Sixty-nine years ago on April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson appeared in his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers and officially broke the color barrier in baseball. That game was against the Philadelphia Phillies, who ridiculed and criticized Robinson and the Dodgers for their actions. 69 years later, the City of Philadelphia is prepared to apologize.
Jackie Robinson Day celebrations were introduced in their current form back in 2004 by the Dodgers. A couple years later, every team in Major League baseball began to wear Robinson’s famous jersey number 42 on April 15. Now, the City of Philadelphia has drafted a resolution to officially apologize for what it did 69 years ago.
From the New York Times:
“Obviously, everyone learns about Jackie Robinson when they’re a schoolkid,” said Helen Gym, the council member who introduced the resolution to apologize to Robinson, which passed unanimously.
While the resolution refers specifically to the racism Robinson faced when he visited Philadelphia with the Dodgers, it’s widely accepted that the Phillies as a team were the worst to him when visiting Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, the Dodgers’ home ballpark at the time.
The incident involved then manager Ben Chapman, who berated Robinson for the color of his skin while he was batting. The situation was played out by Alan Tudyk in the 2013 movie, 42.
Robinson later told people that, at that moment, it was the closest he came to cracking and not holding back. The City Council resolution states that Robinson was told to “go back to the cotton fields.” Various reports also say Chapman and several players made comments about Robinson’s physical stature as well.
“For one wild and rage-crazed minute, I thought, ‘To hell with Mr. Rickey’s noble experiment,’ ” Robinson once said, referring to Branch Rickey, the Dodgers executive who signed Robinson as the player he felt capable of integrating the game.
Later on, years after that season ended, Chapman insisted that his remarks weren’t truly based in racism and instead that he was trying to gain an advantage. He told writer Allen Berra that he did the same to Joe DiMaggio for being Italian and Hank Greenberg for being Jewish.
Also portrayed in the movie 42 is what happened when Robinson first went to Philadelphia after his encounter with Chapman. The Phillies’ manager asked to have his picture taken with Robinson to show the two men had made peace. But Robinson had been denied his stay at the team hotel recently and didn’t truly want to take the picture, although he later agreed to.
After all the bigotry he faced, Robinson never received a formal apology from the City of Philadelphia for how its team and fans treated him. Finally, 69 years later, as baseball prepares to celebrate his achievements once again, Philadelphia is prepared to say it is sorry.
