggles in their son, Jackie Jr. Was wounded in

1195
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:29,120
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War and he was discharged from the army.

1196
01:10:29,760 --> 01:10:33,759
Speaker 1: He'd had emotional trouble since childhood. In her scholastic interview,

1197
01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:37,400
Speaker 1: Rachel says that Jackie Jr. Had been compared to his

1198
01:10:37,720 --> 01:10:40,680
Speaker 1: you know, great godlike father since he was just two

1199
01:10:40,760 --> 01:10:43,720
Speaker 1: years old, and that it hurt him to live in

1200
01:10:43,760 --> 01:10:47,559
Speaker 1: his shadow. She said, people are basically telling him there

1201
01:10:47,600 --> 01:10:50,240
Speaker 1: was no way he could ever live up to his dad.

1202
01:10:50,720 --> 01:10:53,800
Speaker 1: It's like, that's an insane thing to hear your whole life.

1203
01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:57,560
Speaker 1: And he joined the army pretty much just looking for discipline.

1204
01:10:58,400 --> 01:11:01,439
Speaker 1: And while he was in Vietnam, like so many other

1205
01:11:01,479 --> 01:11:05,080
Speaker 1: soldiers did, he got involved with drugs and so he

1206
01:11:05,160 --> 01:11:08,360
Speaker 1: struggled with addiction until he entered a treatment facility in

1207
01:11:08,439 --> 01:11:11,839
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, and then he became the assistant regional

1208
01:11:11,880 --> 01:11:14,720
Speaker 1: director of that facility and he spoke to groups of

1209
01:11:14,800 --> 01:11:18,800
Speaker 1: kids about addiction and Jackie became a big anti drug

1210
01:11:18,840 --> 01:11:22,840
Speaker 1: crusader because of his hun's experience. Tragically, though, Jackie Jr.

1211
01:11:22,880 --> 01:11:25,840
Speaker 1: Died in a car accident in nineteen seventy one when

1212
01:11:25,840 --> 01:11:28,479
Speaker 1: he was only twenty four years old. It's sad because

1213
01:11:28,560 --> 01:11:31,240
Speaker 1: his his favorite brother had died, you know, when he

1214
01:11:31,320 --> 01:11:35,680
Speaker 1: was younger, and that motorcycle accident, so just sad to

1215
01:11:35,800 --> 01:11:39,040
Speaker 1: me he had like these two really important members of

1216
01:11:39,080 --> 01:11:43,840
Speaker 1: his family perished from vehicles. In October nine, seventy two,

1217
01:11:44,479 --> 01:11:48,240
Speaker 1: Jackie throughout the ceremonial first pitch at Game two of

1218
01:11:48,280 --> 01:11:52,720
Speaker 1: the World Series and gratefully accepted a plaque honoring the

1219
01:11:52,760 --> 01:11:56,160
Speaker 1: twenty fifth anniversary of his debut in Major League baseball.

1220
01:11:56,439 --> 01:12:00,360
Speaker 1: But he also said, I'm going to be tremendously more please, eased,

1221
01:12:00,400 --> 01:12:02,679
Speaker 1: and more proud when I look at that third base

1222
01:12:02,800 --> 01:12:05,800
Speaker 1: coaching line one day and see a black face managing

1223
01:12:05,840 --> 01:12:09,880
Speaker 1: in baseball. Right. So, right up to the end of

1224
01:12:09,920 --> 01:12:13,519
Speaker 1: his life, he was calling it out. He was like, yeah,

1225
01:12:13,720 --> 01:12:16,559
Speaker 1: we've made some strides, but please don't think it's enough.

1226
01:12:16,760 --> 01:12:19,640
Speaker 1: Exactly not there yet, And that would turn out to

1227
01:12:19,680 --> 01:12:25,800
Speaker 1: be Jackie's last public appearance. On October two, Jackie died

1228
01:12:25,800 --> 01:12:29,120
Speaker 1: of a heart attack in his home in Stanford. He

1229
01:12:29,200 --> 01:12:33,680
Speaker 1: was fifty three years old. Yeah not very old, no, no,

1230
01:12:33,880 --> 01:12:36,680
Speaker 1: far too young, very very much, I think because he

1231
01:12:36,720 --> 01:12:39,120
Speaker 1: had it was from a heart attack, but it was

1232
01:12:39,160 --> 01:12:42,400
Speaker 1: because of complications from his diabetes and heart disease, and

1233
01:12:42,439 --> 01:12:45,639
Speaker 1: I think those both went undiagnosed for a number of years.

1234
01:12:45,680 --> 01:12:50,160
Speaker 1: So he just was like, but that's very sad um.

1235
01:12:50,200 --> 01:12:52,519
Speaker 1: Of course, his funeral is a huge deal because he's

1236
01:12:52,680 --> 01:12:59,360
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson. Undred mourners came to his funeral, Multiple Hall

1237
01:12:59,400 --> 01:13:02,519
Speaker 1: of famers acted as as paul bearers, and the Reverend

1238
01:13:02,600 --> 01:13:07,360
Speaker 1: Jesse Jackson gave his eulogy, and tens of thousands of

1239
01:13:07,400 --> 01:13:10,400
Speaker 1: people lined the streets to watch the procession to the

1240
01:13:10,479 --> 01:13:14,400
Speaker 1: grave site where Jackie is buried next to his son,

1241
01:13:14,680 --> 01:13:17,800
Speaker 1: Jackie Jr. And Jackie might be gone, but Rachel would

1242
01:13:17,840 --> 01:13:20,600
Speaker 1: not let him be forgotten. She took over at the

1243
01:13:20,640 --> 01:13:24,200
Speaker 1: construction company that he had started in nineteen seventy specializing

1244
01:13:24,200 --> 01:13:27,120
Speaker 1: in low to moderate income housing, and under her ten

1245
01:13:27,200 --> 01:13:31,080
Speaker 1: years of leadership, they built more than thirteen hundred affordable

1246
01:13:31,120 --> 01:13:34,800
Speaker 1: housing units. She also started the Jackie Robinson Foundation in

1247
01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:39,479
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, which has provided scholarships to fourteen hundred

1248
01:13:39,560 --> 01:13:45,840
Speaker 1: college students with a remarkable nine seven percent graduation rate. Yeah,

1249
01:13:46,160 --> 01:13:50,960
Speaker 1: that's really cool. In she co authored Jackie Robinson, An

1250
01:13:50,960 --> 01:13:56,479
Speaker 1: Intimate Portrait with Lee Daniels. She and her family climbed

1251
01:13:56,600 --> 01:14:01,599
Speaker 1: ten thousand feet of Mount Kilimanjaro to celebrate Rachel's seventy

1252
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:04,519
Speaker 1: five birthday. I'll just I'm gonna just say to you

1253
01:14:04,640 --> 01:14:07,880
Speaker 1: right now that on my seventy five birthday, it's incredibly

1254
01:14:07,920 --> 01:14:10,880
Speaker 1: doubtful that I'm gonna want to climb Mount kilimanjar and

1255
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:13,600
Speaker 1: your seventy birthday, it's incredibly doubtful that you're going to

1256
01:14:13,640 --> 01:14:17,200
Speaker 1: want to climb the stairs. I mean, I hope I do.

1257
01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:20,880
Speaker 1: I would like to stay active enough, but I don't

1258
01:14:20,920 --> 01:14:23,080
Speaker 1: want to climb Mount Kilvin dro now. So I don't

1259
01:14:23,120 --> 01:14:24,799
Speaker 1: know what I don't want to climb at when I'm starting.

1260
01:14:24,840 --> 01:14:27,000
Speaker 1: Oh man, I kind of do. But I think that's

1261
01:14:27,040 --> 01:14:29,000
Speaker 1: cool though. She was like, let me find, you know,

1262
01:14:29,120 --> 01:14:32,800
Speaker 1: some crazy goal to meet at seventy five. Why not? Yeah,

1263
01:14:32,840 --> 01:14:37,439
Speaker 1: she's done so much exactly a challenge. Yeah, amazing. She's

1264
01:14:37,439 --> 01:14:40,120
Speaker 1: gotten tons of awards for her activism. She's also been

1265
01:14:40,120 --> 01:14:44,519
Speaker 1: recognized for her role in sports history. She was inducted

1266
01:14:44,560 --> 01:14:48,559
Speaker 1: into the Baseball Reliquaries Shrine of the Eternals. Wait a minute,

1267
01:14:48,600 --> 01:14:52,880
Speaker 1: you're telling me that Rachel Robinson is an eternal. That

1268
01:14:52,880 --> 01:14:55,080
Speaker 1: would be so fun if in the movie, like there's

1269
01:14:55,120 --> 01:14:57,799
Speaker 1: just like she just pops by like a Stanley cameo.

1270
01:14:58,120 --> 01:15:02,840
Speaker 1: Angelina's like an eternal male non gianni. And then there's

1271
01:15:03,160 --> 01:15:05,479
Speaker 1: Rachel Robinson. There's a cut scene at the end of

1272
01:15:05,479 --> 01:15:07,760
Speaker 1: the movie where she pops in and she's like, I'm

1273
01:15:07,760 --> 01:15:11,280
Speaker 1: a late and they're like, yes, you're fucking late. Yeah,

1274
01:15:11,360 --> 01:15:13,639
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, sorry, I was busy being Rachel

1275
01:15:13,760 --> 01:15:17,200
Speaker 1: Robinson and they were like, alright, fine, hang on, I'm

1276
01:15:17,200 --> 01:15:21,799
Speaker 1: gonna call um. No. It was the Baseball Reliquaries Shrine

1277
01:15:21,800 --> 01:15:25,000
Speaker 1: of the Eternals that she was inducted into. Huffington's post

1278
01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:27,640
Speaker 1: says that was a way for the baseball world to

1279
01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:30,960
Speaker 1: acknowledge that although she didn't own a team, or cover

1280
01:15:31,000 --> 01:15:33,800
Speaker 1: the game as a reporter or play the game herself,

1281
01:15:33,880 --> 01:15:37,679
Speaker 1: she was one of the most important women in baseball history,

1282
01:15:38,880 --> 01:15:42,719
Speaker 1: and in ten she received the Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement

1283
01:15:42,720 --> 01:15:46,240
Speaker 1: Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame, making her and

1284
01:15:46,360 --> 01:15:50,040
Speaker 1: Jackie the first married couple to reside together in the

1285
01:15:50,080 --> 01:15:53,160
Speaker 1: Baseball Hall of Fame, and Buck O'Neill, by the way,

1286
01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:55,559
Speaker 1: had also been a player in the Negro Leagues with

1287
01:15:55,640 --> 01:15:58,559
Speaker 1: the Kansas City Monarchs and was a teammate of Jackie's

1288
01:15:58,880 --> 01:16:01,080
Speaker 1: and he went on to become the first black coach

1289
01:16:01,200 --> 01:16:04,439
Speaker 1: in the major leagues. So Rachel considered that a very

1290
01:16:04,479 --> 01:16:06,760
Speaker 1: high honor to be associated with him. I mean, that's

1291
01:16:06,800 --> 01:16:10,400
Speaker 1: exactly what Jackie was saying exactly. I need coaches, any managers,

1292
01:16:10,400 --> 01:16:14,719
Speaker 1: and need executives like incredible to your point about film,

1293
01:16:14,920 --> 01:16:17,519
Speaker 1: it's not just about on screen. Who's behind the screen,

1294
01:16:17,640 --> 01:16:20,880
Speaker 1: who chose the story, who gave the green light? All

1295
01:16:20,880 --> 01:16:24,519
Speaker 1: of that matters. Sharing. Their daughter works with Rachel and

1296
01:16:24,560 --> 01:16:27,919
Speaker 1: the Foundation, but she also works as a midwife and educator.

1297
01:16:28,040 --> 01:16:31,400
Speaker 1: She's the director of education programming with Major League Baseball,

1298
01:16:31,439 --> 01:16:34,880
Speaker 1: and she wrote two books about her father and David

1299
01:16:35,040 --> 01:16:40,080
Speaker 1: the Youngest established a rural development program in Tanzania, became

1300
01:16:40,120 --> 01:16:43,320
Speaker 1: a coffee grower there. Um, so I wonder if he

1301
01:16:43,439 --> 01:16:46,800
Speaker 1: still works with Chuck Fla Nuts some capacity. Um, he

1302
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:52,080
Speaker 1: also has ten kids, so he's busy anyway. And of

1303
01:16:52,080 --> 01:16:55,200
Speaker 1: course Jackie has been honored in a million ways since

1304
01:16:55,240 --> 01:16:59,639
Speaker 1: his death. Um, they've retired his number forty two from

1305
01:16:59,680 --> 01:17:01,880
Speaker 1: base ball. I think even on a college level, like

1306
01:17:01,920 --> 01:17:04,960
Speaker 1: they were just like nobody's forty two except for Jackie Robinson.

1307
01:17:05,280 --> 01:17:08,040
Speaker 1: My number was twenty two when I played, So that's

1308
01:17:08,080 --> 01:17:11,880
Speaker 1: pretty close. It's got a number in common. They're both

1309
01:17:11,920 --> 01:17:18,439
Speaker 1: even numbers. I'm here to help. He's got streets named

1310
01:17:18,439 --> 01:17:21,160
Speaker 1: for him, schools named for him, awards named for him.

1311
01:17:21,200 --> 01:17:23,880
Speaker 1: He was named one of the most influential Americans ever.

1312
01:17:24,000 --> 01:17:27,599
Speaker 1: He's been portrayed by many, many actors and numerous movies

1313
01:17:27,640 --> 01:17:32,200
Speaker 1: and TV shows and plays. Um but we might think

1314
01:17:32,600 --> 01:17:34,920
Speaker 1: of a very different type of person when we think

1315
01:17:34,920 --> 01:17:39,280
Speaker 1: of Jackie Robinson than who Rachel remembers. He was a

1316
01:17:39,280 --> 01:17:43,639
Speaker 1: fiery baseball player. As Leo du Rocher, the Dodgers manager, said,

1317
01:17:44,000 --> 01:17:46,160
Speaker 1: you want a guy to come to play. This guy

1318
01:17:46,160 --> 01:17:48,360
Speaker 1: didn't just come to play. He come to beat you.

1319
01:17:48,840 --> 01:17:52,440
Speaker 1: He come to stuff. But goddamn bat right up your ass?

1320
01:17:53,479 --> 01:17:56,120
Speaker 1: Is that what he was doing. It's a very different

1321
01:17:56,120 --> 01:17:58,400
Speaker 1: game from when I played baseball. I thought he wasn't

1322
01:17:58,400 --> 01:18:03,320
Speaker 1: supposed to fight, right. Um So people saw this tough guy,

1323
01:18:03,520 --> 01:18:05,679
Speaker 1: you know, he's he had this public persona of being

1324
01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:09,000
Speaker 1: this very tough guy. He's kind of battling the world.

1325
01:18:09,040 --> 01:18:14,519
Speaker 1: He was consumed with this struggle for justice. But Rachel says,

1326
01:18:15,000 --> 01:18:17,920
Speaker 1: the family knew a different person. We knew a man

1327
01:18:18,320 --> 01:18:22,479
Speaker 1: very capable of great love, and commitment. I always felt

1328
01:18:22,560 --> 01:18:25,640
Speaker 1: especially fortunate to be loved by him and to experience

1329
01:18:25,680 --> 01:18:29,960
Speaker 1: his great tenderness. She said he loved getting the family

1330
01:18:30,000 --> 01:18:33,120
Speaker 1: together for dinner, and he never drank or smoked, and

1331
01:18:33,320 --> 01:18:36,479
Speaker 1: he never used bad language at home quote though I

1332
01:18:36,600 --> 01:18:39,679
Speaker 1: understand from his teammates that he could manage the language

1333
01:18:39,880 --> 01:18:44,000
Speaker 1: very well in the locker room. And she recognized his

1334
01:18:44,040 --> 01:18:47,160
Speaker 1: sense of responsibility to lift up others. She said he

1335
01:18:47,240 --> 01:18:50,080
Speaker 1: had an interesting statement to make about what life meant

1336
01:18:50,120 --> 01:18:53,760
Speaker 1: to him, which the Jackie Robinson Foundation now uses. It

1337
01:18:53,920 --> 01:18:57,240
Speaker 1: was that a life is not important except in its

1338
01:18:57,280 --> 01:19:01,120
Speaker 1: impact on the lives of others. By his own metric,

1339
01:19:01,400 --> 01:19:04,920
Speaker 1: Jackie and Rachel have lived some incredibly important lives together.

1340
01:19:04,960 --> 01:19:08,719
Speaker 1: They quite literally changed the nation. And it's entirely possible

1341
01:19:08,760 --> 01:19:12,479
Speaker 1: that without Rachel we would not have Jackie Robinson. I

1342
01:19:12,479 --> 01:19:15,600
Speaker 1: think it's clear, at least from this story, that he

1343
01:19:15,640 --> 01:19:17,519
Speaker 1: wouldn't have made it through the way that he did.

1344
01:19:17,880 --> 01:19:20,000
Speaker 1: He might not even have been selected in the first place.

1345
01:19:20,960 --> 01:19:23,920
Speaker 1: That was part of their selection process. They said right there, Hey,

1346
01:19:24,240 --> 01:19:27,080
Speaker 1: if he picked her as his wife, that's that's your guy.

1347
01:19:28,200 --> 01:19:30,080
Speaker 1: And he asked him, do you have a woman, because

1348
01:19:30,080 --> 01:19:34,080
Speaker 1: you're gonna need her so well. It's her Winning journalist

1349
01:19:34,280 --> 01:19:37,960
Speaker 1: Roger Wilkins said she was not simply the dutiful wife.

1350
01:19:38,439 --> 01:19:41,200
Speaker 1: She had to live through the death threats, endure the

1351
01:19:41,320 --> 01:19:44,280
Speaker 1: vile screams of the fans, and watch her husband get

1352
01:19:44,400 --> 01:19:48,479
Speaker 1: knocked down by pitch after pitch. She was beautiful and

1353
01:19:48,640 --> 01:19:52,680
Speaker 1: wise and replenished his strength and courage. And that's a

1354
01:19:53,000 --> 01:19:56,280
Speaker 1: That's an important note too, is that he promised not

1355
01:19:56,439 --> 01:19:59,880
Speaker 1: to fight, but he also promised that she wouldn't fight,

1356
01:20:00,040 --> 01:20:04,439
Speaker 1: having by you know, kind of by proxy. So she's

1357
01:20:04,479 --> 01:20:07,920
Speaker 1: sitting in the stands, probably hearing the abuse even better

1358
01:20:07,960 --> 01:20:11,479
Speaker 1: than he can because she's closer and having to just

1359
01:20:12,280 --> 01:20:15,479
Speaker 1: sit there. I mean, that would be also the character

1360
01:20:15,560 --> 01:20:18,880
Speaker 1: that it would take to withhold everything you probably want

1361
01:20:18,880 --> 01:20:20,840
Speaker 1: to say. I mean, I imagined there was several times

1362
01:20:20,840 --> 01:20:23,200
Speaker 1: she was like, I'm taking my earrings off, I'm turning around.

1363
01:20:23,400 --> 01:20:25,599
Speaker 1: I'm meant to slap the ship out of this person,

1364
01:20:26,400 --> 01:20:28,800
Speaker 1: but she didn't because she knew the overall goal was

1365
01:20:28,840 --> 01:20:33,280
Speaker 1: more important, and she was like, I'm I'm She talked

1366
01:20:33,320 --> 01:20:36,519
Speaker 1: about I sat straight up when I was at games,

1367
01:20:36,600 --> 01:20:39,960
Speaker 1: thinking like my back would somehow protect him from all

1368
01:20:40,120 --> 01:20:44,200
Speaker 1: this vitriol behind me, And I think that says a

1369
01:20:44,240 --> 01:20:47,719
Speaker 1: lot about how she felt in the stands, and and

1370
01:20:47,920 --> 01:20:52,640
Speaker 1: clearly it did do some absorption. Clearly it did. She

1371
01:20:52,800 --> 01:20:55,000
Speaker 1: took in a lot so that Moore could bounce off

1372
01:20:55,040 --> 01:20:57,360
Speaker 1: of him and he could do what he needed to do.

1373
01:20:58,840 --> 01:21:00,840
Speaker 1: So I'm glad that he so gave her her do

1374
01:21:01,200 --> 01:21:03,640
Speaker 1: Like he was like, you've been holding it down for

1375
01:21:03,760 --> 01:21:05,920
Speaker 1: me for long enough. It's time for you to go,

1376
01:21:06,600 --> 01:21:09,759
Speaker 1: you know, shine of your own accord. And she's still alive.

1377
01:21:09,800 --> 01:21:13,400
Speaker 1: She just turned years old, right, still kicking, She's still

1378
01:21:13,439 --> 01:21:17,479
Speaker 1: trusty of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, she is still raising money,

1379
01:21:17,920 --> 01:21:22,839
Speaker 1: she's still handling it. What an incredible couple of people. Seriously,

1380
01:21:22,960 --> 01:21:28,040
Speaker 1: I love this story. Yeah, amazing, I mean so inspiring. Yeah,

1381
01:21:28,880 --> 01:21:32,080
Speaker 1: Like I know there's many movies about Jackie Robinson, but

1382
01:21:32,240 --> 01:21:34,720
Speaker 1: just even just reading the story, you can feel the

1383
01:21:34,760 --> 01:21:37,120
Speaker 1: beats of a sports movie, like you don't even have

1384
01:21:37,200 --> 01:21:41,240
Speaker 1: to fake it, like it just like the famous three meeting. Yeah,

1385
01:21:41,320 --> 01:21:43,960
Speaker 1: but like stand at him coming out in the stands

1386
01:21:43,960 --> 01:21:48,120
Speaker 1: and people screaming horrible shit and the team being like, well,

1387
01:21:48,160 --> 01:21:50,639
Speaker 1: now I'm on your side, Like we're gonna get this together,

1388
01:21:50,680 --> 01:21:54,400
Speaker 1: Like you can just see so many wonderful, like really

1389
01:21:54,520 --> 01:21:58,439
Speaker 1: tear jerky kind of remember the Titans moments, you know

1390
01:21:58,439 --> 01:22:01,320
Speaker 1: what I mean, that are just it's just incredible. And

1391
01:22:01,400 --> 01:22:05,880
Speaker 1: that's that's uh, that's three outs the racists and they

1392
01:22:05,960 --> 01:22:09,400
Speaker 1: leave the field in shame with the final score of

1393
01:22:09,800 --> 01:22:16,200
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson has a number that's immeasurable beyond infinity. Mathematicians

1394
01:22:16,240 --> 01:22:21,160
Speaker 1: haven't discovered it yet, and racists have the opposite of that.

1395
01:22:22,200 --> 01:22:24,720
Speaker 1: Get the hell off the field, Get out of my stadium.

1396
01:22:25,360 --> 01:22:29,840
Speaker 1: There's no place for racism and baseball or anywhere. Get

1397
01:22:29,960 --> 01:22:33,680
Speaker 1: the hell out, crush it, stomp it well. At a

1398
01:22:33,840 --> 01:22:37,840
Speaker 1: fantastic time. Thank you for listening. I'm so glad to

1399
01:22:38,000 --> 01:22:41,200
Speaker 1: have brought this story to you. It's really beautiful and

1400
01:22:41,200 --> 01:22:45,320
Speaker 1: and and the romance that carried it through, you know,

1401
01:22:45,800 --> 01:22:48,360
Speaker 1: is really spectacular. And it's nice to get a story

1402
01:22:48,400 --> 01:22:52,800
Speaker 1: like this um where it's two people genuinely caring about

1403
01:22:52,800 --> 01:22:55,559
Speaker 1: each other, you know, the entire time, and they had

1404
01:22:56,320 --> 01:22:59,280
Speaker 1: different opinions about things, but they worked it out and

1405
01:22:59,320 --> 01:23:02,560
Speaker 1: they just had each other's backs their whole lives with

1406
01:23:02,680 --> 01:23:05,719
Speaker 1: them against the world, and you know what the world lost.

1407
01:23:06,720 --> 01:23:09,200
Speaker 1: So that tells you how strong the two of them

1408
01:23:09,200 --> 01:23:12,800
Speaker 1: were right, Oh, man, well, please let us know what

1409
01:23:12,840 --> 01:23:19,840
Speaker 1: you thought. Send us your letter, jackets jackets. Apparently, uh,

1410
01:23:19,880 --> 01:23:22,479
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to correct us too much

1411
01:23:22,479 --> 01:23:24,760
Speaker 1: on the baseball stuff. We we know that it was.

1412
01:23:26,720 --> 01:23:29,120
Speaker 1: I did my best. I got to the stats and

1413
01:23:29,200 --> 01:23:31,160
Speaker 1: I was like slogging through it, and I was like,

1414
01:23:31,240 --> 01:23:34,840
Speaker 1: just cut them all out to any numbers, and the

1415
01:23:34,920 --> 01:23:38,000
Speaker 1: numbers aren't important. He was a great baseball player, that's

1416
01:23:38,040 --> 01:23:41,519
Speaker 1: all you need to know. Better than Eli a little bit.

1417
01:23:41,880 --> 01:23:45,160
Speaker 1: But we have so much in common. I recognize that

1418
01:23:45,280 --> 01:23:48,400
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson and I are not the same person. Good.

1419
01:23:48,560 --> 01:23:52,679
Speaker 1: That's good. He's also dead, so that would be very weird. Well,

1420
01:23:52,680 --> 01:23:57,559
Speaker 1: obviously not the same person. Identical people, not quite. We've

1421
01:23:57,600 --> 01:24:01,120
Speaker 1: had different struggles in our lives. Very true. Who's to

1422
01:24:01,160 --> 01:24:05,800
Speaker 1: say I'm to say everyone everyone. I am also to

1423
01:24:05,840 --> 01:24:09,599
Speaker 1: say that they were not even remotely comparable struggles. Not

1424
01:24:09,680 --> 01:24:13,400
Speaker 1: He and we were not remotely comparable baseball players, but

1425
01:24:14,360 --> 01:24:17,240
Speaker 1: I mean the similarities. We both played second base. His

1426
01:24:17,320 --> 01:24:21,559
Speaker 1: number was forty two, mine was twenty two. He left college,

1427
01:24:21,600 --> 01:24:23,600
Speaker 1: I left college. We both lived in the state of

1428
01:24:23,640 --> 01:24:25,439
Speaker 1: New York. We both did live in the state of

1429
01:24:25,439 --> 01:24:29,040
Speaker 1: New York for a period of time. Yeah, and Georgia

1430
01:24:29,520 --> 01:24:35,599
Speaker 1: and Georgia. That's so true. This is getting creepy. Please

1431
01:24:36,200 --> 01:24:39,120
Speaker 1: tell us your thoughts about the show. Yeah, we love

1432
01:24:39,160 --> 01:24:42,800
Speaker 1: hearing from you guys. Always super fun to get to

1433
01:24:42,800 --> 01:24:45,280
Speaker 1: know you a little bit. Yeah, I feel like we've

1434
01:24:45,280 --> 01:24:48,280
Speaker 1: gotten I love compliments, I love hearing suggestions. But it's

1435
01:24:48,320 --> 01:24:50,519
Speaker 1: really cool just to kind of know who's listening check in.

1436
01:24:50,640 --> 01:24:52,479
Speaker 1: I feel like we're getting to know some of y'all too.

1437
01:24:52,560 --> 01:24:55,200
Speaker 1: You know, we got we got some some relationships building,

1438
01:24:55,960 --> 01:24:58,240
Speaker 1: and uh, don't hesitate to reach out. Of course, you

1439
01:24:58,240 --> 01:25:00,920
Speaker 1: can always reach us at oh Man said, I heart

1440
01:25:00,920 --> 01:25:03,800
Speaker 1: media dot com, YEP or on social media on Twitter

1441
01:25:03,840 --> 01:25:07,639
Speaker 1: and Instagram. I'm at Dianamite Boom and I'm at oh Great.

1442
01:25:07,720 --> 01:25:11,800
Speaker 1: It's Eli and the show is at ridict Romance, So

1443
01:25:11,920 --> 01:25:16,160
Speaker 1: follow along, say hey, and we cannot wait to catch

1444
01:25:16,200 --> 01:25:20,919
Speaker 1: you on the next episode. I love you all so long. Friends,

1445
01:25:20,960 --> 01:25:24,639
Speaker 1: It's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show.

1446
01:25:25,160 --> 01:25:28,400
Speaker 1: Tell your friends neighbor's uncle Sandance to listen to a

1447
01:25:28,520 --> 01:25:30,120
Speaker 1: show ridiculous Well Dance