By Rich McCain
Every year during the major league baseball season, April 15 is Jackie Robinson Day and all of the players from every team wear number 42. People make great speeches, honors are given and the entire atmosphere throughout the ball parks across America is that of a revival. Blacks rejoice that the color line of baseball has been broken and decent Whites are ashamed and embarrassed to be confronted and reminded about just how blatant and harmful to humanity the open racism from their red-neck counterparts was in 1947. In the mist of all of the hoopla and hope for a better tomorrow, very few people of today’s generation actually don’t know who Jackie Robinson was or what his sacrifice really meant not only to baseball, but to the entire social fabric of America and all of sports. Robinson’s accomplishment with the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers actually opened the door for Blacks to enter the NBA, NFL and other sports.
The movie 42 is a re-enactment of Robinson’s years up to the 1947 baseball season. Robinson is brilliantly played by Chadwick Boseman and gorgeous actress Nicole Beharie shines just as bright portraying Robinson’s widow Rachel. Harrison Ford may be up for a supporting actor Oscar nod as maverick, trailblazing Brooklyn Dodger GM Branch Rickey. Actor Andre Holland will introduce and bring to the forefront Wendell Smith and how significant the1940’s Black sports writer was to Mr. Robinson. Holland acted as a guide to help him through the fire but also his role with breaking the color line in journalism, by being the first African-American sports writer admitted to the Baseball Writers Association.
What was Boseman’s assessment of Jackie Robinson the man after getting the role and preparing to play him? He smiles and says, “Jackie Robinson was a Pasadena and national sports legend before this moment. I think that’s one of the things I learned about him that I did not know. He was better at football and was a Hall of Fame football player, led his basketball conference in scoring and broke his brother Mack’s record in the triple jump at UCLA. So he was already athletically great. Plus, he was court-martial in the military for not giving up his seat to a White and won the case. Actually, that’s a movie within itself. So his legend before he ever reached this moment was amazing. When the question is asked would there have been a Jackie Robinson? To me it’s the idea of breaking the color barrier more so than the person and thank God it was somebody who could not only play baseball but could handle the pressure on the field, the politics and the social responsibility.”
Other than this film depicting the trials and tribulations of Robinson breaking the color line, what impressed Boseman the most about the script? Without hesitation he quipped, “It’s a love story. I realized that I had not seen two Black people in love in a major motion picture. It’s crazy! I’ve never seen it before. I’m talking about Warner Brothers, billboards going up, trailers on TV and online. I have never in my lifetime seen this. You may think you have but you’ve only seen Denzel have a wife but not the love story or you’ve seen Will Smith have a wife which is kind of tacked on to the story but it’s not a love story. It is something that is so simple but it makes you human and once you see it, you have to embrace it.”
Photo by: Warner Bros. Pictures