Transcript
Speaker: Hi Sam. Hi Jeff. Welcome to the Jeff and Sam show. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam.
Speaker: welcome to the jeff and sam show i'm jeff and i'm sam And this is us. We're here again yet another week. How you doing? It's been going strong, man. Going strong. we're We're doing it. We're doing it. We're back in the saddle.
Speaker: On the saddle. In the saddle. Yeah, in the saddle. Yeah, you're in the saddle. Thank you. No, in the saddle. Yeah, we're back in the saddle. How's your day been? What's new?
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Nothing. Yeah. Same old shit, different toilet. Well, mine started it at 6.30 a.m. Okay? You know that I'm a night person. What? I am. I do not go to bed. Sometimes i have to make myself go to bed at like 1.30. I will randomly text you at 1 a.m. To make myself go to bed. I do.
Speaker: And it's usually because I passed out on the couch. Yeah. and ah so I had to do something for a friend. I had to... Get up at 6.30 in the morning. I didn't have to, but I did because he's a friend. And take something into D.C. for him and drop it off.
Speaker: And there are people alive and awake at 7 a.m. Too many. They're like running around in D.C., like running. On their legs. Jogging.
Speaker: and there was like a row team Roo. Roo. Rowing down the river. Yeah, they a crew team, like in the long skinny boats. wonder who they were.
Speaker: Probably Georgetown. That's what I thought. Yeah. That's what I told dad. But then again, a lot of the like private Catholic schools, like the high schools too. Oh, okay. yeah i was I was looking at this and I'm like, what the hell is happening at 7 a.m.? What do I miss every day at 7 Wednesday. On a Wednesday. Yeah. And dad called me right when I was crossing over into D.C. He called and he he was like, what in the hell are you doing? Yeah.
Speaker: Kind of. Not really like that, but you know, kind of like, what what the hell? ah saw that you were driving in D.C. at like 645. I'm so glad that my parents aren't the only ones that stalk my location. You know, i yeah, I was shocked. And I was like, Dad, I i don't know what I'm doing. is it It's like so early and I'm awake. He was probably making sure you weren't getting kidnapped. Yeah, fair. Good point. Against your will up at 6.30 in the morning. Take the thing I need to take. Side note, you and I have a place to stay in Ecuador because I did what I did. so you know
Speaker: You made a deal with the devil? what we're getting at Yeah, made deal with the devil. Yep. So anyway, yeah, we got a place to stay in Ecuador when we want to go to Ecuador. And that's like on my list of places I really would like to see. I'm surprised you haven't been there. Like that that to me seems like something like yeah would have been on your already been there. No, Argentina was the place I chose to go to down there. And I love Argentina. But what do we not love about Argentina? Argentina.
Speaker: Oh, you don't love, and I guess by a proxy, we have we we don't love Lionel Messi. Yes, you even nailed his name. We don't love Lionel Messi because he cannot play basketball very well.
Speaker: Yeah, he's real bad at um table tennis. Table tennis, real bad at table tennis. He's just an a douche. He's bad at table tennis. And yeah, so I don't like him either, damn it.
Speaker: Thank you. You're welcome. I feel really supported. How was that? Was it enough flair for you? Yeah. I mean, we hate the entire Argentinian football team. Oh, but the country's good. And their steak.
Speaker: That was such a good steak. You know, i yes. We've talked about this steak before. i have never had an Argentinian steak. But actually, now that I think about it, the last time that I was in Switzerland,
Speaker: Nope. pet Don't think it was Switzerland. Was it an Argentine steak in Switzerland? No, it was. what Where else did I go this past time? I don't know. i can I don't know your life like that.
Speaker: Honestly, I do. Probably Amsterdam. Yes, it was in it was in Amsterdam. Okay, okay, that makes sense. I couldn't remember that. saved my life. um You had a steak from Argentina in Amsterdam? there were a but there's a There's a huge Argentinian population there, apparently. Lots of restaurants all over the place. And it was funny because obviously it was like just short post-World Cup, right? And all of the drama. um So every time I would see one, I'd be like, ugh, ugh.
Speaker: They're invasive. Yeah. Cockroaches. We were told when we were down there, it was me and a friend of mine named Marcedrick. And he and I, he was already down there. He was like living down there temporarily. And I just went to visit and I had my own little apartment. Right. But he came over and he was doing missionary work. And so i was like, hey, my treat, let's go out and have a steak. So I asked a friend of mine who lives down there, was like, where should we go for a steak? She's like, I'm vegetarian, so let me tell you what people like. And so she said... would as the only fucking vegetarian in in the country. Yes. And so she said, this restaurant, ah go down this road, turn right at a church or something, and...
Speaker: It's a small door. i remember that. It was a small door and it looked like a hole in the wall. The moment that you open the door, you see about 150 people eating in there.
Speaker: All steak? I don't know. I was so shocked because it didn't look like anything like that from the outside. You know? I love that. It was so, so good. Yeah.
Speaker: I had a really good steak in Portugal. I didn't know that was a thing. Didn't know that was a thing either. Yeah. But yeah, 6.30 a.m. I'm headed into D.C. Turns out if you beat the traffic, it's an easy drive.
Speaker: And then I parked. It was like ah all Subarus on the street where I parked. And there was one little spot. ding I just pulled my little car in there and You would. If it were me, it would be like, I can't put this boat anywhere. Nope. I'd be driving around. I'd miss the whole window. Everything... think I'd have hit a pedestrian. i don't know. Oh, my God. There's so many of those at 630 in the morning. Everyone's. People walking everywhere. dogs what is this?
Speaker: don't know. But then I had to be careful when I went back to the car because several of them looked like my car. And then, did I tell you about the time and but the summer in Boston?
Speaker: So when we pull up to the Airbnb, it was at night. It was totally dark. I didn't tell you this, did No, you didn't. something about sitting on this couch that feels like we're not actually recording. Yeah.
Speaker: so do So, you gotta be careful with that. yeah So, we pull up, it was night, and you rented the Airbnb because you were gonna go with us originally, right?
Speaker: And it was me and Kayla and Kim, and I'm like, which fucking house is it? Because this was the only street that had no street lights. It was so dark. And gary you couldn't see the numbers on the houses, right?
Speaker: And i pulled over the car and got out and like kind of went up to a house to look at the number. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. It gets worse. And then I came back.
Speaker: Oh, my God. My rental car was gray. I came back. I got into the car. no you didn't. I sat down. Nope. And I looked over at my sister who was not in the car. And then I realized I'm in the wrong fucking car.
Speaker: At night. In Boston. In the wrong fucking car. And so then I was like, oh my God. Oh my God. So I get out of the car and I am like about to get shot. i felt, you know...
Speaker: And so I go back to Kim and Kayla who were sitting in the car. First of all, I had to look around and find it. I'm like, I was so discombobulated. I was like, where the fuck is, where's the car I rented? Oh my God. Oh my God. And I go and I get in the car and I'm just making like the face the whole time.
Speaker: And Kim and Kayla didn't see me do that. So they're like, what the fuck is going on? Why are you making that face? Did you just see ghost? Yeah. It was like the face. Like I'd just seen a ghost. And swear to God, was like...
Speaker: Oh, y'all. If we hear gunshots, I'm so sorry. so I just got in that person's car. But here's the thing. Is New England not notorious for just shooting people, you know? Well, I didn't. It was nighttime. you weren't Southeast, so you're fine. Jesus, Lord. Yeah.
Speaker: So I had to be careful today because I have a tendency to get into the wrong car, apparently. We laughed. so Actually, they laughed so hard. It was a little traumatic for me. I would have fucking loved it.
Speaker: Laughed so hard. i mean, you're never going to live it down now that I know this. Maybe this is why you didn't tell me. but I'm telling you on the microphone. You are. Well, first of all, tell me what you're drinking. Oh, what am I drinking? Olipop. A vintage cola Olipop.
Speaker: I do love that. Cheers, Chris. Oh, I've got to open it first. Yeah. Well, I am drinking the Olipop ginger ale that you brought me. I know you. I know you. I looked at all the Olipops, and i was like, which one would Sam like the best? But what else am I drinking, Jeff?
Speaker: You're drinking a, and I forgot what you said exactly, but it's a pumpkin beer of some kind. And it was frothy looking on top and it looked like it had like pumpkin spice on top.
Speaker: No, I don't do pumpkin spice. I'm not that gay. and and Are you sure? i guess is that gay for dudes to like pumpkin spice and the girls are all the straight girls? Is that what that is? I don't know. I've never had pumpkin spice. It's not. Yeah, it's not for me. I've tried a pumpkin spice latte. Can't stand it. But this is a shipyard pumpkin ale.
Speaker: Thank you, Massachusetts. And a cinnamon sugar rim. Oh. With um a touch of vanilla in it as well. It looks so tasty. It is. it is. it it Listen, I love a lot of things about fall, but...
Speaker: that's That tops the list. That looks good. My little cola is going to do, and it's delicious, and it's nice and cold. um So, yeah. Wrong car story.
Speaker: What else can I share? with um real quick. Oh, did I say the name? Of the show. did, didn't I? You did. And we need you. You people that are listening, rate us, review us.
Speaker: Give us five stars. We need the five stars. We need you to write a little something. me. Whatever you want to write. yeah Help us, please. Oh. ah
Speaker: Nope. um Just shows. Shit. Shit. Oh, are you watching something good? Yes, I am watching. Well, I told you I was watching Blacklist.
Speaker: Is that good? Oh, my God. Yes. Okay. Yes. That's Ashley's, one of her favorite shows, too. that That's one of Ashley's favorite shows, too. That has, what's the guy's name in it?
Speaker: James Spader. James Spader. Oh, yeah. Man, I remember him from a movie called Crash. Yes. The fuck? Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah. Okay. So, I mean, i think i love it. i absolutely love it. Um, so highly recommend, but the other one,
Speaker: I am also, because my brain, right? So in the process of reading like seven different books. I'm like five chapters into each of them. And then I'm also a couple of shows into, or a couple episodes into like eight different shows right now. So I'm still watching Killing Eve. I'm watching Blacklist. um Mobland, I officially binged that entire book.
Speaker: First season and then I'm a dumbass and didn't realize that it's still in production. so now I'm at the point where i'm like, well, fuck. I have to wait every episode to come out.
Speaker: And then the other one... It's not
Speaker: there. wanted to say that I started watching the third season of Lioness. I'm starting back at the beginning. Because Sal, your friend Sal, I'm just kidding, Sal. Your friend Sal was like, you should go ahead and start the third season. I'm like, Sal, it's not over. Like, I need it to be finished. He's like, but it's really good. And I was like, eh. And then Salazar totally, like, threw me a spoiler. Don't anything. Don't you anything. I'm not going to do that to anybody else. Because, you know, I'm not like him.
Speaker: um Grantchester. Have you seen that one? That's on Netflix. I started watching that. British? British. It sounds very British. Yeah. Yeah. It is.
Speaker: um UK-ish. Okay. I don't know if it's actually like British. and Murder in a Small Town. And then i restarted Lioness. Okay.
Speaker: lioness Lioness is so good. Truly. So good. Okay, I got one for you.
Speaker: Channel Zero. Have we talked about that before? I don't know. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It is like, it's not at all kind of not like, I don't know. It kind of gives you Stranger Things vibes, but horror. not Yeah, horror. Horror.
Speaker: For real. It's good. Horror for real. Horror for real. I mean, so much so that I was like, that's it's got some gore in it.
Speaker: Oh, oh, oh, oh. It's some gore. Okay, so it's interesting. So it's horror, but it's like slasher? Yeah, and it's also a little sci-fi.
Speaker: So there's a, like in the 80s, 70s, 80s, there were these channels at the end of the dial that were just static, right? Yeah. So all of a sudden, a TV show would appear on one of the, like a cartoon would appear on one of these channels. Oh, love that. The kids would get obsessed with it.
Speaker: They would zone out. And then bad things started happening. I mean, it's very like poltergeisty. Yeah. Okay. I think you would like it. What's it on?
Speaker: Prime. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. um Okay. I feel like I was going to say something else.
Speaker: Tell it to her face. Daniel, you just... Oh, Daniel. Daniel, Daniel. You just nailed it with that one. Yeah, I'll be the judge of that. It's really none of your business. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean, honestly, my brain just went blank, but I think that
Speaker: channel channel zero. You should add that to your list because It is so good. And when you do a Reddit dive, because I love Reddit, and I will jump on Reddit. It overwhelms the fuck out of me. No, not me, because I will look at a thread and just be like, okay, give me good horror shows.
Speaker: And Reddit is always on there, and then there's always like 100 people giving their recommendations. yeah Channel Zero is always at the top of the list. I'm going to just go real quick and put it, like not even just all my notes that...
Speaker: Yeah, it's always at the top of the list and it's up there with a show called Hannibal. Oh! And do you like Hannibal? Have you watched it? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know about that show for me.
Speaker: Why? have i have tried to watch it like three times and I can't get into it. I don't know. i just... I need more. Let me just look this up real quick. Channel Zero. Oh, and then the other one there. they Did you ever watch Department Q? Yeah.
Speaker: No. Okay, well, they're coming out with another. Maybe I have. Woman locked in a. Yeah. I started that one. Okay. No spoiler. Sorry. Channel zero. Look at that. It's right there.
Speaker: Okay. Channel
Speaker: zero. Four seasons. the The dream drawer? I don't know. Start with season one. I don't know what the dream thing is, but like start with season one.
Speaker: It's so good. So good. Does it look like... um That's it. That's it? Okay. Super creepy. Oh, it looks like I have to get Shudder AMC. See, I have Shudder because it's all things horror. Horror, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: That's what I'm doing tonight, too. I... I'm going home because my day, I feel like this is two days in a row because I got up at 630. I feel like today is like 48 hours instead of 24. Well, i I had a doctor's appointment this morning up in Arlington because that's where I get my health care.
Speaker: um So I worked 3 p.m. to 7 a.m. m this morning, right? And then when you look at the
Speaker: the the You know how you can preview a route on Apple Maps or whatever? Like, if I leave now, it'll be this long. And if I leave at this time, it'll be that. Or arrive by such and such, right?
Speaker: So, you know, if I had left in my normal 3 o'clock time, then it would have been...
Speaker: 20 minutes, 25 minutes to get up to the place, which I've done in the past where realizing the time, the length of traffic delay is so much greater at 7am.
Speaker: So yeah, it was going to take an hour to get up there. Luckily my path took me like the GW Parkway. So you and I were both driving at seven o'clock in the morning. Um,
Speaker: So yeah, an hour to get there and i had to go and check in for the appointment at 8.45. So I was like, okay.
Speaker: Got there at 8. Took a little nap in the truck. Slept so hard for a solid 20 minutes. Went in, checked in, and then fell asleep in the waiting room. Like, out.
Speaker: Out. To the point where they had to come over. And you know that, like, my stalker response is a little aggressive. But also, so is your go-to-sleep response. It's basically an narcoleptic.
Speaker: it ah you're basically narcoleptic. I think I might is it I swear to God, is so fascinating to watch now that we publicly talk about this. yeah It's just like, oh, and she's gone.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's like, I go down hard. It's not like, you know, like we all know people that will be sitting there and they'll do the nod, right? And they're... i don't I don't think I can do that. But if you set me down somewhere and I can rest my head on something, because I don't like the whole, ugh, that it's not for me.
Speaker: So heaven forbid, though, like if I'm sitting and I can rest my head on the wall, this or that. So yeah, in the waiting room, I sat down and like rested my head against the wall out. And they apparently called my name.
Speaker: And one of the other patients in the lobby was like, Oh, pointed. Pointed to me, apparently. And the nurse came over to get me. The nurse came over to get me, like, and tried to be very, like, gentle and, like, you know, soothing. But, like, when I didn't want to wake up, I don't want to wake up. Yeah. So she woke me up, and I was like, wah!
Speaker: ah hu and then like half fainting goaded it. like why i could I could feel it, like I was hot and red and like, she's like, are you okay? it was like, yeah, yeah, just need a minute.
Speaker: Oh, God, if you had a passed out there. god I would have called 911. I'd have been like, please no. I'm fine. This is baseline. perfect Patient refused transport. Whereas, like, me on that flight from Huntsville to D.C. that time, trying to read Stephen King, my head just kept falling forward. And it was amazing to watch. It was amazing to watch. It was incredible. I could not stay awake. was the short flight thing.
Speaker: Yeah. yeah yeah well well Yeah. Well, I fell asleep in the exam chair as well. like The MSA did the whole like chart review thing and that kind of thing. And then
Speaker: she was like, okay, I'm going to step out. and like The doctor should be in momentarily. was like, okay. Dead. Didn't hear the doctor come into the room. It was great. It was great. Did they know you worked the night before? Well, I was in my scrubs still. So the doc... um and And my doctor knows me well, so she was like, yeah you worked last night? And i was like, yeah. And she was like, okay, we'll we'll make this correct quick. and then she told a kind of funny story about how there's a doctor's lounge there because I told her that I had worked 16. And she was like, that's insane.
Speaker: And apparently the doctors that she knows that are emergency doctors currently only work eight-hour shifts. You know, ours are tens. So they only work eight-hour shifts. but they're actually in the process of shortening those even more. And they're gonna work seven hour shifts because, you know, eight hours is just too much.
Speaker: h And she said that her response when she was talking to these emergency doctors was just kind of like, couldn't couldn't straight face it. She was like, what She was like, I'm i'm on call, literally 24-7, and I have to always be ready to cut into people and like potentially save two lives. you know So what are you talking about? You have seven-hour shifts. And they were like, yeah, well, really, you know it's a really stressful field. And she goes, when I tell you, Sam, some people are just made differently. was like... I mean, there's arguments to that. To both sides. Exactly. Because it's like, it's like, uh, it's like firemen, EMS, police, like, are you going, going, going the entirety of your shift? No. So like, that's why firemen and paramedics can work 24, 36 hours because they have downtime. They have time where they can get sleep, you know? Yeah. Um,
Speaker: So I guess like when you're an on call, like, yeah, how busy are you actually? Yeah. That's not to say, I mean, guess it depends on the part of the country you're in. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: Cause some people make babies more than others. Yeah. Um, truth you ready? I am. Okay. This week we're doing another onesies because
Speaker: life, life. That's all you got to say, right? That's it. It encompasses so many things. Okay, so Daniel sent us a video of Quinn hitting a home run.
Speaker: Yes. All right? Yes. So What sport was that? ah Tennis. Yes. Obviously. so I went down a rabbit hole. Like a rabbit hole of all rabbit holes. And...
Speaker: Then I picked out somebody to do for this story. And when I picked this person out to do, I called Dad and I was talking to Dad. Turns out everybody in the world knows this person's story except for me.
Speaker: And I said, Dad, I can't believe I didn't know this story. And he's like, well, you were busy doing other things. And I said, oh. And then, of course, we talked about when ah he tried to get me to play t-ball when I was like five.
Speaker: And I latched onto the bumper of his car. And I was like, oh, watch me show out. And I screamed. They were not going to leave me. And he had this belly laugh that was amazing remembering that.
Speaker: I love that. But he was like, you're busy doing other things. That was it. Priorities. Priorities. So Quinn is the inspiration for this. Oh, I'm so excited to spend a night with them. He hit same. hit that home run.
Speaker: Okay. So January 31st, 1919. Okay. Do you know who I'm going to do? I feel as though if it's a world, if it's a world known, it's one of two.
Speaker: Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born into this world. Now, i hope I'm hoping to tell people some stuff that they don't know about him.
Speaker: Because I watched a four-hour documentary on this man. I read a book on this man and watched other things on this man. There's plenty out there.
Speaker: Yeah, but the documentary that I watched is Ken Burns' documentary. Yeah, seen it. Love it. On PBS. Love it. Fucking incredible. I mean, I love everything Ken Burns, but... Incredible.
Speaker: So jackie rose Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born into this world. His parents named him Roosevelt after Theodore Roosevelt because he had just died earlier that month.
Speaker: So Jack was the youngest of five children born in Cairo, Georgia. Not Cairo as it looks, but Cairo, Georgia. He was the son of a formerly enslaved woman.
Speaker: And side note, in 1919 that year, there were at least 21 African-Americans lynched in the state of Georgia. So here's how much I didn't know about Jackie Robinson, that he was in 1919.
Speaker: I don't know, i was thinking like the 60s or 70s. Right? yeah So I was ignorant about all of this. And hence the reason I was like, let me do a dive because that's what we do, you know?
Speaker: So Jack's dad left when he was very young. His mom, she didn't want any part of the Jim Crow South, so she packed the bags and she moved them all to Pasadena, California, only to find out that Pasadena was also very segregated.
Speaker: She ended up working for a white family to put food on the table, and she eventually bought a house on Pepper Street in Pasadena. Jack showed early on that he was good in baseball because his classmates would share lunch with him if he was on their team. Like if he chose to be on their team, they would share lunch with him and they were called like the Pepper Street Gang.
Speaker: So there were a couple of Robinson boys who were really good at sports too. Jack's brother Mack was in the 1936 Olympics where he outran all of Hitler's Aryan men only finishing second behind Jesse Owens who in the 200-meter dash.
Speaker: Yes, take that, Hitler. You know what mean? bet he hated that. It was 1936. I love everything about that. In 1939, Jackie enrolled at Pasadena Junior College, and he was really good at sports, especially basketball.
Speaker: But Jack was also known as somebody who wouldn't take any shit from anybody. He would punch back at the white baseball players. He was even arrested one time for singing a song in front of a cop.
Speaker: The cop thought he should be arrested for that. At world Woolworth, they didn't serve black people. Jack sat there until they made until they served him. He was like, I'm not getting up until you serve me.
Speaker: He was so good at sports that an alumni of Stanford University offered to pay Jack scholarship to any school where Jack would not play against Stanford. That's how the rich people live.
Speaker: Bananas. It's different world, you know. It's a different world. Jack politely declined that offer and then he went to UCLA. While at UCLA, Jack was outstanding at football. He once returned a punt at 65 yards, earning a standing ovation from the opposing team and their fans. He then ran 23 yards to score and then another time ran 80 yards to score.
Speaker: This is when the press started calling him Jackie. It was that winter that Jackie also started playing basketball. He won the NCAA title, also in the broad jump. Dude's doing everything.
Speaker: He's doing the most. He started as shortstop on the baseball field, and by the end of his first year at university, Jackie Robinson had lettered in every sport.
Speaker: That's incredible. It's... see Yeah. Yeah. But here is where we are in history, though. It's the 30s. So someone wrote in the newspaper about him, quote, Dusky Jackie Robinson carried the football as if he were carrying a watermelon running away from its owner as if the owner had a shotgun.
Speaker: So gross. But in the fall of 1940, Jackie met Rachel Isom. She was a freshman nursing student. She said in the documentary that she expected Jack to have a big ego, but she was mistaken. he was right the opposite. They were very much at ease with each other.
Speaker: And Rachel also loved the fact that he would wear light-colored T-shirts to emphasize his beautiful dark skin. And they were beautiful. They were just a beautiful couple. Yeah.
Speaker: Just fit together perfectly. What was that little hand motion? I don't know. I'm just so excited about this story. Black people were absolutely barred from Major League Baseball. So the Negro League was formed.
Speaker: Now, the Negro League had great players like... And i I want to put all these people's names in this story because I think there's a story in all of these people, right?
Speaker: So the Negro League had players like Cool Papa Bell, Joshua gift Gibson, and Satchel Paige. who we just got to hang out this year with a man that played baseball with Satchel Paige.
Speaker: How incredible is this? He got struck out by Satchel Paige. You know, white people never discussed the Negro Leagues, and black people started kind of attacking the prohibition of being barred from MLB, from Major League Baseball.
Speaker: In the summer of 1941, Jackie joined an integrated baseball team in Hawaii near Pearl Harbor. On the 5th of December, 1941, he was headed out by boat to the mainland when on December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Speaker: Jackie was then drafted in the spring of 1942 into the army. In the documentary I watched, Harry Belafonte talked about being in the military also, and he said, like, these men were ready to fight for their country, but the reality was that these men were relegated to cooks and to cleaners, to cleaning duty, right? Yeah.
Speaker: jack Jackie did apply for OCS or for Officer Candidate School. Of course, he was rejected. But he found an ally in Joe Louis, who was at the time the heavyweight champion of the world.
Speaker: Now, Louis had also enlisted in the Army. army And Louis knew people. Because he was the heavyweight champion of the world, he knew people. So he made one phone call to the Pentagon.
Speaker: And then Jackie was accepted. and then graduated from OCS. So now he's a second lieutenant in the Army. In April of 1949, Jackie was stationed at Camp Hood in Texas and assigned to the all-black 761st Tank Battalion, known as the Black Panthers.
Speaker: and was getting ready to fight in George Patton's third army in Europe. Jackie Robinson was expecting to go to war. At the same time in Brooklyn, different part of the country, in the 1940s, there was a common love among people in Brooklyn.
Speaker: And that was the Brooklyn Dodgers. I'm giving you sports today, Sam. I'm talking sports to you. i'm You're in an alternate dimension, right? like You've been doing this a lot recently. Yeah, it's because I get to like learn about this and do the way I want to do it, you know?
Speaker: I'm just waiting for that day that we go we go and we sit behind that big green wall. Oh, my God. Okay. So, common love among the people of Brooklyn, especially the kids, the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Speaker: Kids were playing ball in the streets because they couldn't afford to go to the games. And the Brooklyn Dodgers weren't even that good at the time. And they were referred to as Dembombs. The bums.
Speaker: In 1942, the general manager for the Brooklyn Dodgers, his name was Branch Rickey. Rickey would set in motion events that would change America. he He was from the St. Louis Cardinals, and he had a lot of success with them, but he was also a man of, I didn't write this, strict morals and lofty values. No games on Sundays, but hey, in the event that there was a game on Sunday, he would take the money from that game.
Speaker: You know, but no games on Sundays. In 1943, Ricky, he decided it was time to bring black players into the major league, right?
Speaker: He went to the Brooklyn Dodgers. He cleaned house. He came in and he purged the roster of his expensive and popular stars. And he wanted to bring black players into the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1943, Ricky found found support for this.
Speaker: But back in Texas, the 761st Tank Battalion was preparing to go overseas. And as Jackie boarded the bus one day, he sat down in the front. And when he did, he was told to move to the back.
Speaker: Jackie ignored the command. He knew that the Army regulations said no discrimination, right? He didn't back down, and he ended up swearing at the military police.
Speaker: Jackie was court-martialed, and he was tried for in insubordination. He admitted that he did threaten the private who had insulted him. The private called Jackie the N-word, to which Jackie responded, quote, if you call me that again, i will break you.
Speaker: When asked what the N-word meant to Jackie, he said, quote, A common theme with is A
Speaker: i don't consider myself low and i don't consider myself uncouth a common theme with him is just how what a class act he was you know a common theme Jackie carried himself with dignity because, of course, he did. And when all the charges charges were dropped, he wanted out of the military, and they honorably discharged him out of the military.
Speaker: So as Jackie was on trial, though, in the court-martial... Charges were dropped because they were fucking absurd. Right. Oh, yeah. That goes without saying. But as he was in the court-martial thing, the 761st Battalion went off to war, becoming the first armored unit of African American soldiers to see combat.
Speaker: There's some stories there, too, you know? Jackie was told that the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League, Negro National Leagues, were looking for good players. In March of 1945, Jackie reported to the Kansas City Monarchs as a shortstop.
Speaker: There was a story about when he joined the team back then, there was a gas station that the guys would like to stop at, but while the teammates could buy gas at this gas station, they couldn't use the restroom. Jackie attempted to use the restroom, but was told, quote, boy, you can't use that restroom, to which Jackie responded, take the hose out of the tank. No restroom, no gas.
Speaker: The young man then said, feel free to use the restroom. I'm not going to give you my money. Yeah, the Negro Leagues were poorly funded. They were obviously treated so much differently than the white teams, but Jackie loved being with Satchel Paige.
Speaker: like Satchel was an inspiration, a teacher, a mentor to Jackie, and he loved him. One day, Jackie got a phone call from Wendell Smith, a writer from the Pittsburgh Courier, and it turns out that the Boston Red Sox had agreed agreed to stage a tryout for three players, Marvin Williams, Sam Jethro, and Jackie Robinson.
Speaker: They had to travel, though, to that old-ass Fenway Park. Old-ass? Just kidding. After the tryout, Jackie went back to St. Louis. He never expected it to hear anything from the tryout, but what he didn't know was how much he had impressed the hell out of them.
Speaker: Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, was looking for somebody who could handle the oncoming barrage of negativity. Because it was going to be bad when he brought the first black player on to play. For sure.
Speaker: Rickey needed a soldier. So at this time in the 40s, baseball was seen kind of as a symbolic target of something to integrate to start the whole process, right? Yeah.
Speaker: Gotta start somewhere. It would not be an easy thing to do, though. Joe DiMaggio told white reporters that the Negro League player Satchel plate Page was one of the best players DiMaggio had ever played against.
Speaker: Only one of the white newspapers printed what DiMaggio said, though. Word's not going to get out about that, right? Harlem City Councilman Ben Davis printed a poster that showed a dead black soldier and a dead black baseball player with the caption reading, good enough to die for his country, but not good enough for organized baseball.
Speaker: So there's like a ah movement happening, right? Grumblings. Grumblings. New York City Mayor LaGuardia also urged the baseball clubs to integrate. So there's this big push.
Speaker: There has been a big push, but it's even bigger now. Branch Rickey wanted to sign a black player, but he wanted to do it on his own terms, not under political pressure. And at 10 a.m., August the 28th, 1945, Jackie Robinson was in New York City to meet Branch Rickey.
Speaker: At the beginning of the meeting, they sort of stared at each other awkwardly. It's like legendary, this meeting, apparently. They like stared at each other, very awkward.
Speaker: And then they moved past that. And Ricky asked Jackie about his girlfriend, Rachel. Then he encouraged Jackie to marry her, saying, quote, you are going to need her. He also explained to Jackie that he needed somebody who could handle all of the hateful rhe rhetoric and not be rattled.
Speaker: This, by all accounts, was the start of that legendary job interview. Branch Rickey then started screaming all of the vile rhetoric at Jackie Robinson. Jackie would not answer back. He would not respond. There was no retaliation.
Speaker: And he did it well. He told Rickey that he wouldn't cause any trouble. just as jackie was about to Just as Ricky was about to sign Jackie, Mayor LaGuardia was going to have a press conference demanding that the baseball clubs integrate.
Speaker: Ricky decided to get ahead of this. He wanted to take control of the narrative. So he ordered Robinson to go to a press conference, and Jackie he impressed everybody at the press conference.
Speaker: This dominated the news. Jackie would play for the 1946 season for the Montreal Royals. This was an affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Branch Rickey was celebrated for this. At least he was celebrated by black newspapers, but not the white newspapers. It was a side note all the white-owned newspapers. Yeah, well, let's not draw attention. Yeah. Let's not... On February 10th, 1946, Jackie and Rachel were married.
Speaker: They were off to Florida for training. Like, they had a shotgun wedding, and then they were immediately off to Florida for training. and And I just... He is extraordinary.
Speaker: Was extraordinary. Everything, right? But it's that behind the scenes, right? Like that was that really lame, like, cliche behind every strong man is an an even stronger woman or whatever. And let me tell you what.
Speaker: She is phenomenal. She is so phenomenal. There's a whole story there too. She's incredible. yeah And she spent her life promoting his legacy for the Jackie Robinson Foundation. i know.
Speaker: Yeah. So they were off to Florida. They didn't have a honeymoon. And on the way to Florida, Jackie and Rachel, they were actually kicked off of two flights and ended up taking the bus to Florida. Like, they were kicked off the flights so white people could get put on the flights. And they had to take the bus to Florida. Then they had to sit in the back of the bus on the way to Florida.
Speaker: This actually made Rachel feel really sad for her husband because she knew what he was about to go through. Yeah. And the weight of the world was on Jackie's shoulders. He took it all with dignity. Newspapers were calling for possible riots. The press bombarded Jackie with questions like, do you think you can get along with the white players?
Speaker: Jackie reminded them that he had served with white men in the military. It's classy way to answer that, right? Like, what have you done? Because I've served in the military. Like, you know? But also, like, it's just...
Speaker: did The humility with which he responded and was just like, I've interacted with white people plenty. Like, I don't, you know, like, it's they're not some big monster.
Speaker: Jackie received death threats. He received other verbal attacks, but he never faltered. March 17th, 1946, Montreal played their first game against the brooklyn Brooklyn Dodgers in Daytona Beach. More than a thousand black plant fans came to...
Speaker: the game to cheer for Jackie. Of course, the black fans were relegated to the segregated areas, but they showed up for Jackie Robinson. Jackie felt a lot of pressure to do good. He knew that he was going to be seen as somebody, if he was going to be seen as somebody who deserved to be there, he had to be twice as good as all the other players on the field.
Speaker: This is a theme in this story, too. I'm amazed by him. Honest God, I'm amazed by him. a sportsman? Yeah. I've got a whole lot of feelings about this, and I'll tell you after the story. Okay. Right?
Speaker: He's incredible. um So he knew he had to be twice as good. But teams were refusing to play Montreal because Jackie was playing for Montreal. Other teams would even call off games saying that the lights didn't work. Make up pitiful excuses so they didn't have to call racism racism.
Speaker: Jackie kept improving. He's getting better. He's getting better. And the next season, they opened against Jersey City Giants, and it was a packed house at Roosevelt Stadium.
Speaker: The crowd was at capacity, including 1,000 black fans eager to see Jackie play. Jackie hit a home run, and Montreal won 14-1. i don't know anything about baseball, but that sounds like a big win.
Speaker: Sounds like a big win. I wish I had gotten that on tape. Montreal fans loved Robinson, but when Montreal went on the road, things were tough. ah People would throw stuff at Jackie on the field. People would call him names. One man threw a black cat on the field and said, Hey, Jackie, here's your cousin.
Speaker: Jackie was furious as he went up to bet to bat. Then he hit a double, and when the next person came up to bat, Jackie scored. He looked over at the man who brought the cat and said, I guess my cousin's happy now.
Speaker: I mean, that's so good, you know? The Montreal Royals had to travel to Kentucky to play the Louisville Colonels in the minor league World Series, or the Little World Series.
Speaker: The Colonels took the first two of the three games... Jackie was shaken, but back in Montreal, Jackie got his groove back. In Game 5 of the series, Jackie hit a double, and then he hit a triple, and then he scored twice.
Speaker: He also had two more hits in Game 6 to win the Little World Series. Be twice as good as every everyone, because everyone is watching. Ecstatic Montreal fans loved Jackie Robinson. They wouldn't let him leave the stadium. like Jackie went into the locker room to change, and when he came out, there was a mob of men waiting on him.
Speaker: initially got kind of scared when I read this. But they picked Jackie up, and put him on their shoulders, and they ran down the street singing and celebrating him. Amazing. Jackie's first season in the minor leagues was more than a success. Soon, he and Rachel, they had their first child, a boy named Jack Roosevelt Robinson the second In August 1946, Major League Baseball owners had a meeting to talk about how they wanted to keep their major league all white.
Speaker: But there wasn't a written rule about this, and Branch Rickey knew this. And he wanted to promote Jackie from the minor leagues to the major leagues. So Rickey went right back to Brooklyn to sell this to the people there.
Speaker: It was politics. It was pure door-to-door politics on his part. He did go door-to-door talking to people. On the opposite side of this was an Alabama-born man named Dixie Walker, ah a popular Brooklyn Dodger player who started to a petition to not let Jackie play with them.
Speaker: Ricky stomped that far out quickly. The players that didn't want to play with Jackie were either traded or they left, except for Dixie Walker. On April 10, 1947, Jackie Robinson signed his first National League contract. It was a one-year contract for $5,000, which was the minimum amount for the league at the time.
Speaker: As the season opened, players in the clubhouses across the league were discussing a strike. The moment Jackie was to step foot on the field, Alabama's Dixie Walker was to have telegrammed the other clubhouses and they were to go on strike together.
Speaker: But a strike never materialized. Red Barber, which I bet everybody that grew up in that time knows who Red Barber was because he was the man that did the sports on the radio.
Speaker: So you in this documentary, you would see everybody huddled around the radio listening to every word this man said. Branch Rickey had gone to this man and got him on board with this.
Speaker: He knew who to go to, right? You go to the man on the radio. and I mean, you have to, you have as much as he wanted to keep it not political, like you have to play the game a little bit. You have to And on April fifteenth 1947, its opening day as the first day a black man played in Major League Baseball. 26,623 people turned out to see the Brooklyn Dodgers and number 42, Jackie Robinson.
Speaker: While Jackie didn't get a hit in that game, he did score a run and the Dodgers beat the Braves. And again, most people love Jackie Robinson.
Speaker: Some didn't. And when the Philadelphia Phillies came to play, came to Ebbets Field to play, I know these names now, Alabama's own Ben Chapman, the manager of that team, would wait until Jackie came up to bat and scream things like,
Speaker: Hey boy, come shine my shoes. And hey boy, why ain't you picking cotton? Fucking nerve. Ugh, disgusting. But of course this got into Jackie's head, and he's human, and for a split second, like, he seriously doubted this great experiment.
Speaker: But he didn't give up, because he kept that... Be twice as good. Be twice as good. And again, he took the weight of the world and he handled it with grace. People throwing stuff at his head, runners spiking his legs with their cleats.
Speaker: Jackie Robinson knew what he had to do. Literally, this is the theme of the story. He had to be twice as good. In the face of each provocation, Jackie controlled his temper. Could other things be integrated?
Speaker: He was the test case for this, and he knew that. And Jackie Robinson was also called the loneliest man in sports because at this time, he's literally the only black man in the major leagues. And he was sort of in a fishbowl.
Speaker: People looking at him from all directions. Judging every single hit, swing, run. every single thing that man was doing. And he didn't... He didn't...
Speaker: He didn't clap back. He didn't he didn't give them that satisfaction. you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, sometimes that's all it is, is people are looking to get a rise out of you. Yeah.
Speaker: Back at home with Rachel, this was his safe space and his refuge. Rachel said in the documentary that Jackie knew that the only the one and only way to fight back was to do well, to be excellent, to win games, and that is what Jackie did.
Speaker: Jackie was quick too. he knew how to steal a base. He knew how to take an extra base. Reporter Wendell Smith wrote, Jack was nimble. Jack was quick. Jack was making the turnstiles click.
Speaker: The stadiums were filling up, and the score of the game was almost incidental for people. They wanted to see Jackie Robinson himself. They wanted to see what he was doing. People related to him in different ways, and they saw their struggles in him.
Speaker: So now people are, like, getting to know him. And what he's going through, people are kind of in their own way relating to. and in this Ken Burns documentary, there was the story from Myron Olberg, who grew up in Brooklyn, as the hearing son of two deaf parents. Do you remember this? yep In the documentary, he shares a deeply moving story about how his father, who had previously so shown no interest in sports due to the societal marginalization and prejudice he faced as a deaf person, he became entirely captivated by Jackie Robinson. He remembered his dad watching every move that Jackie made, and in a sense, he related to Jackie in his own way.
Speaker: At Chicago's debut game against the Brooklyn Dodgers at where? Wrigley Field? Yeah. 46,572 fans were jammed into Wrigley Field while another fans stood at the end of the nineteen fortyev season the brooklyn dodgers finished first in the national leagues with a ninety four to sixty ninety four sixty record Greats like Willie Mays even said, because of Jackie, he had a chance to make it in the majors.
Speaker: Amazing. And if you asked me who came first before this, i don't know what have. was the chicken. Yeah. I could have never told you. This is what, you know, whatever.
Speaker: The joy that you're exuding right now. I'm having so much fun because you're smiling. You're feeding this energy back to me. it just makes me so happy. In July, the Cleveland Indians of the American League signed Larry Doby.
Speaker: Larry Doby was a 26-year-old outfielder from the New York Eagles. He had led the Negro League with a.458 batting average. That season, Larry Doby sat on the bench.
Speaker: He would only occasionally appear as a pinch hitter, but his presence signaled that black men were in the major leagues to stay. The doors were open.
Speaker: There's a story about when the Dodgers went to Cincinnati, which was the southernmost city on the circuit. It was home to Kentucky-born Pee-wee Reese, and Jackie was taking a beat down from the fans, and they were pissed. How dare he come and play here in Cincinnati? And in the middle of all the taunts and the screams, Pee-wee walked up to Jackie and put his arm around him, and all the screaming kind of quietened down.
Speaker: That, somehow Pee-wee Reese showed the crowd that Jackie was one of them. the They even put this statue up in Cincinnati of Reese's arm around Jackie. It's a huge statue. The thing is, though, this actually never really happened.
Speaker: There was zero proof of it happening. It was never mentioned by any of the white or the black press, and it was probably something to do with white people and their need to feel like they helped Jackie or a way to rewrite the history a little bit.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, we supported him. Totally, totally, totally. Jackie Robinson playing major league baseball was the birth of something different in America. He would draw more people to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn since it had opened the doors in 1913.
Speaker: Barack Obama said, Jackie Robinson laid the foundation for America to see its black citizens as subjects and not just objects. September 23rd, 1947 became Jackie Robinson Day at Ebbets Field.
Speaker: Bojangles Robinson... I think that's his last name now that I'm reading it. I'm like, don't know. Presented Jackie and Rachel with gifts, including a Cadillac. Jackie was on the cover of Time that week, and he was also named Rookie of the Year. He finished the first season with a.297 batting average and led the Dodgers to home runs, doubles. He led the Dodgers in home runs, doubles, runs scored, bunts for bases, hits, bunts for base hits, and total bases.
Speaker: He led the National League with steals, totaling 28.
Speaker: I just, i'm I'm floored at all of the terminology you're using right now. I'm so proud. Even Dixie Walker praised Jackie. Not that Jackie needed it.
Speaker: Have a seat, Dixie, over in your little corner. i thought of the movie Too Long Foo. Approval neither desired nor required. Thank you. Man, that movie keeps coming up.
Speaker: can make it come up anytime. It's always relevant in my mind, you know? So Jackie Robinson was now the most famous and recognized black man in America.
Speaker: It was getting harder for Jackie to sit back and not respond to the racism, though. He said, when I speak out, I'm uppity. But when a white man speaks out, he has spirit. In the 1949 season, Jackie was doing as good as ever, and more teams integrated.
Speaker: There was a man named Paul Robeson who was an outspoken critic of the American racism, colonialism, and the Jim Crow laws, and he openly praised the Soviet Union for its stated stance on racial equality.
Speaker: During an international peace conference in Paris, Robeson allegedly stated that black Americans could not support the U.S. in the war against the Soviet Union due to domestic oppression.
Speaker: And this is, to me, this was the dumbest thing. Like, Congress got Jackie Robinson to come sit for them and testify before Congress, right?
Speaker: And they asked, what well, how would he defend, like, what Robeson said? i mean, the man's to say what the man's going to say, like... why would Jackie Robinson have to defend him? You know what I mean? But that's what they made him do.
Speaker: And Jackie said, if Robeson made those comments, they're silly. In the white newspapers, this was seen as wonderful, patriotic. And in the black newspapers, it was kind of seen as he was being a traitor yeah by making these comments. And this was also widely viewed as a government strategy.
Speaker: i think this is done all the time to turn black people on other black people. What? I know. And it worked. I think it's a government strategy to turn everybody on everybody. That never happens.
Speaker: So Jackie kept playing very well, but the Brooklyn Dodgers lost the World Series to the New York Yankees in 1949, although that was Jackie's best year.
Speaker: In the 1951 season, there were threats of people shouting at him on the field to the point where FBI agents... No, sorry, there was threats that he was going to be shot while he was on the field to the point where the FBI was scattered throughout the stands watching people and they were even on the rooftop.
Speaker: Jackie played that game and he had a three-run home run leading the Brooklyn Dodgers to a win in that particular game. No shots were ever fired. In 1942, at the age of 33, Jackie started having pains in his legs, and he was diagnosed with diabetes and heart problems.
Speaker: He didn't talk about this to anyone. He kept playing the game. He kept leading the way with the batting average of.308 and 19 home runs that year. But the Dodgers get to the World Series against the New York Yankees, and they lost again.
Speaker: In the next season, Jackie was asked if the Yankees were prejudiced, to which he responded, yes, there isn't a single Negro on that team. This made the Yankees and many white people turn against him. but was so loud shery He was urged to be a player and not a crusader. Don't speak out. Don't speak out.
Speaker: For him, assertive meant angry, and he wasn't an angry person. He just wanted equality, right? Roy Campanella, who was another amazing player from the Negro Leagues, was often pitted against Jackie.
Speaker: there were actually They were very close at the beginning. And Campanella was somebody who felt like because black people were there, they should just be grateful for it.
Speaker: And Jackie felt like, no, I mean, we shouldn't be grateful. For existing in the same world these people. So they kind of split, right? Yeah.
Speaker: Jackie and Rachel were looking for a home in Connecticut. Nobody would sell them a home, even though he's the most recognized black man in the country. like no Realtors would even not meet with them.
Speaker: And they were taken in by this white family in Connecticut, a couple that helped them secure a plot of land. Like the Robinsons, the couple had young children, one of whom was a 10-year-old girl who would tag along with Jackie to the judgedger's Dodgers games and serve as the team's unofficial mascot.
Speaker: And like Jackie, she would go on to compile a lot of hits, but hers were in the musical arena. Stanford, Connecticut resident rate Richard Simon, the founder of publishing house Simon & Schuster, and his wife Andrea helped them secure a plot of land for a home.
Speaker: And the Simons had a daughter, and her name was Carly. And that's who, who, like what? That plot of land was at 103 Cascade Road in Stanford.
Speaker: Beautiful, beautiful. With the help of the Simons and a pair of local bankers, the Robinsons purchased the land from contractor Ben Gunner, who they hired to construct their dream home.
Speaker: The house, however, would not be ready in time for the 54 school year, so the Simons offered the Robinsons a place to stay so that Rachel could oversee the building project. Jack would spend so much time teaching the kids how to play baseball, so Carly Simon was taught how to play ball by Jackie bal thank you Robinson. Robinson.
Speaker: This welcoming... excuse me Loving reception from the Simons stood in stark contrast to the coolness the Robinsons received from the broader community. Jackie was denied membership at Connecticut Country Club. His children were often made to feel isolated at school.
Speaker: No matter how famous or important Jackie Robinson might have been, he and his loved ones were never not reminded of the color of their skin. That's what made the relationship with the Simons so special. And long after the Robinsons moved into their own home, long after the children grew up and went on their own careers and lives, and after Richard and Jackie passed away, the bond between Andrea and Rachel persisted.
Speaker: Meanwhile, the 1955 season is underway. It's like we went to 95. Whoa. Jackie's got an average of 256. and he set out about 50 of the games that year.
Speaker: think it was problems with the legs. Duke Snyder, Roy Campanella, and Don Nuscom helped the Dodgers win the 95 games that season and the National League pennant.
Speaker: They were to face the New York Yankees. This is like a theme also. like Is it only these two teams? Yeah, that's it. It's the only two teams in the league. They were to face the New York Yankees again in the World Series.
Speaker: The 1955 season marked career years for Campanella and Snyder, who had finished first and second respectively in MVP voting. Don Nuscombe made history as the first black pitcher to record a 20-win season.
Speaker: Nuscombe got the start for game one.
Speaker: Okay, so Nuskrim got the start for Game 1 of the World Series as the Dodgers squared off against their crosstown rival, the New York Yankees, for the sixth time in 15 seasons. The Yankees took the first two games, but the Dodgers capitalized on their home-field advantage, winning Games 3, 4, and 5 at Ebbets Field.
Speaker: A 5-1 Yankees victory in Game 6 pushed the series to its fine finale on October 4th at Yankee Stadium. To have been there. To have been there. Campanella and Reese were the only Dodgers to score in Game 7, both driven by Hodges in the 4th and 6th innings, respectively, but two runs was all that Brooklyn would need.
Speaker: Johnny Podras shut out the Yankees for all nine innings. And so, for the first time ever, the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series. and they went against the New York Yankees.
Speaker: This was the pinnacle of what Jackie Robinson wanted. This was what he had hoped for. In the 1956 season, Jackie had a very hard time. He struggled, and the managers actually they saw this as well.
Speaker: But it was in the moments that mattered that Jackie would still rise to the challenge. Jackie Robinson played his last ball game on October 10, 1956.
Speaker: After integrating baseball, Jackie became a full-fledged leader in the civil rights movement. He used his celebrity status to further human rights and endeavored to change the landscape of race relations in the United States.
Speaker: Upon retiring from the game in 1957, Robinson was hired to serve as the vice president for personnel at Chock Full of Nuts, the first African American to be named as a vice president of a major American company.
Speaker: He used this position to improve working conditions for employees. An active member of the NAACP, Robinson was often featured speaker at civil rights rallies, including the famed March on Washington in 1963. He also frequently participated in picket lines.
Speaker: As a nationally syndicated columnist for the New York Post and New York Amsterdam News, Robinson wrote passionately on social issues, sports, family life, always encouraging people to become active in politics and business.
Speaker: In the spring, the civil rights demonstrations were in full force to desegregate stores and lunch counters in Birmingham, Alabama. Jackie Robinson traveled there to show his support.
Speaker: That year, Robinson committed himself, quote, whenever and wherever in the South, the leaders believe I can help just the tiniest bit I intend to go. to raise bell money for gelled protesters, Jackie organized a fundraising concert with jazz greats on the lawn of his home in Stamford, Connecticut.
Speaker: On april August 28, 1963, the entire Robinson family joined the march on Washington, D.C., where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech.
Speaker: Remembering that day in his book later on, Robinson wrote, quote, I have never been so proud to be a Negro. I have never been so proud to be an American, end quote.
Speaker: Jackie Robinson passed away at his home on October 24, 1972, in Stanford, Connecticut, just nine days after his final public appearance at the Game 2 of the 1972 World Series, where he called for Major League Baseball to hire its first black manager.
Speaker: At the very end, he's still doing it, you know? Nine days. By the early 1970s, Robinson's health had been declining for years. Diabetes had taken a serious toll on his body, and heart disease had left him physically weakened.
Speaker: That October morning, he collapsed at home at the age of 53, and he could not be revived. In the documentary, his wife said that she saw him running down the hall, and he grabbed a hold of her, and he said, I love you, and that was it.
Speaker: Robinson died of a heart attack. But the picture is way more complicated than a single event. By the time that he died, he had been managing diabetes for years. The disease had severely damaged his eyesight, and Robinson was nearly blind in his final years.
Speaker: High blood pressure had added more stress on his heart, and vision problems and it made daily life more difficult in the final month. So the heart attack proved fatal. What rarely gets mentioned, and this is where I was like, yeah, I mean, this makes so much sense. What rarely gets mentioned is the physical and emotional weight Robinson carried throughout his playing career.
Speaker: He entered the major leagues under an agreement with Branch Rickey to absorb every single insult, every single threat, every single act of deliberate abuse without responding.
Speaker: That kind of sustained daily stress carried for decades takes a physical toll that never appears on a scoreboard. The years of suppressed rage and forced composure had a cost, and Robinson's body paid it paid that cost.
Speaker: In his 1972 memoir called I Never Had It Made, he said, quote, There I was, the black grandson of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper, part of a historic occasion, a symbolic hero to my people.
Speaker: Today, as I look back on that opening game of my first World Series, I must tell you that it was Mr. Rickey's drama and that I was only a principal actor. I know that I'm a black man in a white world.
Speaker: In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made. Jackie Robinson left quite the legacy, and at the end of an explosive nine years as a Dodger, his record included a batting average of over 300, 137 home runs batted in and stolen bases.
Speaker: In 55, he helped the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees to win the first world championship. Robinson took home rookie of the year, the most valuable player, became the first African-American inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Speaker: Jackie's achievements have been honored by three presidents. In 84, President Reagan posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Clinton had a ceremony with Major League Baseball to honor his number 42 in perpetuity.
Speaker: And in 2003, the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian award bestowed by Congress, was awarded posthumously to Jackie Robinson. President Bush and the leadership of the U.S. Congress presented an award to Rachel Robinson, his wife, during a ceremony held in the Capitol Rotunda on March 2, 2005.
Speaker: Rachel Robinson is still alive today, and she's 104 years old. She continues to champion education and equality as the founder of the Jackie Robinson Foundation. She is phenomenal.
Speaker: Phenomenal. I could do a whole story on her. ah From the yeah espn ESPN article that I will have linked in the show notes, It says this, jackie wasn't playing baseball for only jackie he was carrying the weight of twenty one million black folks when he walked across those lines and if he felled in a game that's predicated on failure then an entire race of people would have failed we were counting on him and he couldn't fail His daughter Sharon was once asked if she thought her dad knew exactly what he was signing up for, because it seems logical that no person would sign up for that.
Speaker: Sharon, his daughter, said she believed he believed it was his calling to do that. This was so much bigger than the game of baseball. Bob Kendrick, who is the president of the Negro League's baseball museum in Kansas City, Missouri, said, quote, the social advancement of America can be tied directly to Jackie's breaking of the baseball color barrier.
Speaker: Kendrick makes the case that it wasn't just part of the civil rights movement, but the beginning of the civil rights movement. He goes on to say, quote, this was before brown versus board of education this was before rosa parks refused to move to the back of the bus martin luther king was a sophomore at morehouse college when jackie signed his contract to play with the brooklyn dodgers This is what got the ball rolling on social progress in our country. Baseball. Our country rode the coattails of what happened in baseball because of the reverence for baseball.
Speaker: It was our national pastime. It essentially triggered integration in this country. He didn't just change the game. Jackie Robinson changed the country. In 1997, Major League Baseball honored Jackie by making his number 42 the first uniform number to be retired across the entire sport.
Speaker: Every year on April 15th, baseball honors Jackie. oh Baseball honors Jackie's leg legacy by celebrating... What just happened? Okay. I just had a thought.
Speaker: um Every year on April 15th, baseball honors Jackie's legacy by celebrating his life, values, and accomplishments. The league shows support of Jackie by dedicating April 15th as Jackie Robinson Day each year since 2004. Okay.
Speaker: and requesting that every player and every on-field personnel wear his number 42 during games scheduled on April 15th. And to end this, I will quote Mr. Jackie Robinson himself.
Speaker: He said, quote, If I had a room jammed with trophies, awards, and citations, and a child of mine came into that room and asked what I had done defense of black people and decent whites fighting for freedom, And if I had to tell that child that I had just kept quiet and that I had been timid, i would have had to mark myself a total failure in the business of living. living he was anything but, right? sure And that, Sam, is the story of the remarkable man who bore the weight of the world on his shoulders to break that color barrier in baseball, a total winner in the business of living, and a true American hero, Jackie Roosevelt Robinson.
Speaker: Well done, Jeffrey. I'm so proud of you. It was beautiful. Did you like it? Oh, what an amazing human. What an amazing human.
Speaker: And Rachel, that can't be like, that equally as amazing, right? Equally as amazing. I had, like when I was learning about him, honestly, I'm glad I waited to now to learn about him, to appreciate it more than I would have a long time ago, right? When you were grabbing the bumper of the car. Girl, I grabbed a hold of that bumper.
Speaker: it's But like he was very at the end of his life. He felt very like um in the book, he felt very used up by America. Yeah.
Speaker: And by Branch Rickey. And he was very used up. So it was kind of sad. Like I went through all the emotions with this. At first I was ah amazed at this man, right? And then you realize that he is he just a man. He a price. yeah He paid that price at the age of 52 or 53 when he died.
Speaker: But, you know, his daughter Sharon said he believed it was his calling. So, you know, what a man. Whatever. And his wife, they were such a beautiful couple. Truly. Oh my God. in the forties, they were so beautiful.
Speaker: And she is like, I can't stress this enough. Like masters in nursing. she has been the head of the Jackie Robinson foundation. it's it's, we're like. His name might be on it, but her legacy stands as well. Yeah.
Speaker: And we're 54 years since he passed away. Isn't that something? 54 years that she's been without him. ah yeah
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, I have said i mightve said Willie Mays came first. Who knows? But that was because Quinn hit the home run. Quinn, it's all because of you. Quinn, for like a week, I have been going down a rabbit hole because you hit that home run, buddy. And I feel like you've been talking about it for longer. Like when you when that video got sent, you were like, have I mean, and it's it's crazy things like that that will make me spin and be like, uh, spiral ah spiral or spin. I don't know. It's like shimmy. I start Googling.
Speaker: Yeah. Like when he hits the home run, I was like, who are some famous people who play baseball? Did you actually Google that? I probably, i love that for you. Yeah. And of course, Jackie was the number one that came up.
Speaker: And when I told dad, always like ask, who are you doing a story on? I said, it's like some historical person from baseball. He was like, Jackie Robinson. I was like, how did you know? And then I start finding out that, oh, everybody knows about this man. And I'm like, Kim, why did nobody tell me about him? She's like, cause you were latching onto the bumper of the car. And screaming. Yeah. And you can hear about it from them both. can't wait. We will happily tell you story.
Speaker: God. Oh, my God, Sam. Well done, Jeff. That was Thank you. I'm glad you liked it. I do. Listen, and it just brings me so much joy to see sports has always been key part of my existence for many reasons.
Speaker: But it brings me joy to watch you, like, learn about these people and share in excitement the things that you have heard, read, seen.
Speaker: Because there's so much good that comes from sports. Worldwide, nationwide. it's It is something that unites people and and creates bonds that you wouldn't otherwise have. you know I think about the friends that I've made purely From a foundation of, well, hey, we both like that.
Speaker: Oh, that works. Or, hey, we both played that. Like, it's a thing. It's a thing that is common ground for a lot of people who would otherwise not be connected. And, you know, for me, it was like ah kind of the part of the turning 50 thing and experiencing all this new stuff, you know, and learning. Listen, you've had a year, man. I'm like, hey, let's just go with it and roll with it, you know. Yay, sports. Yeah, there's a ah lot that I want to say that we cannot say on this microphone because people listen to this. They do. But I have plans, and I will tell you once we're off. Okay, well, let's get off so you can tell me because I'm gonna forget about it.
Speaker: All right. That's it? Is that it? Yeah. That's it for the day? Yeah. That's it for the day, people. Remember, we're only here for a good time. Not long time.
Speaker: Bye.
