jackie

In our new book, “Baseball Rebels: The Players, People, and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America,” Rob Elias and I profile the many iconoclasts, dissenters and mavericks who defied baseball’s and society’s establishment. But none took as many risks – and had as big an impact – as Jackie Robinson. Though Robinson was a fierce competitor, an outstanding athlete and a deeply religious man, the aspect of his legacy that often gets glossed over is that he was also a radical. The sanitized version of the Jackie Robinson story goes something like this: He was a remarkable athlete who, with his unusual level of self-control, was the perfect person to break baseball’s color line. In the face of jeers and taunts, he was able to put his head down and let his play do the talki...

Baseball great Jackie Robinson was a living, breathing example of athleticism and apparent good health, playing four sports at UCLA and becoming the first Black man to play in major league baseball. And yet, the athletic hero and civil rights champion died at age 53, almost blind, from a heart attack, with underlying diabetes and associated complications. When Robinson died on Oct. 24, 1972, few researchers studied health disparities. There was little understanding that social factors and stress greatly affect health, and that racism and discrimination contribute to poor health outcomes among communities of color. Fewer people paid attention to racial and ethnic gaps in life expectancy. Since Robinson’s death, however, research has shown that enduring structural and everyday racism can ...

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Don’t Listen To The Sanitized Version Of History – Jackie Robinson Was A Radical

Did Racism Kill Jackie Robinson?