EDITOR'S NOTE: No national publication has a richer sports history than Sporting News, which was founded in 1886 in St. Louis and quickly became known as "The Bible of Baseball" for the way it covered America's Pastime. From time to time, we’ll dip into our archives and give you a look at the iconic stars who played the game, and the great journalists who helped grow the nation’s knowledge of our sport.
Jackie Robinson changed our country forever when he broke baseball’s reprehensible color barrier in 1947. And not only did Robinson change the game by just playing on the same field as white ballplayers, but Robinson was really, really good. The Sporting News didn’t even wait for the season to end before declaring Robinson as the publication’s Rookie of the Year, with a full-page package in the Sept. 17, 1947 issue. J.G. Taylor Spink, the publisher of TSN from 1914 to 1962 — and the man for whom the BBWAA’s highest honor is named — wrote the article himself.
MORE: 42 images of Jackie Robinson from the SN archives
There were dozens and dozens of columns written about Robinson in the TSN pages in 1946 and 1947, and unfortunately many of them touched on ugly racial biases. By the time Robinson was nearing the end of his rookie year, though, he had proven without a doubt that not only did he belong in the major leagues, but he was going to be a star.
Rookie of the Year … Jackie Robinson
Gains Award on Basis of All-Around Ability
By J.G. Taylor Spink
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — In selecting the outstanding rookie of 1947, The Sporting News sifted and weighed only stark baseball values.
That Jack Roosevelt Robinson might have had more obstacles than his first-year competitors, and that he perhaps had a harder fight to gain even major league recognition, was no concern of this publication. The sociological experiment that Robinson represented, the trail-blazing that he did, the barriers he broke down, did not enter into the decision. He was rated and examined solely as a freshman player in the big leagues — on the basis of his hitting, his running, his defensive play, his team value.
Robinson had it all, and compared to the many other fine first-year men that 1947 produced, he was spectacularly outstanding.
Dixie Walker summed it up in a few words the other day when he said: “No other ball player on this club, with the possible exception of Bruce Edwards, has done more to put the Dodgers up in the race than Robinson has. He is everything that Branch Rickey said he was when he came up from Montreal.”
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Plunks in Ribs Result in Runs
Robinson has been a National League eye-popper this year because he has run the bases like an Ebony Ty Cobb. Carrying more than 100 runs around the bases to the plate on the punch of Reiser, Walker, Vaughn and Edwards, who followed him, Jackie has been unique as much because of his audacity as because of color. It should be emphasized that when Robinson sprinted to second base on a base on balls in Chicago, the score was 1 to 1 in the ninth inning. His daring turned into the run that broke up a vital game in the Dodgers’ favor.
When Robinson galloped over home plate on a clean steal during Fritz Ostermueller’s windup one night in Pittsburgh, there was no showboat aspect to the feat, there was nothing superfluous about the run: it broke a 2 to 2 tie; he scored the big run.
Enemy pitchers have plunked Robinson in the ribs more often than any other player in the league. Frequently this is the wedge that has started a rally. Once Paul Erickson of the Cubs opened an inning that way and the Dodgers scored seven times before it was over. When he bunts, Jackie is likely to light a fire under the best pitchers in the game. In Brooklyn recently he raced to third after bunting on Johnny Sain and Sain threw wildly. Sain ascended, lost his lead, his hold on the game and was under the showers before Brooklyn got five runs.
The point here is that Robinson is not spectacular in a lone wolf manner. His hotfooting has typed the Dodger play. Teaming with another superflyer, Pete Reiser, he inspired the most descriptive line written this year about Brooklyn’s 1947 play. Bill Roeder wrote it when he typed: “The Dodgers hit short and run long.” Even such an astute baseball engineer as Branch Rickey, who visioned Robinson’s place in the Dodger picture as long as 18 months ago, doubted for a long time that Robbie would find himself in 1947 and shift into high gear this season.
Naturally timid at first, more so than usual because of the pressure, the riding and the criticism to which he was subjected, the first time the Brooklyn club went to Cincinnati Robinson was hitting under .250. One of the papers ran a story that Robinson would have been benched weeks ago if he were a white man.
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Enthralled the Mahatma
Many big leaguers had taken a quick squint at the Negro boy and said, “He won’t do. Not good enough for the big leagues.” There were untrue stories that the other Dodgers shunned Jack, that he was getting spiked in the field, plunked at the plate. All this was enough to keep an ordinary youngster subdued, well within his shell.
Rickey kept telling him to be venturesome. “Take every extra base every time. Make them throw after you, make them hurry their throws. You’ll get thrown out, sure, but for every time they throw you out now, you will make them hurry and throw wild later. You will reap a golden harvest of extra bases.”
So Robinson began to turn it on, with spectacular success.
One of the top assets in Rickey’s “book” is aptitude. If he is trying out a young pitcher, the Professor shows him a totally new pitch, just to see how quickly he can master it enough to get it over the plate. Right from the start, Robinson’s attitude enthralled the Mahatma. A fine basketball player, broad jumper, golfer, tennis player, an All-American football back at UCLA by unanimous choice, Jackie obviously had multiple skills. He has been a Negro league shortstop and when they asked him to learn the difficult pivot as second base last year in Montreal, it was bad enough. But when they brought him to the big league and started him cold last April with a first baseman’s mitt, it seems like asking too much. It wasn’t though. Now he is like a cat on the bunts, and has saved several games for the Dodgers making plays into third and second. He covers more ground than several National League first basemen. His main trouble still is deciding which balls to go for and which to cover on, but he is improving.
The record shows Robinson had laid down 42 successful bunts up to September 9. Fourteen of those were beaten out for hits and 28 were sacrifices. He had failed only four times. In a day when all managers are bemoaning the failure to “get the man over,” Jackie is demonstrating perfection in the art of sacrificing.
Robinson has been a demon on the bases, and seems likely to compile twice as many thefts as his closest rival in the National League. So far he has stolen second 19 times, third three times, home three times (on Ostermueller, Pollet and Beggs) and has been thrown out only nine times. He has stolen against every club in the league.
Jackie’s speed often gets him extra bases. He has 29 doubles and five triples, and has hit into only five double plays.
Those big shoulders that go into his peculiar sweeping swing have power, too. He has banged nine home runs. He has learned to hit the change of pace on which pitcher were getting him out early in the season. He has been among the leaders all year in the number of hits, and figures to get close to 200 his first season.
Robinson’s play is consistent. On Sunday, September 7, he missed his first game. No other Dodger had played in them all until that date. He has hit .290 on the road and .298 at home, for a collective .295. Jackie started slowly, hitting only .225 in April when a lot of people quit on him prematurely. He hit .284 in May, got hot in June when he ran up his 21-game hitting streak, getting 43 hits during the month for a .377 average. He was a cool .253 in July, but got going again during August to travel at a clip of .311.
Jackie Robinson has done it all, in his first year as a major leaguer. What more could anyone ask?