Jackie Robinson, as most people know, was the man Branch Rickey turned to to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball. If you’ve ever seen the movie 42, you got some small idea of what he went through. Many of his opponents disgraced themselves by saying the most vile things to him and in his first season, in 1947, Rickey told him that he could in no way retaliate, no matter how bad it got.
A brilliant athlete who competed in baseball, basketball, football and track while at UCLA, Robinson
was fiery by nature and it was not easy for him to endure what he endured. Who could have? It took an exceptional man to go through what he went through in 1947.
Years later, near the end of his all-too-short life, we think in 1971 but possibly 1972, Robinson went on the Dick Cavett Show and was asked who treated him most barbarically during that fateful season, and he named names, including Philadelphia’s Ben Chapman.
Robinson is probably 52 in this video. Less than a year later, he would die of a heart attack at the age of 53. You have to wonder if the insane amount of stress he was under early in his MLB career contributed to his early demise.
He met his wife, Rachel, while at UCLA and they were married in 1946 and remained so until his death, which was only 26 years.
Amazingly enough, she is now 103 years old, which means she has survived her husband by 53 years, or exactly the age that he was when he died.
More than anyone, Rachel Robinson has worked to keep her husband’s legacy alive and relevant. She was named the recipient of the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, which we think means that the Robinsons are the only couple in the MLB Hall of Fame.
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