Purchase
The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season
Simon and Schuster
March 2007
On Sale: March 20, 2007
336 pages
ISBN: 0743294602
EAN: 9780743294607
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction Biography
April 15, 1947,
marked the most important opening day in baseball history.
When Jackie
Robinson stepped onto the diamond that afternoon at Ebbets
Field, he
became the first black man to break into major-league
baseball in the
twentieth century. World War II had just ended. Democracy had
triumphed. Now Americans were beginning to press for justice
on the
home front -- and Robinson had a chance to lead the
way. He
was an unlikely hero. He had little experience in organized
baseball.
His swing was far from graceful. And he was assigned to play
first
base, a position he had never tried before that season. But
the biggest
concern was his temper. Robinson was an angry man who played an
aggressive style of ball. In order to succeed he would have
to control
himself in the face of what promised to be a brutal assault by
opponents of integration. In Opening
Day, Jonathan
Eig tells the true story behind the national pastime's most
sacred
myth. Along the way he offers new insights into events of
sixty years
ago and punctures some familiar legends. Was it true that
the St. Louis
Cardinals plotted to boycott their first home game against
the Brooklyn
Dodgers? Was Pee Wee Reese really Robinson's closest ally on
the team?
Was Dixie Walker his greatest foe? How did Robinson handle the
extraordinary stress of being the only black man in baseball
and still
manage to perform so well on the field? Opening Day
is also the
story of a team of underdogs that came together against
tremendous odds
to capture the pennant. Facing the powerful New York
Yankees, Robinson
and the Dodgers battled to the seventh game in one of the most
thrilling World Series competitions of all time.
Drawing
on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters, and
eyewitnesses,
as well as newly discovered material from archives around
the country,
Jonathan Eig presents a fresh portrait of a ferocious
competitor who
embodied integration's promise and helped launch the modern
civil-rights era. Full of new details and thrilling action,
Opening Day brings to life baseball's ultimate story.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy