By Mark Newman / MLB.com
Jackie Robinson started 151 games at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, including his historic debut on April 15 of that season.
In his 1972 autobiography, “I Never Had It Made”, he recalled what it had felt like to stand alone at that position, the first and only black player in Major League Baseball at the time.
“I had to fight hard against loneliness, abuse, and the knowledge that any mistake I made would be magnified because I was the only black man out there,” Robinson wrote. “I had to fight hard to become ‘just another guy.’ I had to deny my true fighting spirit so that the ‘noble experiment’ could succeed. … But I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.”
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Jackie was a 1991 Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame Inductee. Read his bio HERE.
