[dougscats]

I'd say I'd guess, but there is really no doubt about it:
Jackie Robinson is the finest hour in Brooklyn baseball history.

With all due respect to those who came before, Jackie's breaking the color-line in baseball was vital to the core of America, which it helped shape post World War II,
and which incidentally began the age of modern baseball.

What a man.
Can you imagine what it took to carry that weight?
Proud, competitive, intense as he was, to keep that inside, the rage within?
He makes me gulp, and more, in awe; truly a great man, beyond baseball.

I was going to respond to some of the fabulous, older stuff that has been posted first,
but, as DeanH3 has brought him up with that stunning Time magazine cover, followed by Brent G's rookie, and Rhett's ticket stub of Jackie's first game,
Jackie has to go to the front of the line.

And as a fan, you have to love the way he went out.
Dodgers management [the much vilified Walter O'Malley] traded him to the hated-rival NY Giants after the 1956 season.
Jackie retired rather than to accept the trade.
And that's where I'll leave this post, with his Topps card from his final year, and that year's edition of the fabled boys of summer: