New, Jackie Robinson documentary Apr 11-12th

[irv]

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/04/07...-canadian-team

I’ve always been proud that Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in professional baseball with a Canadian team.

“As you should be,” acclaimed American documentary filmmaker Ken Burns told me. “I think it’s a huge thing.”

But, of course, being Canadian, I have that odd combination of fierce patriotism and an uneasiness with too much praise.

Yes, Jackie Robinson spent the 1946 season with the minor-league Montreal Royals before being promoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. And yes, Jackie and his wife Rachel were treated far better in Montreal than they were in many of the American cities the Royals visited that season.

In Burns’ new two-part documentary film titled Jackie Robinson — which airs Mon., April 11 and Tues., April 12, on most PBS channels — Rachel Robinson recalls what a relief it was to find lodging so quickly and easily in Montreal in 1946. Jackie’s and Rachel’s horrible experiences travelling through the Southern U.S., merely to get to spring training in Florida that year, still were fresh in their minds.

But it’s not as if prejudice doesn’t exist in Canada, too, you know? What if Rachel had a British accent and was in a less accommodating area of French Montreal in the ’40s?

“That could have been problematic, you bet,” Burns acknowledged.

“But you don’t have our original sin. You have all the sins that the human flesh is heir to, except the American sin.

“You didn’t have cotton fields and you didn’t have tobacco fields. And so, you didn’t import black Africans in any number against their will.

“We did. And we’ve been burdened with that.”

Before Jackie Robinson, there hadn’t been any black players in Major League Baseball since the 1880s. There technically wasn’t a rule against blacks, but racial politics provided a powerful deterrent.

Brooklyn Dodgers president and general manager Branch Rickey was determined to change that, for both humanitarian and competitive reasons. But Rickey also knew that the Dodgers’ Canadian farm team would provide the best path for a black player, considering everything he was about to face.

“Montreal was sort of like an air lock, an air chamber, that allowed Jackie to show what he could do,” Burns said. “Because you saw the stress of that first year on him, particularly when they were in places where it was really bad.

“And also if you just think about it on a personal level, the Rachel story. Here’s a person who has grown up in relatively integrated L.A., but not unaware of what her status is as an African-American woman. And understanding all the problems they’ve gone through in Florida (at spring training), they arrive in a city (Montreal) that’s a North American, white city, that is welcoming her with open arms.

“The woman at the door says, ‘Please come in, I want to rent this to you, I want you to use the linens and the china.’ I think it just helped. I think Montreal was a conscious part of Branch Rickey’s plan.”

Of course, Burns’ film — which he made with his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon — doesn’t focus merely on the Montreal angle. Robinson went on to have a stellar baseball career with the Dodgers, retiring after the 1956 season. In subsequent years there were ups and downs with his involvement in the civil rights movement. As black politics became more radicalized in the 1960s, Jackie was considered by some to be out of touch.

“Of course, he’s not,” Burns said. “So he stays with it, not without his mistakes. Like when he said ‘Cassius’ in an interview, and not Muhammad Ali. That’s a very subtle thing. But it was a dig. Jackie was a traditional African American who wasn’t accepting the conversion to Islam that Muhammad Ali had made.”

But it serves us well to remember accurately the era in which Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s colour barrier. Just think of what he had to endure. The stresses clearly caught up with him later in life, causing him to age prematurely. When he died in 1972 he was only 53 years old.

“Martin Luther King is a junior at Morehouse College when Jackie comes up.” Burns said. “There’s no integrated military. There’s no Brown vs. Board of Education. Nobody has had lunch-counter protests, except for Jackie as a teenager waiting to be served. Rosa Parks hasn’t refused to give up her seat yet, but Jackie already has done that.

“So you’ve got the sense, embodied in this person, as a kind of avatar of the entire civil rights movement for a while.”

And for Jackie Robinson and his wife Rachel, Canada played a substantial role.

“You’ve got your s--- and we’ve got ours,” said Ken Burns, referring to Canadians and Americans. “We’ve grateful that you’re our hat. It keeps our ego from getting too out of control, because we’re reminded that on this continent, Rachel Robinson found a place.”

Rachel found a place in Montreal, literally. And her husband Jackie found his place in Montreal, figuratively. It changed sports forever.

Yes, Canadians should be proud of that.

[ajquigs]

Thanks for this reminder. I definitely will be watching.

I have always been a fan of retiring his number 42 MLB-wide. I enjoy the thought that at every game in every ballpark at least one kid is told the story of Jackie Robinson after looking at the retired numbers and asking "Who was 42?"

[irv]

Originally Posted by ajquigs

Thanks for this reminder. I definitely will be watching.

I have always been a fan of retiring his number 42 MLB-wide. I enjoy the thought that at every game in every ballpark at least one kid is told the story of Jackie Robinson after looking at the retired numbers and asking "Who was 42?"

I hope, especially since it was written in a local paper, that I get the channel up here?

Ever since the day I received my 52 Topps cards and educating myself with some of the players, reading/watching the Jackie Robinson stories and everything he endured breaking the color barrier, really struck me!

It's unbelievable what he had to endure, and like the article says, it likely shortened his life considerably.

[Snapolit1]

Though this was done by his daughter Sarah Burns.

[the 'stache]

My DVR's been set to record. Now I just have to wait for Tuesday night to watch the whole thing.

[irv]

Did anyone watch it?

I PVR'd last nights show and am doing so with tonight's also so I'll likely watch both back to back if I can?

Looking forward to it.

[the 'stache]

The first half was really well done. I haven't watched pt II yet.

I thought Ken and Sarah did this doc together?

[Neal]

I watched both parts, recorded them as well, and was only somewhat engaged. I will most likely watch again.

I was very pleased with "42" btw, and I think that painted a much more interesting picture of his struggles.

[Tripredacus]

I only got to see part 1 on re-broadcast. Nothing to write home about, very little 'new to me' stuff. I kept having a feeling I'd seen it already, of course that was not possible. Maybe I already have too much Jackie Robinson related videos and was hearing the same quotes and things.

Oh well, that's fine. The most exciting part was the advert for Ken Burns' upcoming Vietnam documentary for next year.