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Article: Jackie Robinson remembered.(historic black baseball player)(excerpt from 'Negro Firsts in Sports')
- Article from:
- Ebony
- Article date:
- February 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Johnson Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The bringing of Jackie Robinson into baseball was at once the most controversial sports development of the century, the best-planned sports maneuver in history, and as courageous as matching of athletic ability and executive acumen as sports has ever known.
The Jackie Robinson story started, in a manner of speaking, in 1942 when Branch Rickey, a baseball executive with an eye for history and drama, moved to Brooklyn as president and general manager of the Dodgers.
At the time, George C. McLaughlin was president of the Brooklyn Trust Company, which controlled Dodgers policy by right of its trusteeship of 50 percent of Dodgers stock. Rickey told ...