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Writer puts famous
rookie in his place

YESTERDAY was Opening Day for much of Major League Baseball. So it seems fitting that today we tell the story of what was perhaps the most important Opening Day in the game's history. The day Jackie Robinson batted second and played first base for Brooklyn. And the Dodgers beat the Braves 5-3.

To tell this story we turn again to former Star-Bulletin columnist Jim Becker, because he has told this story many times. We turn to him because he's good at telling it, he knows it by heart. And one other reason.

Becker has a calendar filled with paintings of great moments in baseball history. There is a picture of Robinson's first at-bat, in 1947 at Ebbets Field. Becker points to a fuzzy figure in the background, high up in the press box.

"That's me," he said. "The one with the mustache."

He was 21. Becker got the assignment because he'd known Robinson, a little. Met him a few times during Robinson's time in the minor leagues. They were both L.A. stories.

"He used to kid me a lot because he grew up in a plush part of Southern California, he grew up in Pasadena. So he was the only black guy in the neighborhood. And he used to kid me because I grew up in the ghetto of South Central L.A., where I was the only white kid around," Becker said. "And he went on to college and I barely got out of high school."

But then, the war. Hitler's racism had opened a few eyes, Becker said. And so, the New York press, many of whom had been Over There, decided to treat Robinson's breaking of the color barrier as no big deal. Because a black man playing baseball shouldn't have been a big deal. Not at all.

But of course, it was.

Robinson was MVP of the International League, but when Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey said he was bringing Robinson up to the majors, the National League voted against the idea 15-1. Rickey hoped that at least his own players would want to add a player of Robinson's caliber -- but the team turned in an anti-desegregation petition instead.

This was where the manager, Leo Durocher, came in.

Durocher called the Dodgers into his hotel room, in spring training. He addressed the team.

"He was the most foul-mouthed man I ever met, which is saying something," Becker said.

"And Durocher said, and I will now leave out all the four-letter words. Just put one in every other word. Leo Durocher said, 'I would play an elephant if he would help me to win. And this guy ain't no elephant. This guy is a better ballplayer than any man in this room. And furthermore, you better get used to it because there's a lot more where he came from and they're better than you, too. Now get out of my room.' "

That was that. You didn't mess with Durocher. Robinson would break the color line.

"I was also there, I might add, the day Leo Durocher said 'Nice guys finish last.' " Becker said. "And I guess they often do. Leo held that opinion right up until the time he finished last with the Chicago Cubs and then he decided he'd never said it at all. But he did, and I heard it."

THERE WAS NO feeding frenzy. The writers decided to make as little noise as possible, to treat Robinson's arrival as just another day at the park. Because that's the way it should have been.

Becker made sure to interview several other players before sidling up to Robinson, treating him like just another ballplayer. Did he go 0-fer because it was his first game? Becker still remembers Robinson's response.

"No," Jackie said. "I went hitless because Johnny Sain was pitching."

The first series wasn't so bad. The Dodgers had played the Boston Braves, "who were decent human beings," Becker said. But then came the insults and abuse, all the stuff you've heard of. Every bit as bad as you'd imagined. Robinson every bit as tough as everyone says.

Becker remembers that famous day that team captain Pee Wee Reese went over to Robinson and put his arm on a teammate's shoulders, the two of them standing on the infield together in the face of the storm.

"It seems like a simple gesture," Becker said, pausing, soaking in the memory.

"It sent absolute chills up the spine of all of us who saw it."

Together, they were changing the world.

Halfway through that season, Robinson told Becker, "You know, I can hardly wait to have an umpire throw me out of a game." He couldn't wait to be just another ballplayer.

Today, thanks to him, everyone is just a ballplayer. Becker called Robinson's breaking of that line "one of the proudest days in our American history."

"Did I know it was important?" Becker said. "You bet I knew it was important. Did I know it was perhaps the most important day in American sports history? You bet I did."

And in his story, Jackie Robinson made the ninth paragraph.

That's the way it should be when a promising rookie goes 0-for-3.