Century's Greatest Sports Accomplishment - Part 1

As this tumultuous century nears its end, the proliferation of all kinds of lists and rankings of the greatest sports figures, games, and events keeps on increasing. Many of the marker times and personalities are well deserving of honor and hype.

But from my point of view there is no event as significant as the breaking of baseball's color Line. It changed the national pastime forever. It ushered in a whole new era in baseball and in all sports. Here is what it was like at the very start.

With the blue number 42 on the back of his Brooklyn Dodger home uniform, Jackie Robinson took his place at first base at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947. It was 32 years to the day since Jack Johnson had become the first black heavyweight champion of the world.

Many of the 26,633 at that tiny ballpark on that chilly spring day were not even baseball fans, but had come out to see "the one" who would break the sport's age-old color line. Robinson's wife, Rachel, was there along with the infant Jackie, Jr. Many in the crowd wore "I'm for Jackie" buttons and badges, and screamed each time the black pioneer came to bat or touched the ball.

Jackie Robinson grounded out to short his first time up. He was retired on a fly ball to left field in his second at bat. He grounded into a rally-killing double play in his final at bat of the day.

The Dodgers won the game, 5-3, nipping Johnny Sain and the Boston Braves. For Robinson it was a muted performance, but the first of 1,382 major league games was in the record books - and he had broken baseball's color line forever.

"I was nervous on my first day in my first game at Ebbets Field," Robinson told reporters 

afterward. "But nothing has bothered me since."

On April 18, 1947, at the Polo Grounds, in the shadow of the largest black community in the country, Jackie Robinson smashed his first major league home run as the Dodgers defeated the Giants, 10-4.

Writer James Baldwin had noted: "Back in the thirties and forties, Joe Louis was the only hero that we ever had. When he won a fight, everybody in Harlem was up in heaven. On that April day the large contingent of blacks in the crowd of nearly 40, 000 had another hero to be "up in heaven" about, another hero to stand beside Joe Louis."

Part sociological phenomenon, part entertainment spectacle, part revolution, part media event - the Jackie Robinson story played out its poignant, dramatic and historic scenes through that 1947 season.

Toward the end of the season, a Jackie Robinson Day was staged at Ebbets Field. Robinson was now a major drawing card rivaling Bob Feller and Ted Williams in the American League.

"I thank you all." Robinson said over the microphone in that high-pitched voice. He acknowledged the gifts he'd received, which included a new car, a television and radio set and an electric broiler.

Robinson stood next to the Jackie Robinson. 

"I am 69 years old," Bill Robinson said. "But I never thought I would live to see the day when I would stand face to face with Ty Cobb in Technicolor."

Harvey Frommer is the author of more than 30 sports books including

"Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," and "The New York Yankee Encyclopedia." 

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