04-26-2016, 02:18 AM
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/spo..._awry.html
The media climate at the time: http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/fandom/...nson-in-47
The documentary correctly observes that the embrace likely did not happen in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, or anywhere else during Robinson’s first season in 1947. But it goes too far in implying that it did not happen at all. “Today it’s remembered in statues, in children’s books, but I don’t think it happened,” Jonathan Eig, author of the terrific book Opening Day about that first season, said in the documentary. “The myth serves a really nice purpose. Unfortunately, it is a myth.” Eig tempers his remarks in his blog, insisting that “there’s very little reason to believe it happened in 1947, when it would have mattered most.”
An interview with Robinson in the July 1952 issue of Focus magazine, which was edited by noted baseball writer Arnold Hano, reveals the first specific reference to the incident. In response to a question about “turning points in your experience as a Dodger,” Robinson replied: “We were in Boston in ’48, and the Braves were ‘giving it’ to Reese for playing shortstop alongside me. Peewee came over from shortstop, put his arm around my shoulders, as if he had something to say. Actually, he just wanted to show where he stood. The jeers subsided … ”
Baseball historian John Thorn seemed more open than Eig to the possibility that it happened, just not in 1947. “We don’t know that this ever happened,” Thorn said in the documentary. “We don’t know when it happened. It is likely that if it happened, it didn’t happen in 1947, because Reese would have had to traipse across the diamond to first base to throw his arm around Jackie.” During his rookie season, Robinson played exclusively at first. The documentary concluded that “there was no mention of the gesture that year in either the white or black press.” In an interview with ESPN, Burns was more forceful, stating it “never happened.” “There is no image or write-up anywhere,” he said.
Robinson repeated the same story in a Feb. 8, 1955, issue of Look magazine, as well as in Carl Rowan’s 1960 biography of Robinson, Wait Till Next Year, and Robinson’s autobiography, I Never Had It Made. Robinson told Look: “Pee Wee was great to me in 1948 when Eddie Stanky went to the Boston Braves and I moved to second base. He took a lot of bitter abuse around the circuit because of it. Pee Wee comes from Louisville and the bench jockeys kept asking him how it felt to be playing beside a Negro. The first day we played in Boston that spring the Braves tried to give us a real bad time. But Pee Wee shut them up. He walked over to me and put his arm around me and talked with me in a friendly manner, smiling and laughing. There was no more trouble after that from the Braves. He did the same thing later in other parks.”
The media climate at the time: http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/fandom/...nson-in-47
The documentary correctly observes that the embrace likely did not happen in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, or anywhere else during Robinson’s first season in 1947. But it goes too far in implying that it did not happen at all. “Today it’s remembered in statues, in children’s books, but I don’t think it happened,” Jonathan Eig, author of the terrific book Opening Day about that first season, said in the documentary. “The myth serves a really nice purpose. Unfortunately, it is a myth.” Eig tempers his remarks in his blog, insisting that “there’s very little reason to believe it happened in 1947, when it would have mattered most.”
An interview with Robinson in the July 1952 issue of Focus magazine, which was edited by noted baseball writer Arnold Hano, reveals the first specific reference to the incident. In response to a question about “turning points in your experience as a Dodger,” Robinson replied: “We were in Boston in ’48, and the Braves were ‘giving it’ to Reese for playing shortstop alongside me. Peewee came over from shortstop, put his arm around my shoulders, as if he had something to say. Actually, he just wanted to show where he stood. The jeers subsided … ”
Baseball historian John Thorn seemed more open than Eig to the possibility that it happened, just not in 1947. “We don’t know that this ever happened,” Thorn said in the documentary. “We don’t know when it happened. It is likely that if it happened, it didn’t happen in 1947, because Reese would have had to traipse across the diamond to first base to throw his arm around Jackie.” During his rookie season, Robinson played exclusively at first. The documentary concluded that “there was no mention of the gesture that year in either the white or black press.” In an interview with ESPN, Burns was more forceful, stating it “never happened.” “There is no image or write-up anywhere,” he said.
Robinson repeated the same story in a Feb. 8, 1955, issue of Look magazine, as well as in Carl Rowan’s 1960 biography of Robinson, Wait Till Next Year, and Robinson’s autobiography, I Never Had It Made. Robinson told Look: “Pee Wee was great to me in 1948 when Eddie Stanky went to the Boston Braves and I moved to second base. He took a lot of bitter abuse around the circuit because of it. Pee Wee comes from Louisville and the bench jockeys kept asking him how it felt to be playing beside a Negro. The first day we played in Boston that spring the Braves tried to give us a real bad time. But Pee Wee shut them up. He walked over to me and put his arm around me and talked with me in a friendly manner, smiling and laughing. There was no more trouble after that from the Braves. He did the same thing later in other parks.”