Stepping Up To The Plate

JACKIE ROBINSON When Robinson took the field with the Dodgers for the first time on April 12, 1947, America was wallowing in apartheid. A year before Robinson's breakthrough, Major League Baseball had conducted a secret study of the impact of allowing black athletes to play the national game. It concluded that integrating the teams would not only offend white sensibilities but also lower the standard of play. Maybe someday, when blacks were ready, baseball could take the …

…year in endorsement fees, was violating standards of decency by paying Indonesian workers only 30[cents] a day. His curt comment: "My job with Nike is to endorse the product. Their job is to be up on that." On the baseball field or off it, when Robinson came up to the plate, he took his best shot and knocked it out of the park. The superstar athletes who have taken his place, sadly, often strike out.