Jackie Robinson is one of the most revered people to ever walk the earth. MLB has retired its league number.
He was exceptional in four sports as an amateur. In his 10 seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson had an OPS over .900 out of six and won the National League MVP in 1949. Robinson also took his role as a civil rights pioneer very seriously. .
Despite everything Robinson accomplished, some of his peers didn’t think he should have been the chosen player from the Negro leagues to rejoin MLB. One of those players was the man who did that in the American League, Larry Doby.
“One of the things that disappointed and discouraged a lot of black players at the time was that Jack wasn’t the best player. The best was Josh Gibson. I think that’s one of the reasons why Josh is died so soon – he was heartbroken,” Doby said in his biography.
In 1943, Gibson fell into a coma and it was discovered that he had a brain tumor. He died of a stroke on January 20, 1947, three months before Robinson took the field for the Dodgers.
The stories told of Gibson’s power hits are legendary. According to Tsports newsGibson once hit a 580 foot home run at Yankee Stadium. Eat your heart Aaron Judge.
Do a Google search for Josh Gibson and you might have enough reading material to fill an entire evening. One of baseball’s greatest hitters who, like many black players in the early 1900s, couldn’t show his skills on the game’s biggest stage.
Robinson did not play for a long time in the black leagues. His career with the Kansas City Monarchs began and ended in 1945. He was younger than many other Negro League stars, but he was still named an All-Star that season.
There is no denying that Robinson was one of the greatest baseball players this country has ever produced. He belonged to the MLB and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, whether he was first in the black leagues or 10th. Robinson was first a pillar of talent and dignity, but he was also not the best black baseball player in 1945.
– Stephen Knox