On February 10, 1946, Jack Roosevelt Robinson and Rachel Isum were married in a big ceremony in Los Angeles. A couple weeks later, the Robinsons were on their way to Daytona Beach, Florida, and spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers. ![]()
Four months earlier, the Dodgers' legendary president Branch Rickey
had presented Robinson as the first African American to play in organized baseball. Robinson, Rickey and the Dodgers were breaking the color line in baseball and carving a new reality in American life.
There is a complex history of Blacks in baseball.
Major Leagues had existed since the 1870s, and players with African American backgrounds had moments in the sport. But by the 1890s, with Jim Crow
firmly entrenched in many parts of America, Blacks were barred from organized — White — baseball. African American players formed their own teams and toured, taking on all comers and making a fair living. Negro Leagues were formed and competed at a high level.
But Blacks would not crack the highest levels, the Major Leagues, as long as the game made excuses for discrimination.
Jules Tygiel
was a Professor of History at San Francisco State University
until his death in 2008.
A gifted historian, and a very fine writer, Tygiel demonstrated that baseball is an excellent portal to historical inquiry. In Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy
, he wrote about baseball's impact on American society, and how the larger society had reflected baseball's changes as well. Published in 1983, Professor Tygiel's research included interviews with Rachel Robinson.
When Jackie Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, baseball and American society had taken a giant step forward. Robinson played very well for the Dodgers in his major league career — but the pressure he endured as a pioneer under universal scrutiny is the measure of his real greatness. His life with Rachel, Tygiel shows, was fundamental to Robinson's success.
Every history is a chronicle of human life as it plays out. Robinson is a genuine hero, and his story helps us all work to become heroic, or to understand how heroes become heroes. But Robinson's story (and Tygiel's wonderful history) also helps us understand that anyone might emerge as hero — but only when the opportunity is there.
Each of us might not ever be a Jackie Robinson, but we can all make sure the door is open. We can all develop the vision to see greatness, so that it can emerge when we need it. This helps everyone — and it may help everyone see you.










The telegraph changed the way people communicated. Messages could be transmitted over vast distances in a matter of minutes. Indeed, as the transcontinental railroad was built in the 1860s, telegraph poles went in with it—the wires strung over silent prairies, deserts and mountains. In 1869, east and west were connected in the United States by train and telegraph.