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Authors: Jimmy Breslin
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him. He had a mouth.
An older brother, Mack Robinson, Jackieâs hero, had a heart murmur, but he begged to be allowed to run in the 1936 Olympics. He finished second to Jesse Owens and came back from Berlin bitter about not winning. It did nothing to improve Jackieâs disposition. Only a person of Branch Rickeyâs overwhelming personality could calm him.
When he got to schools his athletic ability made him golden. One day he won a broad jump in a meet and then he hitched a ride to the baseball field where he got two hits to win the game. In 1939 and 1940 he was at UCLA, running as a crack halfback who was on All-America lists, performing in front of crowds and being surrounded by admirers and reporters. Sukeforth knew that Robinson had played basketball and run track and was a name in both sports. His legend was already all over the papers on Clyde Sukeforthâs lap.
Sukeforthâs written report to the Dodgers office noted:
âI asked him why he was discharged from the army and a number of other questions for information we may need. It seemed an old football ankle injury had brought about his discharge but, as it proved, it did not bother him. I reasoned that, if he wasnât going to play for a week, this would be an ideal time to bring up coming to Brooklyn. I had him make a few stretches into the hole in his right and come up throwing. His moves looked good.â
Sukeforth had to see a player named Bobby Rhawn in Toledo on Sunday; no matter how important the first player is, you canât make an expensive trip just for one. He asked Robinson if they could meet there and ride the train together to New York. Robinson said yes. Because of his arm, he was taking a few days off from the Monarchs. Suddenly it was real. A magnet was drawing Robinson through the doors and toward a field of mowed grass whose sweetness could be smelled even here. On Sunday, Robinson was at the Toledo ballpark with a bag. Sukeforth bought two spaces in the same Pullman car. The ticket clerk saw a black with him and seemed ready to ask about it. Sukeforth spoke first in words that slappedâyes, they were traveling together.
One of the porters was an organizer for A. Philip Randolphâs union of Sleeping Car Porters, which was threatening a major national demonstration over black jobs. He knew Robinson was a college football star. Would he come back in the morning to discuss the march? Robinson agreed, leaving Sukeforth to eat breakfast with the whites, and exciting the workers by telling them he was interested in big-league baseball.
In New York on Monday, Sukeforth went to the Bossert Hotel in Brooklyn and Robinson to the Hotel Theresa, the famous building on the corner of 125th and Seventh Avenue, the cornerstone of Harlem.
They met again at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 28, 1945, in front of 215 Montague Street in Brooklyn. It is a downtown business street that becomes a place of history. On Montague Street the clothes were seersucker and short sleeves, and bare arms in the August heat. This morning was to become one of the most vividly recalled of these years. All remembering starts with Clyde Sukeforth.
The Brooklyn Dodgers offices were on the corner of Court Street, wide and busy with cars, with the state and federal courts on the far side across from ten- and twelve-story buildings that hold every title guaranty, lawyer, mortgage broker, and insurance broker in the borough. Montague Street starts at Court Street and runs up a street of business offices in low buildings with restaurants on the ground floor. The street goes into a few blocks of the graceful two- and three-story brownstones of Brooklyn Heights. At the end, there is a walk looking over a harbor of glittering water, in the center of which is the Statue of Liberty, which still, today, no matter how many times you have looked at it, takes your breath away.
Sukeforth and Robinson went up to the fourth-floor offices of the Dodgers. The scout
An older brother, Mack Robinson, Jackieâs hero, had a heart murmur, but he begged to be allowed to run in the 1936 Olympics. He finished second to Jesse Owens and came back from Berlin bitter about not winning. It did nothing to improve Jackieâs disposition. Only a person of Branch Rickeyâs overwhelming personality could calm him.
When he got to schools his athletic ability made him golden. One day he won a broad jump in a meet and then he hitched a ride to the baseball field where he got two hits to win the game. In 1939 and 1940 he was at UCLA, running as a crack halfback who was on All-America lists, performing in front of crowds and being surrounded by admirers and reporters. Sukeforth knew that Robinson had played basketball and run track and was a name in both sports. His legend was already all over the papers on Clyde Sukeforthâs lap.
Sukeforthâs written report to the Dodgers office noted:
âI asked him why he was discharged from the army and a number of other questions for information we may need. It seemed an old football ankle injury had brought about his discharge but, as it proved, it did not bother him. I reasoned that, if he wasnât going to play for a week, this would be an ideal time to bring up coming to Brooklyn. I had him make a few stretches into the hole in his right and come up throwing. His moves looked good.â
Sukeforth had to see a player named Bobby Rhawn in Toledo on Sunday; no matter how important the first player is, you canât make an expensive trip just for one. He asked Robinson if they could meet there and ride the train together to New York. Robinson said yes. Because of his arm, he was taking a few days off from the Monarchs. Suddenly it was real. A magnet was drawing Robinson through the doors and toward a field of mowed grass whose sweetness could be smelled even here. On Sunday, Robinson was at the Toledo ballpark with a bag. Sukeforth bought two spaces in the same Pullman car. The ticket clerk saw a black with him and seemed ready to ask about it. Sukeforth spoke first in words that slappedâyes, they were traveling together.
One of the porters was an organizer for A. Philip Randolphâs union of Sleeping Car Porters, which was threatening a major national demonstration over black jobs. He knew Robinson was a college football star. Would he come back in the morning to discuss the march? Robinson agreed, leaving Sukeforth to eat breakfast with the whites, and exciting the workers by telling them he was interested in big-league baseball.
In New York on Monday, Sukeforth went to the Bossert Hotel in Brooklyn and Robinson to the Hotel Theresa, the famous building on the corner of 125th and Seventh Avenue, the cornerstone of Harlem.
They met again at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 28, 1945, in front of 215 Montague Street in Brooklyn. It is a downtown business street that becomes a place of history. On Montague Street the clothes were seersucker and short sleeves, and bare arms in the August heat. This morning was to become one of the most vividly recalled of these years. All remembering starts with Clyde Sukeforth.
The Brooklyn Dodgers offices were on the corner of Court Street, wide and busy with cars, with the state and federal courts on the far side across from ten- and twelve-story buildings that hold every title guaranty, lawyer, mortgage broker, and insurance broker in the borough. Montague Street starts at Court Street and runs up a street of business offices in low buildings with restaurants on the ground floor. The street goes into a few blocks of the graceful two- and three-story brownstones of Brooklyn Heights. At the end, there is a walk looking over a harbor of glittering water, in the center of which is the Statue of Liberty, which still, today, no matter how many times you have looked at it, takes your breath away.
Sukeforth and Robinson went up to the fourth-floor offices of the Dodgers. The scout
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