Jackie Robinson's legacy comes home to Muir High School

Jackie Robinson's legacy comes home to Muir High School

PASADENA - On the 65th anniversary of Pasadena's Jackie Robinson breaking through Major League baseball's color barrier, three generations of Dodgers gathered with Muir High School students on Friday to honor the Hall of Famer and Muir alumnus.

The Dodgers came to Muir for a panel discussion ahead of Sunday's Jackie Robinson Day, baseball's annual celebration of Robinson's landmark feat with the then-Brooklyn Dodgers.

In his honor, all major league players will wear Robinson's No. 42 on Sunday, and Muir students were invited to Dodger Stadium to see it there.

Star shortstop Dee Gordon and outfielder Tony Gwynn Jr. headlined the Muir panel as the current generation of Dodgers.

"I'm a big Dodger fan. Dee Gordon is one of my favorite shortstops, and it was really nice to get to talk to him and hear what he had to say about it," said Nico Resendiz, a Muir shortstop. "It was also great to hear all these other Dodger players."

Former Dodger Derrell Thomas moderated the panel and, along with Ken Landreaux, represented Los Angeles natives who won the 1981 World Series.

From the 1960s era, Tommy Davis and "Sweet" Lou Johnson represented those who knew Robinson and played a few years after him.

"He wasn't just a ballplayer, he wanted to start things right," said Davis, referring to Robinson's influence on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement.

This year marks the first time the Dodgers organization has returned to the place where Robinson honed his skills as a youth, Muir Principal Sheryl Orange said.

"I'm hoping it won't be the last," she said. "Our young men particularly need to see their heroes, their forefathers, their ancestors, the people who paved the way."

Muir baseball team members were among the students who attended the discussion in the school library, with the backdrop of Robinson's jersey, posters and yearbooks.

Most were simply happy for a chance to talk with Dodgers past and present.

"I enjoyed it because I got to hear how baseball really is, all the aspects of it," Muir second baseman Jonas Pulley said.

Robinson's legacy is part of everyday life at Muir, and baseball coach Robert Galvan said he makes sure his players know it.

"I constantly remind them every day they should have honor, a little bit of humility ... why they shouldn't take baseball for granted, why they have what they have today," Galvan said.

Throughout the discussion, the panelists stressed the importance of education as a complement to athletics.

"Dude was unbelievably intelligent," Gwynn said of Robinson. "I think he took care of things in the classroom first, and that presented him with the opportunity to do other things in sports."

The greatest part of Robinson's legacy, Johnson said, is that race can no longer be used as an excuse for not succeeding.

To Orange, that's an important message for today's students.

"I like the fact that it's no longer about the color barrier," she said. "It's about what you make of yourself and how you do that."

NEW YORK TIMES

Catcher’s Tears Were a Likely Inspiration for Rickey

By CHRIS LAMB

Published: April 14, 2012

He recalled that during a trip to South Bend, Ind., to play Notre Dame, the team’s only black ballplayer, Charles Thomas, was denied a room. Rickey asked whether Thomas could sleep on a cot in his room, and the hotel clerk obliged.

Later that evening, Rickey said, he saw Thomas sobbing and rubbing his hands, saying: “Black skin. Black skin. If only I could make them white.”

Rickey tried to console Thomas by telling him that racial equality would come.

“Come on, Tommy, snap out of it, buck up!” he said. “We’ll lick this one day, but we can’t if you feel sorry for yourself.”

Rickey said the scene haunted him.

“I vowed that I would always do whatever I could to see that other Americans did not have to face the bitter humiliation that was heaped upon Charles Thomas,” he told The A.P.

Rickey often repeated the story after signing Robinson, including when Robinson played his first game with the Dodgers on April 15, 1947. Rickey, however, rarely spoke about the scene in the hotel room in the years before signing Robinson.

“The Charlie Thomas story, though based in fact, is vintage Rickey,” said Jules Tygiel, the author of the 1983 book “Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy.” “The allegory is almost biblical, and the sermonlike quality of the tale invites skepticism. Many people place little stock in the episode as the primary rationale for his actions. Even if one accepts the Charlie Thomas story at face value, it does not fully explain why the Dodger president chose to challenge the color barrier four decades later.”

Although Rickey may have embellished the details for dramatic effect, “there is no doubt that the incident occurred,” Rickey’s biographer Lee Lowenfish said. Thomas, too, confirmed it.

The two remained friends until Rickey’s death in 1965.

Thomas was born in Weston, W.Va., in 1881, the same year that Rickey was born in Stockdale, Ohio. When Thomas was 3, his family moved across the Ohio River to Zanesville, Ohio. He lettered in football, track and baseball in high school, then attended Ohio Wesleyan, about 20 miles north of Columbus.

Thomas and Rickey were football teammates. Rickey, also a catcher on the baseball team, was declared ineligible for playing semiprofessionally. He became the university’s football and baseball coach, recruiting Thomas, a football fullback, to be the catcher.

Thomas said he faced little outward prejudice from classmates and teammates.

“From the very first day I entered Ohio Wesleyan, Branch Rickey took special interest in my welfare,” Thomas told Ebony magazine in 1968.

But Thomas regularly faced racial discrimination from opposing teams and fans. During a 1903 baseball game at Kentucky, some players and fans chanted to get him off the field, using a racial slur. Lowenfish wrote that Rickey ran across the field to the Kentucky dugout and shouted at the opposing coach, “We won’t play without him!” The game was played without incident.

In segregated hotels, Rickey always made sure Thomas had accommodations, often on a cot in Rickey’s room, Thomas said.

“So long as this relationship of master and servant was obvious,” Rickey told the journalist Carl Rowan more than 50 years later, “then it was perfectly all right with whites who otherwise would object to a Negro’s staying in the hotel.”

The incident in South Bend probably occurred in May 1903, although it was not mentioned in newspapers. The Daily Journal-Herald of Delaware, Ohio, reported on May 13, 1903, that Notre Dame beat Ohio Wesleyan in South Bend, 11-0. Thomas found a measure of revenge three weeks later when he hit a home run in a home victory over Notre Dame.

“The feature of the game was witnessed in the first inning when Thomas stepped up to the slap and slammed the spheroid against the backyard fence for a home run,” The Daily Journal-Herald reported June 5.

Thomas was remembered for his skills on offense and defense and for his grace under pressure. In a letter to the student newspaper on May 27, 1905, one alumnus who had attended a game against Ohio University wrote that “the only unpleasant feature of the game was the coarse slurs cast at Mr. Thomas, the catcher.” The letter continued, “But through it all, he showed himself far more the gentleman than his insolent tormentors though their skin is white.”

Thomas left college in 1906 to attend dental school in Columbus. He graduated in 1908 and opened his first practice in St. Louis. He later moved to Albuquerque, where he lived for 40 years before retiring in California.

Rickey, who left Ohio Wesleyan before the 1905 season, played briefly in the major leagues before he, too, moved to St. Louis, where he became an executive with the Browns, and then the Cardinals, for whom he was the general manager until 1942. Rickey was probably aware that any attempts to sign blacks in Missouri, a former slave state, would be met with hostility. The Cardinals played their home games at Sportsman’s Park, the last major league ballpark to remain segregated.

Once Rickey became president of the Dodgers in 1942, he was in a position to effect change. Rickey signed Robinson, who played his first game in the major leagues a year and a half later.

When Thomas died in 1971 at 90, his obituary in The Albuquerque Tribune quoted a friend, Herman Schulman.

“He and Mr. Rickey were such good friends,” Schulman said, adding. “Every time that Rickey would come to Albuquerque, he would always get hold of Dr. Thomas and they would have dinner.”

Hall of Famer Joins in the Festivities

By Ken Sickenger / Journal Staff Writer on Apr. 14, 2012

‘Topes surprise Lasorda with 1972 championship ring

Some rings are worth the wait.

Tommy Lasorda certainly felt that way Friday night when the Albuquerque Isotopes brass surprised him with a championship memento 40 years in the making.

Lasorda, the baseball Hall of Famer and longtime manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, was in the Duke City for opening-day festivities at Isotopes Park. He expected to shake some hands, maybe toss a ceremonial first pitch.

What he didn’t expect was for ‘Topes president Ken Young to hand him a championship ring for the 1972 Pacific Coast League title won by the powerhouse Albuquerque Dukes team that Lasorda managed.

“It’s a big surprise,” Lasorda said, “but I’m thankful from the bottom of my heart. It’s beautiful.”

Lasorda, 85, didn’t exactly regale the media with tales of that powerhouse ’72 Dukes squad. In fact, he admitted many of memories have run together over the decades.

Still, he recalled how different Albuquerque was back in his PCL managing days.

“I used to jokingly say you could drop a bomb in downtown Albuquerque and not do $40 worth of damage,” he said. “Not anymore. It’s a great city. Beautiful ballpark. I love coming here. In my opinion, it’s the best ballpark in the minor leagues.”

Lasorda has been in higher spirits since the recent Dodgers sale to a group including former NBA star Magic Johnson. He found it difficult to stomach the financial issues that had turned his beloved franchise into something of a soap opera.

“Who’d have ever thought the Dodgers could end up in bankruptcy?” Lasorda said. “It was a shock to me — a shock.”

But Lasorda said he has confidence in the new ownership group.

“People love Magic,” Lasorda said. “He’s got lots of support. The fans are happy to see him involved with the Dodgers and so am I.”

Lasorda will spend this morning in Albuquerque before returning to Los Angeles to spend part of his 62nd anniversary with wife, Jo. Asked if the couple had specific plans, Lasorda offered a quick retort.

“Yeah, a ballgame,” he said. “Our anniversary is April 14, so for a long time we never got to celebrate. Now, when you get to your 62nd, you’re tired of celebrating.”

PASADENA SUN

Tommy Lasorda leaves them laughing in Pasadena

Tommy Lasorda, the revered former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, encouraged a crowd of 100 at the Pasadena Rotary Club on Wednesday to continue their good work on local and international charitable causes and showered them with anecdotes and comments from his decades in Dodger blue.

Lasorda touched on Pasadena’s own Jackie Robinson,  the first African-American to play major league baseball and a teammate during Lasorda’s stint with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Lasorda said Robinson’s achievements transcended all the social issues his arrival raised because he was a player who “always wanted to beat you.”

“Robinson was the greatest competitor I’ve ever played with,” Lasorda said. “He wanted to beat you real bad. He didn’t only did it for baseball, for also for his country. He did it not only for his color, but as an American citizen.”

Lasorda’s speech came the day after the Dodgers celebrated 50 years in Dodger Stadium and shortly after the team announced that reviled owner Frank McCourt has sold the franchise to Magic Johnson and others for more than $2 billion.

Lasorda said he’s met leaders of the new ownership group and they seem to be “good people.”

“They are going to give our fans what they really need: a championship team,” he said.

He compared some his achievements with the work of Rotary International and other service organizations, saying his proudest moment was when the U.S. team he led topped Cuba and won a gold medal  for at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

The Pasadena Rotary Club also has international ties, funding an orphanage in Kenya and the construction of two houses a year for impoverished families in Tecate, Mexico.

Lasorda’s laugh lines often come at the expense of former players. He recalled a visit to a race track with former Dodgers’ second baseman Steve Sax. Neither knew much about racing, Lasorda said, and Lasorda encouraged Sax to eavesdrop on a group of men who had been winning and follow their every word.

“I told Saxy to follow them, and listen very carefully what they talked about,” Lasorda said. “Well, when he came back he had three roast beef sandwiches, and told me about a guy who needed to sell a car with 90,000 miles and didn’t know how to do it.”

Sax had bought the car, Lasorda said.

Rotary Club past president David Mans noted that in the past the club has brought in other famous sports figures, including former Dodger Jay Johnstone.

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