Jackie Robinson was a terrific baseball player. With his variety of skills, some think he was one of the best players, even better than Babe Ruth. Well, he might not be a greater player than Babe Ruth, but he was twice the role model.
Jackie did something for baseball and equality in America that no one will forget. After Jackie was transferred out of the army because of the way they treated blacks, Jackie went to play baseball in the Negro Leagues with the top black athletes of that time: Cool Papa Bell who was an excellent runner of the base paths, Josh Gibson who was nick named The Black Babe Ruth because of his power hitting, and Satchel Paige who could fire lightning-fast pitches.
The Negro Leagues were created after the Jim Crow laws were established. The Jim Crow laws established that all blacks were equal to whites but they should be separate: separate schools, bathrooms, drinking fountains, back door restaurant services, not allowed in hotels, and limited voting privileges. The Negro Leagues were tough. The blacks had to endure barnstorming, where a the team would play a game, then get on a bus and travel a long way to play immediately after they got off the bus. Then after the game, they would immediately travel to another far away city and play a double header. On the road they were treated poorly due to inequality and prejudice. They slept on the bus because they were not allowed in hotels. They ate at the back doors of restaurants because they were not allowed inside.
After a couple months of the Negro Leagues, a scout came down to watch Jackie play. He later met with Jackie after the game and said that he was from the Brooklyn Dodgers, an all white team at the time, like the rest of the Major Leagues. He wanted Jackie to come and meet the president and general manager of the team, Branch Rickey, who had sent the scout down to watch him.
When they got to Brooklyn on a hot summer day, they went to see Branch Rickey, the cigar chomping, very smart general manager who knew how to nip things in the bud before they got bigger. Jackie got up to Mr. Rickey's office where he told him about his "Noble Experiment". Mr. Rickey was going to try to integrate white baseball to include black players. He was asking Jackie to be the first black player in the all white league. He told Jackie that if he played in the white leagues, he would have to turn the other cheek to insults. If he didn't, that would just be an excuse for the whites to kick him out of the league. He asked him to be on his best behavior and not retaliate for at least three years, long enough to get other black players into the game.
It should be mentioned that Mr. Rickey had a very personal reason to test his "Noble Experiment". One night when Rickey was the coach of a college baseball team, he was in a tournament in a different town. One of his players was black and when the team was checking into the hotel, the black player was told that he couldn't stay at a room and would have to stay the night in the car. The player went into the car where he was later joined by Mr. Rickey. As soon as Rickey entered the car he found the black player crying, saying that he wished he could tear off his skin. Mr. Rickey wanted to set things right in America.
Rickey and Robinson shook hands and sealed the deal. It was agreed that he would first play for the Montreal Royals which was a minor league team for the Dodgers. After he joined the Royals, he married Rachel Isum, his college sweetheart from UCLA. As was expected, Jackie encountered all sorts of segregation and hatred. That's when the trouble started. The threat mail piled up, most saying that if he didnt get out of baseball, they'd kidnap Little Jackie (their newborn son), rape Rachel, and kill him. Most would have quit baseball at that moment, but Jackie kept at it.
When Jackie was in St. Louis, the opposite team put a black cat on the field and said, "Hey, Jackie, there's your brother." After that Jackie hit a double, then stole third and home. After he touched home plate he said to the opposite team, "I guess my brother must be proud of me now" (Dingle, Derek T., First in the Field).
Jackie finished up the season with a .339 average which was excellent. The manager, Clay Hopper, who was born in the racially prejudiced state of Mississippi, was scared that if he had a black player on his team he would be forced to move out of his home state. But in the end, when Jackie got picked to be on the Brooklyn Dodgers, Clay Hopper said to him, "You're a great ballplayer and a fine gentleman. It's been an honor having you on my team."(Ducket, Alfred, I Never Had it Made) The Noble Experiment was starting to pay off.
While Jackie arrived with the Brooklyn Dodgers at his first spring training, hostility toward him was evident. When Jackie went to Cuba with the team to train with the Dodgers, many Dodger players started a petition that said that they would not play with a black man. Branch Rickey, being the smart man that he was, said any of them could quit if they didn't want to play with a black man. That shut the whole team up. While Jackie was playing, a fellow player, Ed Stanky, came up to Jackie and said he didn't like that Jackie was on the team, but he was just going to play so they could get some wins. Jackie stared him in the eye and said, "Good, just the way I like it. Straight out and up front." (Dingle) Jackie Robinson was a courageous man.
Perhaps the most historic day in baseball occured when Jackie Robinson took the field to play first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. "Although he did not get a hit in three official times at bat, Jackie Robinson, first Negro to play in modern big-league ball, signalized his official debut as a Dodger by sprinting home with the deciding run ..." (Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1947). A couple weeks into the season the Phillies (a pro team in Philadelphia) started calling Jackie obscene names. Then, out of the blue, Ed Stanky stood up and said, "You yellow-bellied cowards, why don't you pick on somebody who can fight back?" (Dingle) That game got the whole team fired up and the series ended with a two out of three game victory for the Dodgers.
Branch Rickey actually thanked the Phillies for harassing Jackie! People thought he was nuts. Branch Rickey thanked them for making fun of Jackie because it inspired his team to come together and play like a team without even a thought of racial hatred. When the Phillies came to town again, the coach told Mr. Rickey that his team wouldn't play if Jackie played. Rickey, with his quick mind, told the manager that that was fine with him. Then they would take the three games they had to play by default. The Phillies showed up to play!
In 1947 Jackie was voted Rookie of the Year. Moreover, Robinson won the Most Valuable Player award in 1949. White sportswriters were coming around and being supportive of Jackie and the integration of blacks into the all white leagues. Dixie Walker, a famous sports writer, had a quote that about summed up that first season, "No other ballplayer on this club, with the possible exception of Bruce Edwards, has done more to put the Dodgers in the race than Robinson has. He is everything Branch Rickey said he was when he came from Montreal." (Duckett)
Branch Rickey did a marvelous deed for baseball and America by inviting Jackie into baseball. In fact, the next year after Jackie came into the league the Cleveland Indians signed Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League. Major league baseball was divided into two leagues: The National League, which the Dodgers were in, and the American League. Now both sections of Major League baseball were integrating African Americans.
After two years of being in baseball Mr. Rickey dropped the turn the other cheek policy and let Jackie retaliate. Most sports writers thought Jackie wasn't being fair to the chance that the major leagues gave him. But as Jackie had said, "If I retaliate against someone, it's called disrespect, but if a white player retaliates against me, it means he has spirit." (Duckett)
New records were being set for the attendance in Brooklyn to Dodger games. 26,000 was the new record. A sports writer wrote, "Jackie's nimble/ Jackies quick/ Jackie's making the turnstiles click." (Dingle)
Jackie got his old pal from the barnstorming days of the Negro League, Satchel Paige, who could throw lightning fast pitches into the league to play for Cleveland in 1948. Jackies efforts to equalize blacks in sports was starting to pay off.
Jackie got older and slower after a while, as we all do, and decided to call it quits in 1957 rather than move to Los Angeles with the team. We shall all remember Jackie Robinson's baseball career and his participation in the Noble Experiment, paving the way for equality in American sports. 
