All language subtitles for Baseball A Film By Ken Burns S01E06 (Baseball A Film By Ken Burns S01E06) (ENGLISH)

What's the password?

Texas.

Keep them covered.

They may be German.

Any line on these woods, Major?

I didn't hear the counter sign.

Oh, Liga.

Texas Liga.

Will this road take us to
third bat headquarters?

Straight ahead.

Get going.

Just a minute.

What is a Texas Liga, Major?

How's that?

I said, what's a Texas Liga?

It's some kind of baseball term.

What kind?

A safe hit just over
the head of the infield.

Nobody asked you.

How'd the Dodgers
make out this year?

Hey, who's your
commanding officer, soldier?

Whoever he is, he knows
how the Dodgers made out.

Let's see your dog tags.

What?

Come on, we're not
taking any chances.

Hey, what is this?

What kind of nonsense?

Drop those rifles.

You.

Who's the dragon lady?

She's in Terry and the Pirates.

What's a hot rod?

Hello, Joe, what do you know?

Just got back from
a vaudeville show.

I guess they're okay.

Thank you, Sergeant.

A PFC Major.

Praying for civilian.

That's why I believe
in being careful.

May I suggest, sir, that
you study up on baseball?

Yeah, I guess I'd better.

When I was in the
Army... Let's go.

I was lonesome.

I missed baseball.

It was a World Series.

I went to a PX to listen to a
World Series game on radio.

And I was sitting there feeling
a long way away from home.

Hot climate.

A sense of autumn.

The fall classic.

And an old sergeant came in.

He was sitting
down in front of me.

And he took out
a cigar and lit it.

And that cigar smoke
drifted back into my face.

And I could smell
the polo grounds.

And I felt at home.

It smelled.

It smelled of urine.

It smelled of cigar smoke.

It smelled of stale popcorn.

But it was my place.

And every time I looked out the window...
A variety of titles, a variety of music.

A young woman feet your chair.

She was shaking her
bottom like up on fire.

Series.

© BF-WATCH TV 2021
In 1940 and 1950, penicillin

was introduced, and
the appen was split.

Orson Welles made his
masterpiece, Citizen Kane.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's
Oklahoma opened on Broadway.

And Franklin D.

Roosevelt was elected
president a third time and a fourth.

Overshadowing everything was a world war
that would cost more than 55 million lives.

Walter Johnson and Joe
Tinker and Johnny Evers died.

Nolan Ryan and Reggie
Jackson and Pete Rose were born.

Before America joined
the war, baseball had a

summer better than
anyone could ever remember.

Almost overnight, the hapless Brooklyn
Dodgers became a force to be reckoned with.

And for the first time,
women got a chance to prove

that they, too, could
play professional baseball.

From the beginning, the major leagues
were seen as a way up and out for poor but

talented boys, from sandlots
and small towns and city streets.

And its stars had
included the sons and

grandsons of immigrants
from almost everywhere.

Always, it had been
a white man's game.

Now, in Brooklyn,
two extraordinary men

would collaborate to
change the game forever.

On April 15, 1947, Major League Baseball
finally became, in truth, what it had

always claimed to be,
the national pastime.

I would pick an eccentric
player to epitomize baseball.

And I picked Ted Williams.

I picked Ted Williams because of
the absolute perfection of the swing.

I love to see that.

I can play that in my
mind over and over again.

That lanky body twisted around itself
almost like a barber's pole revolving.

And the intelligence and
concentration with which

he waited for the pitch
and then performed about it.

Obviously, he could slow down the motion
because he was so learned, because his

eyes were so good, because
his reactions were so quick.

He could slow it down and
do what he wanted with it.

If there's one image that dominates all my
recollections, it's Williams at the plate.

No use throwing at him.

First of all, you're
not gonna hit him.

And second of all, you're
not gonna bother him.

Best thing to do with him was
to let him do what he was gonna

do anyway and then concentrate
on getting the next man out.

Paul Richards.

Back in the spring of
1939, a tall, thin, high-strung

right fielder had broken in
with the Boston Red Sox.

His name?

His name was Theodore
Samuel Williams.

He insisted that the
press call him The Kid.

He went on to bat .327 for the year,
hit 31 home runs, and knock in 145 runs.

The greatest rookie batting
performance in baseball history.

He was born in San Diego,
California, the son of parents

so neglectful that he would
later refuse to visit them.

And he began attracting professional
scouts while still in high school.

At 17, he started playing for the San
Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League.

Did poorly his first season, spectacularly
his second, still better in his third.

The Red Sox signed him at 19.

He thought, talked,
breathed hitting.

Squeezed a rubber ball
ceaselessly to strengthen his grip.

Refused to drink anything stronger than
a milkshake for fear of dulling his skills.

Made a scientific study of bats and
discovered that it was speed, not weight,

that made the difference.

No one could throw a fastball
past me, Williams once said.

God could come down from heaven,
and he couldn't throw it past me.

His fellow outfielders complained that he
was uninterested in anything but hitting.

Williams was unmoved.

Tell them, he said, I'm
going to make more money

in this game than all
of them put together.

I used to see a falling star
go down when I was 14, 15.

I said, there's two
things I wished.

Money, money, money, money,
money, or the best hitter I could ever be,

the best hitter I could ever be,
the best hitter there ever was,

and all that stuff, as that
falling star was coming down.

Now, this is no baloney.

This is when I
was 13, 14, and 15.

So it was back during that time that I
was conceiving myself as maybe, boy,

as good a hitter as there was.

And then, of course, I got a
little bit more heavily involved

in my thinking and said,
boom, best hitter to ever live.

On opening day, 1941, Franklin
Roosevelt threw out the first ball.

It was, he said, his
ninth year in the majors.

By then, much of the world was already
at war, and Americans feared that they,

too, would soon be
drawn into the conflict.

The doings of the Vicksburg Hillbillies
and Sioux Falls Canaries, the Uniontown

Coal Barons, and Sweetwater Swatters
seemed less important somehow.

In 1941, Hitler had all of
Europe in control by now.

He had routed France in 1940,
and he'd gone on to do everything.

In the beginning of 1941,
he wiped out the Balkans.

England lost.

It was just staggering.

And at the end of May, Franklin
Roosevelt made a speech,

and a lot of people thought
he was going to declare war.

Therefore, I have tonight issued a
proclamation that an unlimited national

emergency exists.

At the Polar Grounds, after the seventh
inning, the umpires waved their hands the

way they would if it had been raining,
and they called time, and the players came

off the field, and the loudspeakers came
on, and they broadcast Roosevelt's speech

for 45 minutes to the
people in the Polar Grounds.

And they just sat there listening to
this incredibly important speech where

Roosevelt brought our
country as close to war

as he could without
actually declaring war.

We will not hesitate to use
our armed forces to repel attack.

Despite the growing threat of
war, it was a great baseball summer,

a summer of heroes.

He was a guy who knew that he was
the greatest baseball player in America,

and he was proud of it.

He knew what the press and
the fans and the kids expected

of him, and he was always
trying to live up to that image.

He knew he was Joe DiMaggio, and
he knew what that meant to the country.

Lefty Grove.

DiMaggio, as a ballplayer,
was very difficult to know.

He was a loner.

He said very, very little.

You don't find many
quotes in the papers of the

DiMaggio playing days
because he didn't say very much.

He just performed.

But he was the leader.

He was the bell cow.

And when DiMaggio was playing, the Yankees
just felt that they had it in the bank.

He was a nonpareil ballplayer.

There are people who say, who played with
him, who said, even though DiMaggio would

steal four, five, eight
bases a year, that

he was the best
baserunner of his time, too.

He just didn't need to
steal bases, so why bother?

He didn't need to look
as if he were crashing

into walls, so why
not glide to the wall?

And, of course, that
swing, that immaculate

swing, was the most
beautiful of his epoch.

Yankee centerfielder Joe DiMaggio was
something new in baseball, a superstar who

was also of Italian descent, an immigrant
fisherman's son from San Francisco.

Writers and teammates
weren't sure what to make of him.

He was so protective
of his privacy, a friend

said, that he led the
league in room service.

Like Lou Gehrig, he was
the mirror opposite of Babe

Ruth, but he shared Ruth's
determination to excel.

A teammate once asked him late in
his career, when he was often in pain,

why he played so hard.

Because, he said, there might be somebody
out there who's never seen me play before.

His nickname was Jolton Joe, but, in
fact, he made everything look effortless.

An opposing pitcher
admitted that DiMaggio

had only one weakness,
a weakness for doubles.

In 1941, DiMaggio was
only about 26 years old.

He'd been in the major leagues for five
years, but he was not yet DiMaggio the God.

He was just a young ball player,
and he wasn't terribly popular.

He had succeeded, you
know, Ruth and Gehrig.

Ruth was still alive, Gehrig was
dying, and here was this new guy.

He wasn't popular because he held out,
he wanted more money, as players do today

and players did then, and he'd
missed the beginnings of the season.

He was booed.

DiMaggio was booed.

But in 1941, that changed when he started
to get the hits, and he just did it so,

so terrifically, just
sustaining it, so that all

the love turned around
and came towards DiMaggio.

On May 15, 1941, at
Yankee Stadium, DiMaggio

hit a single off White
Sox pitcher Edgar Smith.

Though no one knew it, it
was the beginning of one of the

most extraordinary batting
performances in baseball history.

He hit safely in
10 games in a row.

Then in 20.

By June 10, he had hit in 25 straight
games, tying Babe Ruth's old Yankee record.

On June 12, he broke it
with a double off Bob Feller.

Three seemingly insurmountable
records loomed ahead of him.

Rogers Hornsby's modern National
League record of 33 consecutive games.

George Sisler's American
League record of 41 games.

And Wee Willie Keeler's all-time Major
League record of 44, set back in 1897.

On June 21, he reached
34, outdistancing Hornsby.

Pitchers refused to walk him.

It wouldn't have been fair,
one said, to him or to me.

He is the greatest
player I ever saw.

DiMaggio even looks good striking
out, Red Sox slugger Ted Williams said.

He didn't do that very often.

During the entire 1941 season,
DiMaggio struck out just 13 times.

On June 26, it almost
came to an end.

He went hitless in his
first three times at bat.

With two outs in the eighth, DiMaggio
finally smashed a double to left,

extending his streak to 38.

George Sisler's record was next.

The New York Yankees
outfielder goes to bat against

Washington with a consecutive
hitting streak of 40 games.

A safety will tie a
19-year-old modern record.

And on his third try,
DiMaggio comes through to

salute Joe DiMaggio.

A double header today, and DiMaggio rests
between games while baseball drama builds.

Cameras are ready, and
the crowd's almost hushed.

Joe has gone hitless three
times in the second game.

Now here's the hit that makes
it 42 games in a row for Jolting.

As a team, the Yankees
also boast a home run streak,

but they're happiest over
DiMaggio's great record.

The kid from San Francisco's
Fisherman's Wharf has

come a long way, but
this is his biggest moment.

But afterwards, someone
stole his favorite bat.

I had sandpapered the handle to take
off three quarters of an ounce, he said.

It was just right.

Now he borrowed a bat from a
teammate and went on hitting.

Only Keeler's record, just two
games away, remained to be broken.

July 2, New York Herald-Tribune.

Joe DiMaggio reached into his private
stock of ammunition yesterday at Yankee

Stadium, reloaded his
bat, and tied the all-time

Major League record for
hitting in consecutive games.

At Yankee Stadium on July 2, he hit a
three-run homer that soared over the head

of Red Sox left fielder Ted
Williams to move past Keeler.

Now, every game
had a two-run homer.

And the Yankees
were leading the record.

And it just kept
going and going.

And it just got into
everybody in the country,

people who weren't really
interested in baseball.

A friend of mine, Andy Crichton,
was driving across country with three

friends, they were just
out of high school, in a

jalopy, and they got to a
town in eastern Montana.

And I guess they camped outside of town,
they went to a coffee shop for breakfast.

And Andy said in the
coffee shop, dusty place,

ranchers, ranch hands and
farm hands would come in.

In those days, you
didn't get much news.

There wasn't any television.

You got some news from radio, but
most of the news was in newspapers.

And these ranch hands would come in,
they'd look over at the counter where the

proprietor had a copy
of the Daily Paper, and

they'd just say, did
he get one yesterday?

Didn't have to say who it was,
didn't have to say what it was.

Just, did he get one yesterday?

And this was the
question all summer in 41.

Did he get one yesterday?

And when he did, there was
such a sense of gratification.

And I think it was, you
know, that we did that.

You know, one of our boys.

One of the human race did this
marvelous thing, and it just meant so much.

It just kept us going.

It sustained us.

It was such an exciting year.

And they started singing that song, Joe,
Joe DiMaggio, we want you on our side.

And everybody
wanted him on our side.

On July 5th, DiMaggio
hit in his 46th straight

game another home run
and got his stolen bat back.

Yay!

A boy named Jimmy
Ceres of Newark, New

Jersey had spent five
days tracking it down.

Hello, Joe.

What do you know?

We need a hit, so here I go.

Ball one.

Hooray!

Ball two.

Hooray!

Right one.

Hooray!

Right two.

Hooray!

On July 9th, DiMaggio
hit a double in the All-Star

game, but that one
didn't officially count.

He started baseball's famous
streak that's got us all aglow.

He's just a man and not a
freak, Jolton Joe DiMaggio.

Joe, Joe DiMaggio,
we want you on our side.

He tied the mark at 44,
July the 1st, you know.

Since then he's hit a good
12 more, Jolton Joe DiMaggio.

Joe, Joe DiMaggio,
we want you on our side.

From coast to coast, that's all
you'll hear of Joe, the one-man show.

Our kids will tell their kids
his name, Jolton Joe DiMaggio.

We dream of Joey
with a light brown back.

Joe, Joe DiMaggio,
we want you on our side.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, a history class voted
him the greatest American of all time.

Ahead of George Washington
and Abraham Lincoln.

DiMaggio never lost his composure,
though he smoked pack after pack of

cigarettes and suffered
from ulcers and insomnia.

I was able to control
myself, he later admitted,

but that doesn't mean
I wasn't dying inside.

A sellout crowd filled
Cleveland's municipal

stadium on the
evening of July 17th.

Al Smith, a veteran left-hander,
started for the Indians.

Twice, DiMaggio hit
hard grounders off him.

Twice, the Cleveland third baseman
Ken Keltner snuffed them out.

In the eighth inning, DiMaggio
came to bat again with the bases

loaded against Jim Bagby and
hit still another hard grounder.

This time, it was caught by
the shortstop, Lou Boudreau.

New York won the game 4-3, but
DiMaggio's streak had ended at 56 games.

No one has ever come
anywhere near that record since.

And now they speak in whispers low
Of how they stopped our Joe One night in

Cleveland, oh, oh, oh Goodbye
streak, DiMaggio DiMaggio

left the park with his
teammate, shortstop Phil Rizzuto.

Do you know, he said, if I got a hit
tonight, I would have made $10,000.

The Heinz 57 people
were following him.

If you work out the
stats, no one should ever

have had a hitting streak
anywhere near that long.

And the next biggest is the 44
that Pete Rose and Willie Keeler did.

And there's a big difference
between 44 and 56 games.

That's an amazing statistic.

Because, remember, a season
statistic, you can slouch for a while.

You can have a slump.

But a hitting streak is a slump.

It's consistency.

You've got to get a hit every
single day for 56 games.

It's an astounding figure.

Between May 15th and July 16th,
Joe DiMaggio amassed 56 singles,

16 doubles, 4 triples,
and 15 home runs.

The day after his streak
ended, he started a new streak.

He would hit safely
in the next 16 games.

When that streak ended, DiMaggio
had hit safely in 72 of 73 games.

There's a story told of
the fanatical Red Sox fan.

You know, all his life he
dreams, eats, sleeps baseball.

Finally, this righteous man says to him, is
there nothing more important than baseball?

Suppose this boat we're
in right now, the rowboat,

we're sinking, and you
could save only one.

Your father's on the
boat in Ted Williams.

Whom would you save?

Man looks at him and
says, are you crazy?

My father can't even bat 200.

In the morning solitude of the clubhouse,
long before game time, Ted selects his

favorite model, a 35-inch bat weighing
34 ounces, with precision balance,

buggy whip snap,
and a trout rod feel.

The center of percussion
in a bat is in the joy

zone, a seven-inch area
in the symmetric barrel.

To solidify the barrel,
the bat is boned.

A well-boned bat will not
check or break in hot weather.

The joy zone becomes
iron hard and rings

with a musical click
when it meets the ball.

To prevent the bat
from escaping from his

hands, Ted grooves the
handle with a bottle cap.

This produces
hand security, for at

contact, his bat has
generated rocket speed.

In late July 1941, with
DiMaggio's streak over, the spotlight

shifted to the cocky young
outfielder for the Boston Red Sox.

Williams' obsession with hitting was
admired, but he was not loved the way the

exuberant Ruth had been,
the way the shy DiMaggio was.

He feuded with the press,
lined baseballs at fans who

jeered him, and once was
fined $5,000 for spitting at them.

Now I look back and I think, well,
I didn't handle it very well, I don't

think the Red Sox
handled it very well, and

certainly the press made
it pretty tough for me.

And so I think all of that
is kind of silly as you look

back, but it happened and
it had quite an effect on me.

And sometimes I wonder if
it didn't have a good effect,

because I was mad at the
world and mad at everybody.

And I'd go to the plate
more determined than ever.

After hearing boos from the crowd in his
rookie year, he vowed never again to tip

his cap after hitting a home run,
no matter how loud the cheers.

Ted Williams owed
them nothing but hits.

In 41, Williams
was tall, thin, gawky.

He had nicknames, the Splendid
Splinter, Toothpicked Head.

He was an
awkward-looking ball player.

He couldn't field.

I mean, he could catch a ball,
but he was an awkward fielder.

He had a good arm from
the outfield because he

used to pitch, but he
was not a good fielder.

He was distracted
in the outfield.

He'd stand in the outfield
swinging an imaginary

bat instead of looking
at the home plate.

Sometimes in 41, in 1940 particularly, he
sometimes wouldn't run out ground balls.

He wouldn't run out pop
flies and the crowd would

boo him and Cronin
would have to yell at him.

In 1941, Williams
was considered a flake.

They didn't use the term
then, but that's what he was.

And he was considered a very fine
hitter, but not yet a great ball player.

And 41 was the making
of Ted Williams, the

hitting streak, the home
run in the All-Star game.

Paso pitches.

Williams swings.

There's a high drive going deep.

A tremendous home run that brought in
three runs and turned what looked to be a

National League win into
an American League 7-5 win.

Two men were on.

Two men were out.

And what a watch.

Williams just let go.

And hit one of the biggest home
runs that's ever been hit at this park.

And how things change.

Although he had broken
his ankle in spring training,

he had a 23-game hitting
streak of his own that year.

And he was batting 70
points higher than DiMaggio.

Well over 400.

Something no other ball
player had done since 1930.

For the next two months,
Williams dominated the game.

And that's the way.

If I pitch, can you catch?

Will you hold the ball?

When you step to the
plate, will you swing and fall?

If you play, you gotta
know how it's done.

Can you catch?

Can you hold a hard one?

Get your bat ready, baby.

Get your bat ready, baby.

Get your bat ready, baby.

Get your bat ready, baby.

Let's have some fun.

If you can hit that ball,
You can make a home run!

As the season progressed,
my average was hanging up at

4'10", 12'15", and that
started to get a little notoriety.

And, of course, a lot of
guys get into these streaks

and nobody takes notice till
maybe the last three weeks.

Now, you know, this
guy's got a chance.

And so that's when I
started to feel a little bit of...

pressure on this thing.

Toward the end of the season,
Williams' average began to drop.

It was so dramatic.

His average had been
dipping slowly, 4'10", 4'8", 4'6".

They left Boston for the last week of the
season, went to Washington, and Ted had a

bad double header, and
his average dropped to 4'01".

They had three games
left in Philadelphia.

One on a Saturday and a
double header on Sunday.

And the Boston papers started talking about
whether they should sit Williams down.

Let him sit out, hold
his 4'01 average.

And Joe Cronin, the Boston manager,
said to Williams, Why don't you sit down?

Why don't you keep this?

And Williams, to his
tremendous credit, said, No,

no, it's not a record
unless you play all the way.

So he insisted on playing.

And on Saturday, I
think he went one for

four, and his average
dropped to 3'9", 9'5".

3'9", 9'5", 5'5".

Just under 400.

It would round off to 400, the way baseball
does things, but it wouldn't have been.

People all through the years would
have said, Well, he hit 3'9", 9'5", 5'5".

So he really had no choice
but to play the last game.

I walked all over Philadelphia with Johnny
Orlando that night, talking about what I

had to do, worried about
whether or not I could do it.

Hopefully I was going
to be able to do it.

And talking over the pitchers I was
going to have to face the next day.

Probably so tired going into
the park that I was relaxed.

Again, Joe Cronin
suggested that he sit out the

games rather than risk
damaging that record.

Not ever.

Not, never a thought.

And I was even surprised when Cronin,
that very day, came up to me the last day

and he said, You know,
you don't have to play today.

And I said, Hell,
I'm going to play.

You know, just
like, What's this?

What's going on here?

If I couldn't hit 400 all the way,
he said later, I didn't deserve it.

I got ready to hit and
Hayes, just as he's kneeling

down to give the signs,
and I'm up there to hit.

He said, Mr. Mack told
us to pitch to you today.

Well, they didn't pitch very much to
me because, you know, I hit him so well.

He said, Mr. Mack says we're
going to pitch to you today.

We're not going to
give you anything.

So just before the pitcher was ready
to throw the first pitch, Bill McGowan,

he, like all umpires,
they turned their rear end

towards center field
and rushed off the plate.

And he said, In order to
hit 400, you got to be loose.

And I'll never forget that.

And so here's the thing.

Could he get his average up?

He got a base hit
the first time up.

He hit a home run
the second time up.

He got a base hit
the third time up.

He got six hits and eight
at-bats and a double header.

After the third hit,
he had it locked up.

He wasn't going to go below
400 no matter what happened.

And Cronin, who had been around the
major leagues for 20 years or so, said,

he said, I came as close
to crying on a ball field

as I ever did when
that kid got that third hit.

He said, after all
he went through.

Get your bat ready, baby Ted Williams
had raised his batting average to 406.

Get your bat ready, baby
No one has hit 400 since.

Let's have some fun If you can hit
that ball, you can make a home run

Sparked by DiMaggio's streak, the New York
Yankees clenched a pennant early in 1941.

Then braced for their first subway series
with the National League's improbable

champions, the Brooklyn
Dodgers, Dem Bums.

In 1941, along with Williams
and DiMaggio, the real

excitement of the season
was in the National League.

The Brooklyn Dodgers had
been a terrible team for 20 years.

They had a couple of spurts.

Most of the time they were a
sixth place team, terrible team.

And the front office
was in disarray.

In 1938, they brought in Larry McPhail,
this dynamic man from the Middle West.

Loud, fictitious, ideas, drank a lot,
got in trouble, punched sports writers,

all this sort of stuff.

But McPhail was smart,
and he hired people.

In 1939, he hired Leo
DeRocher to manage this team.

In the meantime, McPhail was buying
and selling ball players right and left.

He was trying to put
the team together.

In 1939, the
Dodgers finished third.

It seemed like a miracle.

It was the last week of the season
to do this, and it excited everyone.

Dodger general manager Larry McPhail
was a great promoter and an impossible man.

Eligerent, unsteady, alcoholic.

With no drinks, he was
brilliant, a sports writer recalled.

With one, he was a genius.

With two, he was insane.

And rarely did he stop at one.

McPhail's new manager was his equally
combative shortstop, Leo DeRocher.

A former pool hustler,
DeRocher meant it

when he suggested
that nice guys finish last.

Leo DeRocher, one
critic said, is a man with an

infinite capacity for making
a bad situation worse.

Even DeRocher's admirers
called him Leo the Limp.

Try it again.

Oh, big hops.

The Sandlot wonder.

DeRocher and McPhail
had a love-hate relationship.

DeRocher said, well, I guess
McPhail fired me a hundred times.

And then hired him
right back again.

But they suited Ebbets Field,
they suited the Borough of Brooklyn.

They worked very well together.

Together, McPhail and DeRocher
scoured the country for likely prospects.

Cast-offs.

Veterans.

Rookies.

It didn't matter so long as they
helped bring home a pennant.

McPhail bought veteran home-run
hitter Dolph Camille for $50,000.

And paid $75,000
for a still untried

shortstop from Louisville
named Pee Wee Reese.

A sum so large that Dodger
investors questioned McPhail's sanity.

But he also got rookie Pete Reaser,
who soon became league batting champion,

from the minors for just $100.

And he harvested old hands
discarded by other teams.

Billy Herman.

Joe Medwick.

Dixie Walker.

And he coaxed fine pitching
from Fat Freddy Fitzsimmons.

Whitlow Wyatt.

Kirby Higbee.

And reliever Hugh Casey.

By the time he was finished,
McPhail had somehow won the game.

And they now put
together a winning team.

And they got to play in one of the
most intimate ballparks in the country.

The Taj Mahal of the
borough of Brooklyn.

Ebbets Field.

Throughout the grandstand at
Brooklyn's Ebbets Field these

days, there's a lot of
commotion about a World Series.

Dixie Walker hangs one
out for a clean base hit.

Joe Medwick steps up for a cut.

He's another of those
popular flat-bush fusiliers.

During America's last
summer of peace, the people

of Brooklyn embraced their
Dodgers as never before.

Ebbets Field, when it was built,
was supposed to be too large.

But Charles Ebbets said
baseball is just in its infancy.

But Ebbets Field soon
became a very small ballpark.

And became the most
intimate ballpark we ever had.

Ebbets Field.

If you were sitting in a
box seat at first base, you

could see the beads of
perspiration on Gil Hodges' face.

You could almost see the
fingers on Doc Camilla's hand.

You could hear what the players
said if you had a seat along third base.

If you were in the stands at Ebbets Field,
you were practically in the ballgame.

Well, first of all,
you'd have to think of

a sporting arena that
took up all the space.

There was no lavish parking.

Ebbets Field was there.

And if you wanted to go, then
you would find a way to get there.

Ebbets Field was not
going to make it easy for you.

And if you really put the
effort into it, you got there.

But when you got there,
the cast of characters

inside the ballpark
was truly remarkable.

There were a lot of colorful fans
that would come to Ebbets Field.

Hilda Chester, for
some years, was one.

She used to sit out in the
upper center field bleachers.

And she would hang out a
little sign that said, Hilda is here.

And she would ring a cowbell.

And once in a while, she would write a
note and drop it down to Pete Reeves,

the center fielder, and
have him bring the note

in to manager Leo
DeRocha with advice, etc.

Eddie Bataan was a
real fan of Brooklyn.

He had a little
piercing whistle.

And he would whistle at a ball
player, say a pitcher like Wyatt.

And he would start calling Witt.

And he'd keep calling
Witt at the top of his voice

until Wyatt took off his cap
and bowed to Eddie Bataan.

And genuine fans were
the Dodger Symphonies.

And one of my claims to fame, I will
state right now, is that I named them.

The Dodger Symphonies.

With the accent on the phony.

Because they didn't
know a note of music at all.

They didn't really play music.

They just made a lot of noise.

And to show you the
intimacy of Ebbets Field,

it was probably my
first or second year.

And I was sitting next
to Red Barber and he

was broadcasting and
I was just sitting there.

And it was a quiet, lazy afternoon
with just a few thousand people.

And Hilda suddenly was
in the grandstands instead

of out in the bleachers
where she normally was.

And out of the blue
came this voice.

Vin Scully, I love you.

And the crowd roared.

And I was kind of embarrassed
and I lowered my head this way.

And I heard this voice say, look
at me when I'm talking to you.

So there was no
place like Ebbets Field.

The relationship of the fans to
whomsoever came in contact with them.

1941 was the Dodgers'
best season in 21 years.

They clinched the pennant with a
6-0 shutout of the Braves in Boston.

And then headed back to Boston.

Brooklyn to celebrate.

The lid was off and anything
went, DeRocha told us.

That train back to Brooklyn
must have wobbled.

There wasn't a shirt
on anybody's back.

We were riding into Brooklyn bareback
until DeRocha said we better dress up

again on account of the
crowd that was at the station.

Somebody cut my
necktie right off at the knot.

We bums were on the gravy train.

Joe Medwick.

The borough savored
every moment.

A million fans turned out
to cheer their bums on.

The 1941 World Series
with the Yankees was

something Dodger fans
would talk about for years.

On the eve of the first game,
McPhail fired DeRocha again.

Then rehired him
the next morning.

The Dodgers lost 3-2.

But it was the fourth game that
would forever haunt Dodger fans.

With Brooklyn
ahead in the ninth.

And their relief pitcher,
Hugh Casey, just one

strike from tying the
series at two games apiece.

The Dodgers were tripped up by
one of the oldest rules in baseball.

Devised by the New York
Knickerbockers in the 1840s.

Get this picture, please.

At Ebbets Field
in the ninth inning.

The Dodgers leading 4-3.

Nobody on base.

Two Yankees already out.

Two strikes on Tommy Henrich.

Big Casey feeling for the proper grip on
the curveball he prayed would be the best

pitch he ever threw in his life.

Casey watching
Henrich swing and miss.

But catcher Mickey
Owen muffed the ball.

Henrich, a strikeout
victim, reached base.

The Yankees, capitalizing on a
break, rushed four runs across the plate.

The strikeout that didn't retire the
batter paved the way for Casey's defeat.

No pitcher ever had victory snatched
from him in a manner quite as brutal.

Shirley Povich, Washington Post.

The Dodgers never recovered.

Yankee Tommy Henrich swings.

The Yankees took the
series in five games.

Larry McPhail got so drunk
and was so angry at his players,

that he threatened to sell
them all off to St. Louis.

Instead, the club's directors would fire
him and bring in a new man, Branch Rickey.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941,
a date which will live in infamy.

The United States of America
was suddenly and deliberately

attacked by naval and air
forces of the Empire of Japan.

Two months and one day after the 1941
World Series ended, the Japanese attacked

Pearl Harbor, and America
was finally drawn into the war.

The sporting news now suggested that the
major leagues withdraw from Japan the gift

of baseball, which we made to that
misguided and ill-begotten country.

But by that time, the imperial
government of Japan had

abolished the game as a
baleful American influence.

Baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain
Landis wired the president, saying,

baseball is yours to command.

Everybody will
work longer hours.

And harder than ever
before, Roosevelt replied.

And that means they ought to
have a chance for recreation,

for taking their minds off their
work even more than before.

I honestly feel that it would be best
for the country to keep baseball going.

But he provided no special
draft exemption for ballplayers.

And this time, there
was no provision for soft

defense jobs, as there had
been during World War I.

The Cleveland Indians star pitcher
Bob Feller, at the very peak of his career,

immediately
enlisted in the Navy.

He would be gone
almost four years.

I thought at that particular
time that we were losing real big.

We just lost 3,000 men at
Pearl Harbor, 1,500 on one ship.

We were losing big in Europe.

And if you were
going to do anything for

your country, it was
about time to get busy.

I thought there were more important
things to do than be a baseball player.

I was a baseball
player for a long time.

We just got lucky.

That was my last
year in the Navy.

But when you join the
national team, you know

there are a lot more
important things to do.

And we really just waste
time on the baseball team.

I think the Eagles
had a great season.

I think we were you know
really amazing starting as a team.

And I think the Eagles
could have done much better.

I don't know if we will be able
to do that in our next season.

We will.

That is why I do believe the
Eagles will do better in the games.

More than 340 major leaguers and
3,000 minor leaguers went into uniform.

Most big leaguers found themselves
playing baseball for the Army or the Navy,

helping to raise funds for the
war effort and boosting morale.

Your team is all behind you to a man, so
take your bat and make that home run slam.

Show the Axis how we
play, in the good old U.S.

way, you're going to win
that ball game Uncle Sam.

But some saw combat.

Bob Feller served on a battleship in
the Pacific, earned eight Battlestars,

and kept in shape by jogging around
the deck between Japanese air attacks.

Hank Bauer was wounded
twice, and Lieutenant

Warren Spahn survived
the Battle of the Bulge.

American G.I.s played baseball everywhere
they fought, and taught it to anyone

willing to stand still
long enough to learn.

Young Japanese Americans
played it too, inside the camps in

which their own government
interned them for the duration.

We have lost many
of our star players.

The armed forces overseas
demand that we play baseball.

The fans here in this country want
to see our national game continue.

World War II is a great
period for baseball.

Talk about resilience.

The best players.

The Williamses
and the Dem excel.

The Bellagios and
the Fellers and the

Greenbergs, they were
off fighting a foreign war.

Left behind were the lame, the halt,
the aged, the too young, the one-armed

Pete Gray, trying somehow to put
together the semblance of baseball.

It led to not only such as Gray, but
it led to the 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall,

coming up to pitch
in the major leagues.

And it led to people whose careers
were long past, now in decline.

Paul Wehner came back, Babe
Herman came back to Brooklyn, my God.

And though no one could pretend that
the quality of baseball was anywhere near

first rate, the pleasure
that it gave was still a

baseball pleasure, and
that's what was important.

Pete Gray of the St. Louis
Browns had lost his arm at six.

But he did well as an outfielder and
struck out just 11 times in two games.

Two hundred and
thirty-four times at bat.

The war wreaked such havoc on the
major leagues that in 1944, the Browns,

the worst team in baseball before the
war, took the American League pennant.

The only pennant they ever won.

Even Bill Clem was
called out of retirement for

a series of exhibition
games that same season.

I could only see with one eye,
he remembered, but I got by fine.

I wasn't surprised,
because I never thought

eyesight was the most
important thing in umpire.

You're gonna win that
ball game, Uncle Sam.

This broadcast, brought to you courtesy
of the British Broadcasting Cooperation,

affords the old babe
the opportunity of sending

greetings to all the gang
overseas at World Series time.

I want to say from the bottom of my heart,
I want to say from the bottom of my heart,

and from the hearts of every American,
that I want to say God bless you great men

and women over there, and God
bless the ones that are going over.

And if we fight as half
as hard as you're fighting

over there, that American
flag will fly forever.

In December 1944, a Japanese troop ship
was torpedoed off the island of Formosa.

Among those lost
was 26-year-old E.G.

Sawamura, the pitcher who had once
struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Oh, we hail from Rockford,
Illinois, it's just across the line.

We're not too young, we're not
too old, in fact, we're in our prime.

Oh, we hit the ball with might
and main, and field, and we are fast.

We are the Rockford Ball
Club, we always dress in class.

Oh, yes, we are.

Oh, yes, we are.

We are the Rockford
Baseball Team.

These feminine phenoms play in the
All-American Girls' Baseball League,

which keeps the turnstiles clicking
in the loop's eight Midwest cities.

South Bend, Fort Wayne, Peoria, Rockford,
Kenosha, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo.

Look close, folks.

This is not softball, but real
Major League-type baseball.

And managed by former Major
League stars, such as Jimmy Foxx.

Jimmy Foxx.

Too old to be drafted, and long past
his prime, found another job in baseball,

as a coach in the brand-new All-American
Girls' Professional Baseball League.

The league was the creation of Philip
Wrigley, the chewing-gum king who owned

the Cubs, and who hoped to keep baseball
alive in the small Midwestern cities that

were losing their minor
league teams to the war.

Women had been
discouraged from playing

professional hardball
football, for decades.

But now, with thousands doing men's work
in defense industries, and doing it well,

many saw no reason why they shouldn't
be allowed to play professionally.

There were already some
40,000 women playing semi-pro

softball in small towns
all across the country.

It was said that softball star
Olympia Savona runs bases

like a man, slides like a
man, and catches like a man.

If she could spit, she
could go with Brooklyn.

Wrigley wanted to convert the best of
the softballers to hardball and do it fast.

Hundreds journeyed to Chicago
for Wrigley's tryouts in May of 1943,

and four teams
were quickly formed.

The Racine Bells, Kenosha Comets,
South Bend Blue Sox, and Rockford Peaches.

We were all feeling very patriotic,
and I really wanted to go into the WACs.

And my mother, well it was really
my mother, didn't want me to go.

So they contacted me about this
girls league out in the Middle West,

and at the end of the
season, my folks knew

I'd be home, so they
sort of encouraged that.

My father said, go try it, if
you don't like it, come back.

I started as an outfielder.

But I couldn't hit for beans.

So I said, hey, if I'm going to stay
out here, I better learn how to pitch.

So I became a pitcher.

I had a pretty good
fastball and a good curve.

It was a little wild, but you didn't
dig in against me, that's for sure.

The women who made
the cut had to be good, but

they also had to be
irreproachably feminine.

No pants-wearing,
tough-talking female softballer

will play on any of our four
teams, Wrigley declared.

Players were required to wear skirts,
high heels, and makeup off the field.

And a stiff fine was levied if
they were caught disobeying.

Chaperones accompanied the
all-white teams from town to town.

They even sent us to Patricia Stevens'
charm school to show us how to sit and how

to walk and how to act, and
some people really needed it.

They told you how to put a coat on without
knocking the person in the next booth

down, how to sit down
without exposing yourself,

and how to get up and
how to walk correctly.

The All-American Girls League
produced its share of stars.

Jean Fout won three pitching
titles and pitched two perfect games.

Joanne Weaver hit .429 one year and won
the batting title three summers in a row.

Sophie Kouris, nicknamed
Tina Cobb, averaged 100 stolen

bases a season and one
year stole 201 in 203 tries.

And Annabel Lee, whose nephew Bill
would one day pitch for the Boston Red Sox,

once threw a perfect game
for the Minneapolis Millerettes.

The new league
soon doubled in size.

Sports writers called them the Queens
of SWAT and the Bells of the ball game.

They played a tough 110-game season,
drew big crowds throughout the Middle

West, more than a million
in their biggest year, and won

the affection and loyalty
of fans wherever they went.

And I think the fact that people looked
and couldn't possibly think that girls

could throw a ball, hit a ball,
slide, and run the way they did,

I think that's what
attracted the crowd.

And caused some people to remain
so faithful that when we had our first

reunion in Chicago in 82, if
you can imagine it, a number

of fans came to Chicago
to join us at that reunion.

So we must have
done something right.

The league lasted
nearly a decade.

And many thought that one day
women might finally play alongside men.

But in 1952, the major
leagues formally banned women

from playing at any level
of professional baseball.

What about the satchel
pages of the future?

Will they be playing
in the big leagues?

The question becomes
more pressing yearly.

It has been tossed into old
Judge Landis' lap more than once.

And the spectacularly adroit manner
in which this articulate apostle of Lincoln

tosses it out the window
is a source of much marvel.

Joe Williams, New
York World-Telegram.

There is no rule, formal or informal,
or any understanding, unwritten,

subterranean, or
sub-anything against the hiring

of Negro players by the
teams of organized ball.

Kennesaw Mountain Landis.

He had helped restore the game's integrity
after the Black Sox scandal of 1919.

He had also done all
he could to keep it white.

It was true that there had never been
any written law banning Black players.

But Judge Landis had worked ceaselessly to
ensure that the old gentleman's agreement

against hiring them
remained firmly in effect.

When the Pittsburgh Pirates
sought permission to hire

slugger Josh Gibson in
1943, Landis bluntly refused.

The colored ball players
have their own league.

Let them stay in
their own league.

When Bill Vecht, Jr. attempted to buy
the eighth-place Phillies, then restaff it

with stars from the
Negro Leagues, Landis

made sure the team
was sold to someone else.

And when Leo DeRocher told a newspaper
man that he'd seen plenty of Blacks good

enough for the big leagues, Landis
forced him to claim he had been misquoted.

But the hypocrisy of fighting racism abroad
while ignoring it at home grew clearer.

Pickets appeared at Yankee
Stadium with signs reading,

If we are able to stop
bullets, why not balls?

This war dealt
with racism, in part.

And this was brought home.

So I think there was this heightened
consciousness about racism itself and the

whole war discrediting
racism, and I think that

was what energized Black
people to a great degree.

Blacks now demanded and got.

Thousands of
good-paying defense jobs.

And with their newfound
economic strength, they

supported the Negro
Leagues as never before.

And they insisted
on equal opportunity.

Black leaders again
pressed Landis for an answer.

I've said everything that's
going to be said on that subject.

The answer is no.

On July 6, 1944, a month after D-Day,
a young Army lieutenant named Jack

Roosevelt Robinson boarded a
military bus near Fort Hood, Texas.

The driver ordered him to get to the back
of the bus where the colored people belong.

Robinson refused and
was court-martialed.

But the Army judges found him fully
within his rights and acquitted him.

I had learned, Robinson wrote,
that I was in two wars, one against a

foreign enemy, the other
against prejudice at home.

A few days after Robinson's trial, Kennesaw
Mountain Landis died at the age of 77.

Take me out to the ball game Take me
out to the park Buy me some peanuts and

Cracker Jacks I don't care if I ever get
back You can root, root, root for the home

team If they don't win, it's
a shame Well, it's one, two,

three Strike you out at the
old ball game There you are.

You're gonna win that ball game, Uncle
Sam So pitch that cannonball the way

you can You were slow beginning But just
wait till that ninth inning You can finish

what they all began You're
gonna win that ball game,

Uncle Sam Show the Axis
how we play In the good old U.S.

way You're gonna win
that ball game, Uncle Sam

Show the Axis how we play When the
war ended in August 1945, General Douglas

MacArthur assumed command of
the American occupation of Japan.

He found the stadium in
which the Tokyo Giants had

played before the war filled
with unexploded ammunition.

He ordered it cleared and urged that
the Japanese start playing baseball again.

It would foster democracy.

That's what he said.

Baseball people are
generally allergic to new ideas.

It took years to persuade them
to put numbers on uniforms.

It is the hardest thing in the world to get
big league baseball to change anything.

Even spikes on a
new pair of shoes.

But they will.

Eventually.

Eventually.

They are bound to.

Branch Rickey.

This I know.

In March of 1945, Mr. Rickey told
me in confidence that only the board of

directors of the ball club knew and only
his family knew, and now I was going to

know, that he was going to bring a
black player to the white Dodgers.

And Mr. Rickey said that going back to
when he was the baseball coach at Ohio

Wesleyan University, he
took the team down to play

a series at South Bend,
Indiana with Notre Dame.

And he said, my best player
was my catcher, and he was black.

But, said Mr. Rickey, when we
were registering the squad in the hotel,

when the black player stepped up to
sign the register, the clerk jerked the

register back and said, we
don't register niggers in this hotel.

And Rickey said, remonstrated, he
said, this is the baseball team from

Ohio Wesleyan, we're the
guests of Notre Dame University.

He said, I don't care who you are,
we don't register niggers in this hotel.

Well, Mr. Rickey said, there are
two beds in my room, aren't there?

And he says, well, can't he
use one bed and not register?

And the clerk grudgingly
allowed that to happen.

And Mr. Rickey took the
key, handed it to the black

player, and said, you go up
to the room and wait for me.

As soon as I get the rest
of the team settled, I'll be up.

Mr. Rickey said, when I opened the door,
I heard this fine young man was sitting on

the edge of a chair, and he was
crying, and he was pulling at his hands.

And he said,
Mr. Rickey, it's my skin.

If I could just tear it off,
I'd be like everyone else.

And Mr. Rickey told me
this day in March of 1945, he

said, all these years I
have heard that boy crying.

And now, he said, I'm going
to do something about it.

This is a particularly good
year to campaign against

the evils of bigotry,
prejudice, and race hatred.

Because we have witnessed the defeat
of enemies who tried to found a mastery of

the world upon such
cruel and fallacious policy.

New York Times.

Judge Landis' replacement as commissioner
was a jovial, gregarious senator from

Kentucky, Albert Benjamin Happy Chandler,
who said he took the job because the

$50,000 salary was so
much more than the $10,000

he'd been making as
United States senator.

Few thought he would
be an improvement.

But in April 1945, two black
sportswriters, Wendell Smith and Rick

Roberts, who had campaigned tirelessly
for integration since before the war,

called upon the new commissioner
to find out where he stood.

If a black boy can make it on Okinawa and
Guadalcanal, Chandler told his visitors,

hell, he can make
it in baseball.

Still, a secret vote revealed that 15 out
of 16 club owners opposed integration.

The lone exception was Branch Rickey,
who had left St. Louis in 1942 to become

president and general manager
for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

It was in a narrow, tight,
and unenlightened world.

It was Branch Rickey who
said, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to integrate baseball.

I'm no longer going to allow a part
of the population to be excluded.

Now, Rickey's detractors say
he would do anything to win.

And it wasn't because
he had such a big heart or

that he was such a great
believer in civil rights.

He simply wanted to win.

Well, there were a lot
of men in baseball who

wanted to win, and
they wouldn't go this far.

This is far?

I don't think so at all.

Branch Rickey
was equally selfish.

He celebrated for his
shrewdness and for the

sermons he loved to
deliver for the sports pages.

Red Smith said he was a man
of many facets, all turned on.

Reporters called his office the Cave of
the Winds and called him the Deacon and

the Mahatma because he reminded
them of a combination of God, your father,

and a Tammany Hall leader.

Branch Rickey is a con man.

Brilliant, fascinating,
erudite, but still a con man.

I've been listening
to him for 25 years.

I've always been impressed,
seldom enlightened.

The trick of the con
man is to weave a spell.

And this Branch
Rickey stands alone.

Not since the days of William Jennings
Bryan and Billy Sunday has any man fallen

so deeply in love with the
melodic quality of his own voice.

Joe Williams, New
York World-Telegram.

He pitches, and
the hitter swings...

Rickey had already transformed the game
once by devising the farm system during

his quarter of a century as
president of the St. Louis Cardinals.

He was already
rich and in his 60s.

But he loved the challenge of building
a new dynasty, and he loved Brooklyn,

its fierce local loyalties, its distinctive
neighborhoods, and devotion to the Dodgers.

Now he was plotting a second,
still more sweeping, revolution.

Rickey believed with equal
fervor in fair play and big profits.

He was convinced
integration would be good for

America, for baseball,
and for his balance sheet.

Branch Rickey had seen us play
before 50,000 people in Comiskey Park.

You understand?

We had played in Yankee Stadium,
you know, for 30,000, 40,000 people.

And we played at the Dodgers.

The Dodgers had every field.

So he knew here's a
new source of revenue.

The greatest untapped
reservoir of raw material in the

history of the game is the
black race, Rickey confided.

The Negroes will make us
winners for years to come.

His broadcaster, Red Barber, was
stunned and contemplated resigning.

But Mr. Rickey told
me that he was going to

bring a black player to
the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I didn't doubt him.

He didn't doubt Mr. Rickey.

If he said he was going to
do it, he was going to do it.

Well, I came home and talked to my wife,
Lila, and I said, after all, you have to

remember, I was born
in Columbus, Mississippi.

I grew up in Sanford, Florida.

I went to a segregated
university, University of Florida.

This was something I
never even dreamed of.

And it was a shock to me.

I think it is only
honest to say so.

Meanwhile, Branch
Rickey's scouts began to

scour the Negro
leagues for a likely player.

A race man is a person
who is proud of his race.

He wants his race to advance.

He wants his race
to be recognized.

That's the type
of guy Jackie was.

That's his whole thing.

Saying, recognition, treat me
as I'm supposed to be treated.

Give our people
a fair shot at it.

We make it fine.

If we don't make
it, that's still fine.

But give us an equal chance.

That's what a race man is.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in 1919
in Cairo, Georgia, the grandson of a slave

and the fifth child of a sharecropper
who soon deserted his family.

He was brought up by his mother, a
domestic, in a white neighborhood in

Pasadena, California, where
white children pelted him with

rocks until he and his elder
brothers began to pelt them back.

Jack, even in high school, was concerned
about what was happening to his race.

He had that early on.

His mother, Mally Robinson,
was an extraordinary woman.

And she came up from Georgia
with five children and no prospects.

And just her determination
to make it for her

kids, that she set the
example and set the pace.

She was a real pioneer.

And so a part of what she
gave him was self-esteem.

He wore white shirts to UCLA.

He was ebony black.

And at a time when my generation
really was not that proud to be black,

but not Jack.

And what attracted me to him was
he walked straight, he held his head up,

and he was proud of, not
just his color, but his people.

At Pasadena Junior College in UCLA,
he excelled at every sport he tried.

Led his basketball league
in scoring two years running.

Broke his own brother's
national record at the broad jump.

And was one of the country's
best running backs in football.

Baseball was
relatively low on his list.

But he was good enough at it, so that when
he left the Army in 1944, the Kansas City

Monarchs offered him a job
as shortstop at $400 a month.

Jackie came to Kansas
City Monarchs in 1945.

We spring trained that
year in Houston, Texas.

And after spring training,
we went to New Orleans.

Exhibition game there.

Well, we had more
people, seats in the bus.

Jack said, look, I'm a rookie.

My seat is in the
step of the bus.

I'm gonna earn mine
just like everybody else.

That's the type
of guy that he was.

Jackie came to the Monarchs, and we
had been going for 30 years, going to this

filling station in Oklahoma.

And where we would buy the gas.

We got two 50-gallon
tanks on that thing.

We'd buy the gas, but we
couldn't use the restroom.

Jackie wanted to
use the restroom.

Jackie said, I'm
going to the restroom.

I said, boy, you can't
go to that restroom.

Jackie said, take
the hose out the tank.

Take the hose out the tank.

This guy ain't gonna sell 50
gallons, I mean 100 gallons of gas.

He ain't gonna sell 100
gallons of gas in another month.

So he said, well,
and I'll tell you what.

Jackie said, if we can't go to the
restroom, we won't get any gas here.

We'll get it someplace else.

He said, well, you boys can go to
the restroom, but don't stay long.

So actually he started
something there.

Now, every place we would go, we wanted
to know first could we use the restroom.

If we couldn't use
the restroom, no gas.

He hit .387 his first season, and Wendell
Smith, still pressing for integration,

arranged a tryout for
Robinson and two other young

Negro League players
with the Boston Red Sox.

Although Boston manager Joe Cronin
was impressed by Robinson's skills,

Boston passed up the opportunity to become
the first major league team to integrate.

Instead, it would be the last.

By this time, Robinson had caught
the attention of Branch Rickey.

He sent his chief scout, Clyde
Soukforth, to look Robinson over.

Well, he called me and he said, I
want you to see a game in Chicago.

Friday night.

He said, paying particular
attention to a fellow named Robinson.

Now he said, I want
you to identify yourself.

Tell him who sent you
and what you want to see.

His arm.

Paying particular
attention to his arm.

Soukforth was impressed and told Robinson
Branch Rickey would like to see him.

He came down and I
talked to him at length.

I mean, he was pouring the questions to
me about why is Rickey interested in me?

And the more you talk to the guy,
the more you're impressed with the guy.

The determination
written all over him.

Robinson did not know
precisely what Rickey had in mind,

but he agreed to accompany
Soukforth back to Brooklyn.

Well, I introduced Robinson and
Mr. Rickey went right to work on him.

He said, Jack, I've
been looking for a great

colored ball player
for a great many years.

I have some reason to
believe you might be that man.

Mr. Rickey, who had never
laid eyes on Robinson, sent

for him and had him in
his office for three hours.

Mr. Rickey was not only very
intelligent, but very intelligent vocally.

He never used profanity and his
strongest expletive was Judas Priest.

But that morning, Mr. Rickey took Robinson
into every possible negative situation he

would encounter in all the
world of Jim Crowism, etc.

And he took Robinson into what would
happen on the playing field, that he'd be

thrown out of his head, that he
would be slid into and spiked, etc.

He screamed in his face every
expletive that Robinson would ever hear.

And he said to Robinson, do
you have the guts not to fight back?

And he said, finally, the only way you
can be the first man to do this, the first

black man, is you'll
have to promise me that

for three years you
will not answer back.

You cannot win
this by a retaliation.

You can't echo a curse with
a curse, a blow with a blow.

So Robinson gave it a
little thought before he left.

And that impressed Rickey.

If he just said right off,
quick, oh, I can do that.

Well, he gave it some thought and he
said, Mr. Rickey, if you want to take this

gamble, I'll promise you
there'll be no incident.

And that was just what
Rickey wanted to hear.

He picked Jack because
he showed an assertive

side of himself,
which he would need.

He showed the kind of
strength to go through things.

He also was a deeply
religious man, Mr. Rickey was,

and he knew about
Jack's religious convictions.

So they were kind
of alike in that sense.

I think he saw the various aspects of the
character that attracted him and made him

feel that he could come through a
scathing experience without being harmed,

without giving in, giving up.

There was very much of a
partnership between them.

And they had to agree on these
things because they were in it together.

Rickey needed Jack as
much as Jack needed Rickey.

They just had to do it together.

They picked him because of
who he was and what he was.

Sure, the baseball skill was important,
but there were other skilled players.

Monty Irvin, everyone
expected to be the first.

But Robinson had a
determination and an ability

to, on the one hand,
turn the other two.

But on the other hand, that as he turned
the cheek, to let the person who was his

antagonist know that it
would come around again.

The one thing that we weren't
sure that Jack could hold his temper.

Jack had a terrific temper.

He knew how to fight
and he would fight.

If Jack could hold down
that temper, he can do it.

He knew he had the whole blood.

He had the whole black race,
so to speak, on his shoulders.

So he just said,
well, I can take it.

I can handle it.

I will take it for the rest of
the country and the guys.

And that's why he
took all that mess.

And it killed him.

On Tuesday, October 23, 1945,
Rickey's office made an announcement

that it said would affect
baseball from coast to coast.

The Montreal Royals, the Dodgers'
top farm club, had hired Jackie Robinson.

If he did well for Montreal, he
would move up to the Dodgers.

You can't love
baseball in the abstract.

You have to belong to one
team for a long period of time.

That's what it's all about.

Somebody once said, baseball is not a
life and death matter, but the Red Sox are.

Which is exactly right.

The greatest of all baseball seasons
boils over in World Series fever.

Up in Boston, the
postman doesn't ring.

He backs up a truck with a half
million applications for 60,000 tickets.

Boston, center of culture,
home of the softly modulated

cheer, goes hog wild over
his first series in 28 years.

Hey, who's that?

Casey?

Nope, it's Ted Williams, Red
Sox power hitter extraordinary.

If the Dodgers or Cards wonder
where Ted gets his power, have a look.

Here's a preview of the night,

so pull up your socks.

Red Sox, that is.

World Series time is here again.

The Boston Red Sox were heavily favored to
win the 1946 World Series against the St.

Louis Red Sox.

They had not appeared
in the series since 1918,

just before they sold
Babe Ruth to the Yankees.

As expected, the Red
Sox won the first game.

But Ted Williams was held
to just one hit after St. Louis

employed a bizarre new strategy
against the Boston left fielder.

They called it
the Williams shift.

All eyes were focused on
Williams as the Cards sprang a

newfangled defense against
the dreaded Boston Clowder.

They moved their third baseman,
Whitey Kurowski, to the right of shortstop

Marty Marion as they bunched
all four of their infielders

between first and a few
feet beyond second base.

The outfielders also
draped themselves far to the

right, leaving the left side
of the field unprotected.

New York Times.

No hits.

Right at somebody.

Awfully hard to get a
ball through all of that.

And so as a result, I didn't produce
in the later innings on the count.

I'd either get a walk,
or I'd hit it at somebody,

or if I were lucky, one
in 16 hit a home run.

Well, those odds
are not very good.

They knew where he was going to hit it,
and he was such a proud guy that though he

could clearly turn his swing
around and hit it to, you

know, the third base side of
the infield, he wouldn't do it.

He was going to get his hits, no
matter what the defense did, on his terms.

And now it's Walker's turn.

Fingals!

And the fun is just beginning.

Fun for the Cards, that is.

As a result of the Williams shift and
an uncharacteristic burst of hitting by the

Cardinals, St. Louis stayed alive,
and the series went to a seventh game.

It's the deciding game of the World
Series at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

With the score tied 3-3
in the bottom of the eighth,

the Cardinals' Enos
Slaughter led off with a single.

Harry Walker followed
with a line drive to left center.

At first, it didn't seem possible
that Slaughter could score on the hit.

But the Carolinian they call country
ran as perhaps he had never run before.

He rounded second, third, and then
sped for home, while a bewildered Boston

shortstop, handling the
relay from the outfield,

spun around to make a
futile throw to the plate.

The relay home is not in time.

The Cards win 4-3.

Baseball...

As for Joe Cronin and his
no longer glittering bow socks,

they left the field a sadly
dejected and disillusioned lot.

To add to their mental anxiety, they
gained the added dubious distinction

of being the only Boston club
ever to lose a World Series.

New York Times.

I was so sure we'd
win that series.

That's the worst
disappointment in my career.

No question about it.

That was a total bust.

I hit 200, we lost the series.

The most disappointing thing
that ever happened to me.

Um...

I can't describe how I felt
about failing in that situation.

The Boston Red Sox
would have to wait another

21 years to play again
in the World Series.

Ted Williams would
never get another chance.

I think that losing is what
baseball is all about in the end.

We think it's about winning, but as
we go on as fans and even as players,

I think you discover that it really is
about there's much more losing in it.

After all, the batter only succeeds
one-third of the time at best.

And this runs, it runs
very deeply in baseball.

As the season goes
along, fans realize that

their hopes are not
going to be fulfilled.

Once again, they're going
to be heartbroken at the end.

I saw baseball after
the Black Sox scandal.

Everybody said, well, baseball,
it kind of got off of baseball.

See, and here comes Babe
Ruth hitting the home run.

That brought it back.

See?

Then we went into another
little recession in baseball.

Here come the lights.

That brought it back.

See?

Now we go into the wall and
all the good ballplayers gone.

So that kind of
brought it down a little.

Here come Jackie Robinson.

Through most of the 1946 season,
the baseball world's attention was riveted

on the Montreal Royals
and Jackie Robinson.

Branch Rickey hoped
Robinson would have an easier

time in Canada, where race
was much less of an issue.

But the Montreal Royals' manager
was Clay Hopper, a Mississippian.

He begged Rickey not to make him
the manager of an integrated team,

asking, do you really think
a nigger's a human being?

Robinson later confessed that he'd
been nervous as the devil, but he told

reporters he was ready
for any challenge he

might meet from white
fans or white players.

I'm ready to take the chance.

Maybe I'm doing
something for my race.

Rogers Hornsby, the
great National League

slugger, said an integrated
team would never work.

Bob Feller, who had
often barnstormed with

black teams, was sure
Robinson would fall short.

He was too muscle-bound
to hit well, he explained.

If he were a white man, I doubt they would
even consider him big league material.

But in his very first game for Montreal,
at Jersey City on April 18th, Robinson

went four for five,
stole two bases, and

scored twice by provoking
the pitcher to balk.

This would have been a big day for
any man, the New York Times reported,

but under the special circumstances,
it was a tremendous feat.

On the road, Robinson
endured for a long time.

He had, without complaint, separate and
unequal facilities, pretended not to hear

the taunts of his opponents, nor to
mind the initial coolness of his teammates.

The pressure and the
abuse were unrelenting.

It came in all the forms
that racism comes in.

It came in the form of racial epithets,
it came in the form of gestures,

it came in the form of little incidents,
like putting the black cat on the field.

I was sitting in a section
where there was some rabid

anti-Robinson people who were
yelling at him, calling him names.

It was really to
try to throw him off.

They wanted him to hear them.

As a matter of fact, I felt it so keenly,
they were at my back, and I could not turn

around, because I was under the
same constraints Jack was under.

But I kept hoping that my
body was blocking some of the

sound, you know, because I
could see what their intent was.

As the season progressed,
he was wracked by

stomach pain, on the brink
of a nervous breakdown.

But in the face of all the abuse,
Robinson only played better.

And the Robinson sparked the
Royals with sharp hitting and fielding.

Daring base running.

Leading them first to the
league championship, and

then to victory in the
minor league world series.

After the final game,
jubilant Montreal fans chased

Robinson for three blocks
as he left the stadium.

It was probably the only day in history, a
friend remembered, that a black man ran

from a white mob with love
instead of lynching on its mind.

Even Clay Hopper, the Montreal manager who
had questioned Robinson's humanity before

the season started, now
called him a great ball player.

And he urged Branch Rickey to move
him up to the Dodgers for the 1947 season.

But Rickey gave no
indication of his intentions.

February 1, 1947.

I know the real reason
Josh Gibson died.

I don't need a doctor's
report for confirmation either.

He was murdered.

By big league baseball.

Pittsburgh Courier.

Josh Gibson, perhaps the greatest
of all the Negro League stars,

was just 35 in the winter of
1947, but old beyond his years.

He had lost weight, was drinking
too much, no longer able to

play as he once had because
of constant pain in his knees.

And he had grown
increasingly erratic.

Lapsing into long silences.

Hearing voices no
one else could hear.

Threatening suicide.

Holding imaginary
conversations in which he tried

in vain to persuade Joe
DiMaggio to recognize him.

On January 20th, he
suffered a stroke and died.

There was no money
for a gravestone.

You're in a neighborhood that
you've never been in before.

You understand that
feeling that you would have?

All right.

Here's Jackie.

And to Jackie to play
in the major leagues,

that meant one white
boy wasn't going to play.

See?

And so this is...

I could understand
the rebellion.

I could understand the rebellion
because we had played against these fellas.

And they knew
that we could play.

And they knew if we were allowed
to play, a lot of them wouldn't play.

See?

During spring training 1947, Ricky staged
a seven-game series between the Dodgers

and the Royals in order to
display Jackie Robinson's skills

to the men with whom he hoped
Robinson would soon be playing.

The strategy backfired.

Robinson's brilliant play... He
batted 625 and stole seven bases...

Seemed only to antagonize
his future teammates.

Nearly half of the Dodgers were southern
whites, and three of their players,

outfielder Dixie Walker, second baseman
Eddie Stanky, and the third string catcher

Bobby Bragan, all from Alabama,
drew up a petition saying they would

rather be traded than
play with a black teammate.

Then went around
gathering signatures.

DeRocha heard
about that petition.

And he called a meeting.

And he really laid down the law.

He said, in effect, you know
what you can do with that petition.

And also, if Mr. Ricky gets here
tomorrow, if some of you fellas

don't want to play with him,
Mr. Ricky will take care of it.

Because he's coming.

He can play ball.

And more than that, there are
more black players coming after him.

And you fellas had
better shape up.

One southerner refused to sign.

Shortstop Pee-wee Reese
from Louisville, Kentucky.

Pee-wee Reese was one of
the first to give a public reaction.

He was being mustered
out of the armed forces.

And he got the word that
Robinson was coming.

And Robinson had
been playing shortstop.

And some writer asked
Pee-wee how he felt about it.

And Pee-wee said, well, if he
can take my job, he's entitled to it.

The player said, The players' revolt
was stopped before it got started.

Jackie Robinson was going to make them
all rich, DeRocher assured the Dodgers.

He had made the team
and would be with them

when they started the
season at Ebbets Field.

Happy.

We've been looking
forward to this thing for years.

We were, oh,
everybody was so happy.

Jackie is going to
the major leagues.

We were all elated.

But it was the death
knell for our baseball.

But who cared?

Who cared?

Hodges has one for three.

That's your round.

What left?

One-one pitch.

Swim on.

There's a high side ball
deep in the fair game.

Scoring became almost an
obsession with me when I was a child.

Because my father taught me so proudly,
how to master all those miniature symbols.

And then left me when the radio was on
to score the games while he went to work.

And when he would come home when I was
five or six years old, he would ask me to

go through from inning to inning and I
would recreate the entire game for him.

And he never let me know that in the
newspapers the next day he could have

found out from the
newspapers what had happened.

I thought without me, he wouldn't
know what had happened in the game.

And so I was really like a
little historian in those days.

And it was such a magic thing.

When he would come home, In
1901, Michael Francis Aloysius

Kearns was born in
Brooklyn, the son of a fireman.

His younger brother
was killed by a trolley car.

His mother and father
died shortly thereafter.

And he was raised by an ant in
Flatbush, in the shadow of Ebbets Field.

He became a bank examiner for the
state of New York, moved to Long Island,

but remained a
devoted Dodger fan.

In 1943, his daughter
Doris was born.

I think my earliest
memory is being taken

when I was maybe four
years old to Brooklyn.

So my memory of the Dodgers is connected
to my father showing me the street where

he grew up, where he played ball,
taking me to Horn and Hard Art's cafeteria

and sticking the nickels
in, all of which was just as

important to me at that
time as going to Ebbets Field.

But as we approached Ebbets
Field, he made it seem like a shrine.

I don't really remember the game but just
the whole fabric of being there with him

and knowing it was so special that he
was sharing his past with me that day.

Applause One of the things baseball
allowed him and me to do is at night when

he put me to bed, he would
tell me stories of the past.

So I would hear all of his favorite
memories going back to 1910.

And he described to
me the importance of

Jackie Robinson being
there for civil rights.

But more importantly,
he told me, this guy's a

great player and we're
going to win with him.

So it was all connected in a very little
girl's mind with somebody who then became

my hero from the time I was four
until he stopped playing baseball.

Music

History was made here Tuesday afternoon in
Brooklyn's flag bedecked Ebbets Field when

smiling Jackie Robinson
trotted out on the green

swept diamond with the
rest of his Dodger teammates.

No less than 15 photographers
surrounded Robinson before the

game and clicked his picture
from every position imaginable.

Pittsburgh Courier

On April 15, 1947, at Ebbets Field in
Flatbush, in the borough of Brooklyn in

New York City, the Brooklyn
Dodgers faced the Boston Braves.

It was opening day and for the first
time in modern Major League history,

a black man, Jack Roosevelt Robinson,
was starting the game at first base.

There were 26,623
fans in the stands.

More than half of them black.

Come to see Jackie Robinson.

Although Robinson went
hitless in three trips to

the plate, just the sight
of him stirred the crowd.

I remember the excitement and just the
feeling of having gotten through it and a

sense that Ebbets Field itself
was small enough so that we

kind of felt immediately that
we could find our place in it.

At least I did.

The black fans were so tense and so
enthusiastic and so their expectations

were so high and their aspirations were so
high that they just reacted to everything.

Every swing of the bat, somehow they
got something going with the black fans.

And white fans, I think, were probably
more in a frame of mind to wait and see.

There was this overpowering feeling that
people's hopes were riding on what Jack

was doing as much as their
interest as fans in the score.

The Dodgers won that day 5-3.

You can almost divide
American history in the

20th century before
Robinson and after Robinson.

America was defined by baseball.

This was our national game.

So the drama of this moment of
Robinson coming in is enormous

because of the game being
tied to the national character.

In some way, the
game being tied with

America's sense of its
mission and its destiny.

For me, baseball's finest
moment is the day Jackie Robinson

set foot on a major league
field for the first time in 1947.

I'm most proud to be an American,
most proud to be a baseball fan.

When baseball has led
America rather than followed it.

It has done so several times, but
this is the most transforming incident.

I can think of no man
having a more difficult

road ahead of him than
Jackie Robinson did in 47.

And no one walking that road
more valiantly or more proficiently.

I would say that Jackie
Robinson is my great hero among

baseball players and he's
my great hero as an American.

He is an individual
who shaped the crowd.

Elsewhere in Brooklyn that evening,
at 1574 50th Street in Borough Park,

a Jewish family gathered for
Seder, the feast of Passover.

Why is this night different
from all other nights?

The youngest male asked
in the centuries-old tradition.

Before his father could reply,
he answered his own question.

Because a black man is
playing in the major leagues.

Too late.

It was a wonderful moment when
it happened, but when I think of it,

you know, what it...
It brings pain, too.

It was a great triumph,
and Branch Rickey...

Branch Rickey was a great,
great leader in this society.

But why?

Why did it take all those years?

Why should it have
been such a big event?

Why weren't we
capable of better?

How could you possibly say
that they were less than we were?

Didn't we put that
behind us in the Civil War?

Why wasn't the question settled?

Twelve days after Robinson's
debut, Babe Ruth Day

was celebrated in ballparks
all across the country.

Ruth himself appeared
in Yankee Stadium.

He was very ill now,
with cancer of the throat.

The termites have got
me, he told an old friend.

Surgery had slowed the
disease, but damaged his larynx.

Thank you very much,
ladies and gentlemen.

You know how pain
my voice sounds.

Well, it feels just as bad.

You know this baseball team
of ours comes up from the youth.

That means the boys.

And after you're a boy, and grow up to
know how to play ball, then you come to

the boys you see representing
themselves today in your national pastime.

The only real game, I
think, in the world is baseball.

The appeal of baseball

was that it was fair.

That if you understood the rules, all
you had to do was work hard and reach

the maximum level of your
ability and you could succeed.

This was the promise that anyone could
be an American, anyone could play baseball.

It wasn't really true.

Jackie Robinson made it true.

The Iron Curtain, which
has prevented Negroes from

participation in Major League
Baseball, has finally been lifted.

Now, the real challenge
faces Negro America.

The challenge of taking this
tremendous victory in stride.

The challenge to stop our
booing over some untoward

incident which might
happen on the ball field.

Remember that Jackie
might be roughed up some.

Remember, today, Negro America, whose
symbol is Jackie Robinson, is on trial.

Mr. Rickey opened the
door and Jackie's foot is in it.

Pittsburgh Courier.

Make no mistake about it, Jackie could
have been a Brazilian anything if Jackie

hadn't started drawing
people to that park

and been able to produce,
he'd have been gone.

And that, I think that's one
reason he fought so hard.

Because he knew if he failed,
then our people would fail.

And he was
determined to make it.

And he was the most
exciting ball player that we had.

And the greatest gate
attraction since Babe Ruth.

The thing that made Robinson
so exciting was his base running.

When Robinson was on base,
dashing off first base, dashing off second,

dashing off third, threatening to steal
the next base, upsetting the pitcher,

every eye in the ballpark
was on Jackie Robinson.

Robinson played brilliantly.

And drew just the kind of huge crowds
that Branch Rickey had hoped for.

By July, the Dodgers
were in first place.

One ball, one strike,
one out, one run.

Jackie at the bat.

Here's what he done.

He hit the ball with the bat.

The bat hit the ball.

You should have heard
those fans all squall.

Good, it's gone.

This time it's really gone.

They do the baseball boogie
when Jackie comes running home.

Now the umpire hollers
the same old thing.

Grab Jackie's bat,
it begins to swing.

Camp restart the flashy.

Charge the crowd.

Pat and bow hands
and holler real loud.

Good, it's gone.

This time it's really gone.

They do the baseball boogie
when Jackie comes running home.

zym zosta Grandma
said she was too old to go.

She listened in on the radio.

Pete got happy.

She grabbed a dress.

First thing she hollered,
Jackie Robinson is a mess.

It's going, it's going.

This time it's really gone.

She's on the baseball boogie
when Jackie comes running home.

He ran up those base paths
and just excited the crowd.

I mean, he began to pull people
on his side by his performance.

And his performance
also was his outlet.

So it worked both ways, that
he created fans immediately.

I mean, the electricity
was in the air in

the stands, on the
field, and in our hearts.

Oh, the thing about Jackie Robinson that
was so thrilling to me was that every time

he got on base, you just felt
like everybody else was nervous.

So you felt like he was controlling the
whole tempo of the game, and you knew he

was going to steal second at some point,
or you knew he would pretend to steal

second at some point,
and that the pitcher was

nervous and he wasn't
making as good of a pitch.

And somehow all eyes were riveted toward
him, so that when they were on the base

path, you just somehow felt something
was going to happen, some magic.

It didn't always
happen, but you felt it.

It always could.

So there was that
sense of electricity.

And I just thought he
was the best there was.

Shea pitching to Jackie
Robinson in the first inning.

Walks to Brooklyn first baseman.

And the Dodgers have a rally.

Robinson promptly
steals second base.

What happened is, Jackie took
black baseball to the Major Leagues.

See, at the time, baseball
was a base-to-base thing.

You hit the ball, you wait on first
base until somebody hit it again.

See?

But in our baseball,
you got on base.

If you walked, you stole second.

You tried to steal their
bunch over to third.

And you actually
scored runs without a hit.

This was our baseball.

I saw him once.

He walked.

Base on balls.

Got to first base.

And he walked
down to first base.

Didn't try.

Got to first base.

Just turned around
with his foot on the base.

Didn't move.

The pitcher looked over at him.

Looked over at him.

Robinson didn't even
move off the base.

Pitcher started to throw.

Robinson stole second.

Got in the second base.

Now the pitcher's
looking back like this.

Looking back.

Looking back, Robinson
was taking a lead now.

The pitcher kept looking back.

He walked the batter.

Men in first and second.

Robinson still moving back
and forth, back and forth.

He walked the next batter.

Now Robinson's in third base.

Base is loaded.

And he took this
tremendous lead.

He just walked off the base.

10, 15, 20 feet.

And the pitcher
was almost panicky.

The third baseman came in.

He threw over.

Robinson got back.

Robinson did the same thing.

Pitcher looked over.

Finally the manager came out.

And he motioned
to the third baseman.

Stand on the bag.

Hold Robinson on the base.

I never saw that before.

Haven't seen it since.

Where third baseman
held the runner on the base.

And the pitcher
kept looking over.

Threw to the next batter.

Walked him.

Walked in the run.

And Robinson walked home.

And touched the plate.

And walked back.

He created the
run all by himself.

Mr. Rickey said that
Robinson was the most

competitive ballplayer he
had seen since Ty Cobb.

But the amazing thing about Robinson,
was not what he did on the field,

but what he did to control
himself for those first three years.

It was absolutely terrible.

In the coming days, as the
Dodgers went around the league,

there were threats to shoot
Robinson from the stands.

Warnings that his wife and infant son
would be killed if he dared keep playing.

Pitchers threw at his head.

Base runners
intentionally spiked him.

Hotels refused to house him.

Bench jockeys began shouting
racial slurs during batting practice.

And kept it up
until the last out.

Nigger go back
to the cotton fields.

Hey snowflake, which one of the
white boy's wives are you dating tonight?

Hey boy, how about a shine?

We'll take you out
on a date tonight.

He was well known that the owners
did not want this experiment to work.

They wanted Ricky to fail.

They wanted Jack to fail.

And so whatever they could do
behind the scenes, they would do.

There were also teams and individuals
on teams who did not want it to work.

When Philadelphia came
to Ebbets Field, they leveled

torrents of abuse led by manager
Ben Chapman on Robinson.

It was disgraceful.

It was terrible.

And the Dodger players then became
incensed and Stanky, who had been one of

the motivators about that petition down
in spring training camp, Stanky then yelled

to the Philadelphia dugout, why don't you
fellas pick on someone who can answer back?

And Mr. Rickey felt that the Philadelphia
players' abuse of Robinson was beneficial

because it united the white
Dodgers for their teammate Robinson.

Oh, and Philadelphia
was disgusting.

I mean, the way
they rode that fellow.

And you know, the Philadelphia
press got on Chapman.

He was the ringleader.

Now it looks like
his job is in danger.

He has to swallow his
pride and ask Robinson

if he will have his
picture taken with him.

And Robinson's mad
enough to say, yeah, I will.

The first time the Dodgers showed up in
Cincinnati, there was a very hostile crowd.

Cincinnati just across the
Ohio River from Kentucky.

And Pee-wee is from Louisville,
a southerner, a little colonel.

And there was a lot of booing
going on in the set in the other end.

And there came a lull in the ball game,
and Pee-wee just walked over to where

Robinson was standing on the infield and
put his arm around his shoulder and talked

to him for a moment and then went back,
which said to the crowd, this is my friend.

I would like to bet that
no athlete, have they ever

tried to intimidate more than
they did Jackie Robinson.

He had tons and tons of guts.

But boy, I want to tell you, when they
start throwing at you, at your noggin,

you get mad, but you better
be awful careful about doing it.

And he faced that probably
as much as any player

his first and second
year in the big leagues.

The most serious incident came in St.
Louis against Branch Rickey's old team,

the Cardinals.

Enos Country Slaughter, out at first by at
least 10 feet, nonetheless jumped into the

air and deliberately laid open
Robinson's thigh with his spikes.

Robinson's anger
almost overcame him.

But when his teammates threatened
to retaliate, he talked them out of it.

I never once heard Jack
say out loud, I want to give up.

I don't think I can
take it anymore.

He would get discouraged,
he'd get frustrated, he'd get angry.

But by the next morning,
you know, he'd kind of

sleep it off, and the
next day was a new day.

I think he felt that,
one, he could transcend

this provocation because
he had a higher goal.

I mean, he really... The
goal was important to him.

The mission was
important to him.

And he knew that he
was holding himself in

and constraining
himself for a real purpose.

The Sporting News, which had opposed
baseball's integration just a few years

earlier, now named Robinson
its very first Rookie of the Year.

In a national poll, he was elected the
second most popular man in America.

After Bing Crosby.

Robinson led the league
in stolen bases, led the

Dodgers in home runs, and
had a .297 batting average.

More people came to Ebbets Field that
summer than at any time in its history.

And he had helped drive the
Brooklyn Dodgers to the pennant.

Hit the tree, Jackie Robinson
Hit that ball, did you hit it?

Yes!

And that ain't all,
he stole the hole.

Yes, yes, Jackie's real gone.

Did

you see Jackie Robinson
Hit that ball, did you hit it?

Yes!

And that ain't all,
he stole the hole.

Yes, yes...

No other ball player on this
club, said Dixie Walker, who

had once wanted to quit
rather than play alongside him.

Owned by the black man.

Has done more to put the dodgers
up in the race than Robinson has.

He is everything Branch
Rickey said he was.

I have said that Robinson did
more for me than I did for him.

I had to change my outlook on racial
equations because being raised in the

south When the black ball player
came, I had to begin thinking differently.

And I had to understand
with clear eyes that I should

and must accept him
equally as I did other players.

So, to me, it... well,
I'd say it matured me.

The kind of moral suasion that you
hope will begin to take place does begin to

take place, because
people start asking questions.

Why aren't there more?

Where'd you get them from?

Where's the pool?

What happened in
the black leagues?

You know, all those things
begin to be questions.

And so the system got questioned
and challenged as a result of this.

The most important black person in
American history is Martin Luther King.

A close second, I would argue, is
Jackie Robinson, who came before Martin

Luther King and began the
consciousness raising of whites

and blacks that resulted in
Martin Luther King's career.

The heroism of Jackie Robinson,
playing the game that requires such

astonishing concentration, such
equipoise, a combination of relaxation and

concentration, to play it with his
intensity under the pressures he felt on

the field from racism, on the field from
racism, from the stands, off the field,

to be... the pressure to be, in the awful
phrase of the day, a credit to his race,

to do all that.

All that he did, under all that pressure,
is not just one of the great achievements

in the annals of sport, but one of the
great achievements of the human drama,

anywhere, anytime.

Negro baseball ain't dead yet.

Not by a long shot.

It may not be as fat
and sassy as it once was,

or as robust as we
get, but it is still active.

Ambulatory.

There was euphoria that
another bastion would call him, but

there was worry among the
owners of the Negro league teams.

They knew from other examples,
not just in baseball, that as soon as

integration came, the focus in the Negro
community would shift from the Negro

league teams to, oh, let's just
see what Jackie does in the majors.

And they knew it was just a matter of time
before other Negro leaguers, or just black

ball players, played for
other major league teams.

That's exactly what happened.

And the Negro league started
their inevitable slide downward.

Negro league
attendance dwindled away.

Black fans wanted to see Jackie
Robinson play in the majors.

In Chicago, thousands turned out in
their Sunday best to watch their hero play.

A train, the Jackie Robinson Special,
ran all the way from Norfolk, Virginia to

Cincinnati, stopping to
pick up fans along the way.

Overnight, the Dodgers had
become Black America's favorite team.

Oh, I voted for the
Brooklyn Dodgers.

There's no question about that.

The Dodgers were Black
America's team, period.

That I am
unequivocally sure about.

Yeah.

There was a feeling of
enormous pride in someone of my

color, finally doing something
that had the nation's ear.

Everyone was talking
about Jackie Robinson, the

first black athlete to play
Major League Baseball.

And daily, my father
would get the newspapers

to see exactly what
Jackie was doing.

And it was a
great deal of pride.

Frankie Masters and his orchestra
present, Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Fall of 1947.

The Dodgers faced the Yankees
in a hard-fought World Series.

The first series in which an
African-American had ever played.

Some of baseball's most famous
stars attended the first game.

Dave Roof, Tris
Speaker, even Ty Cobb.

The Indians

are trying to steal
second again.

Shea watches him dance off
first and tries to pick him up.

And

now Shea accidentally drops the
ball on another attempt to throw.

Robinson played well.

But the most memorable moments
involved two Italian-Americans.

The first was Dodger pinch
hitter Cookie Labagetto.

Wait a minute.

Stanky is being called back from
the plate and Labagetto goes up to hit.

One.

Jean Frito.

The pinch runner is at second.

The tying run.

It was game four.

Bottom of the ninth.

The Yankee pitcher was one
out away from throwing a no-hitter.

Eight and two-thirds innings.

Pitch to Labagetto.

Swung on and missed.

Fast ball.

Two men out.

Last of the ninth.

The pitch.

Swung on.

There's a drive.

Hit out toward the
right field corner.

Henrik is going back.

He can't get it.

Devins was within one
out of a no-hit ballgame.

So when Labagetto
broke up as no-hitter, he

scored to two runners
and broke up to ball.

And I don't think there's ever been such
a sound in Brooklyn as there was that was

let loose when that ball
hit the right field fence.

In the sixth inning of the sixth game,
with the Dodgers leading eight to five,

Joe DiMaggio came
to bat with two men on.

Al Gianfrido, nicknamed the
Little Italian, was playing left field.

And the crowd well knows
that one swing of this bat is

what is capable of making
it a brand new game again.

All right.

Joe leans in.

Here's the pitch.

Swung on.

Felt it.

It's a long one.

Deep enough.

And I'll always remember
seeing Gianfrido holding up

his black glove with a
white spot in the center of it.

DiMaggio, thinking it was a home
run, was coming into second base.

And when he realized the ball had been
caught, he stopped and kicked dirt and

walked in tight circles
out in the center field.

I think it's one of the few times
DiMaggio ever publicly was visibly upset.

Seventh and final game.

Yankee Stadium.

Page pitching for New York.

Ninth inning.

Mixes on first.

One out.

The left-hander
takes the stretch.

Has a look at the runner.

Throws to Bruce
Edwards, who swings.

It's a ground ball to Rizzuto.

Over to Sternweis for one out.

The relay to first.

It's a double play.

The Yanks win.

And Joe Page...

In the seventh game,
the Yankees beat the

Dodgers 5-2 for their
11th world championship.

If we must get racially conscious about
it and determining the laurels of heroism,

we'll have to pass the laurels to
the players of Italian extraction.

In short, it has been a great series,
no matter who your parents are.

Mendel Smith Pittsburgh, Korea.

فس On August 13th, 1948, at Comiskey Park
in Chicago, the oldest rookie ever to play

baseball walked to the
mound to start his first game

in the majors for Bill
Vecht's Cleveland Indians.

Leroy Satchel Paige had not been
happy when Jackie Robinson, and not he,

had been the first black
player signed for the majors.

And this was clearly his
last chance to show the

white world what it had
been missing all these years.

He was 42 years
old, or 38, or 44, or 48,

depending on whom
he'd been talking to lately.

Employing masterful control and his
whole arsenal of distinctive pitches,

including what he called his single
windup, triple windup, hesitation windup,

no windup, step and
pitch it, sidearm throw,

and back dodger, he
shut out the White Sox.

Then, did it again,
a week later.

Page has great difficulty
proving that he was not

pitching for the Indians
when the Pilgrims landed.

He is pitching stellar ball, treating
the batters, most of whom are flush with

youth, as though there were
simply babes in the baseball woods.

A reporter once asked
Page if he had any regrets.

Very few, he said.

But he was sorry he never got a
chance to strike out Babe Ruth.

That year, the Indians
won the World Series.

New

York's Yankee Stadium,
the house that Babe

Ruth built, celebrates
its 25th anniversary.

Stars from New York's 1923
World Champions and other

later-day Yankee heroes
appear in a baseball tintype.

But biggest cheers from 50,000 fans go
to the immortal star himself, Babe Ruth.

On June 13, 1948, Yankee
Stadium, the Yankee

Stadium celebrated
its first quarter century.

And despite constant pain,
the man who had christened it

with a towering home run
was determined to be on hand.

Ruth sat quietly while one by one,
the other old timers were introduced.

Then he started onto the field.

A sports writer recalled that
he walked out into the cauldron

of sound he must have known
better than any other man.

Looking thin and worn as
a result of his long illness,

the bambino is still the
game's greatest showman.

And nostalgia is thick
in the vast stadium when

he's greeted by another
Yankee builder, Ed Barrow.

Today, the Babe wears his
old uniform for the last time.

His famous number 3 will never
be worn by another Yankee player.

But will go to America's baseball
shrine at Cooperstown, New York.

For old times' sake, Babe
takes a cut for the cameraman.

The familiar stance and
swing that once made

him the most fearsome
slugger of them all.

His 1927 record of 60
home runs still stands.

Yankee Stadium celebrates
its birthday with one more

salute to American baseball's
greatest guy, Babe Ruth.

All my obligations are over,
he told his wife afterwards.

I'm going to rest now.

I'm going to take it easy.

And he handled his
sickness very well.

Ford Frick, who was later commissioner
of baseball, told me he went to see him the

day before he died.

And he said he went to see him
and he said it was an awful sight.

He said he was such a big man and
his arms were just little pipe stems.

And he said that awful voice, he said, Ruth
said, he said, you wanted to see me, Babe.

And Babe said...

It's always good
to see you, Ford.

Frick said it was just
something to say, but he said it.

And then Frick said he left and he
went home and the next day he was dead.

And it was just a dying fall.

Everything left.

At 8.01 in the evening on August
16, 1948, Babe Ruth died of cancer.

I can't honestly say...

that I approve the way in which
Ruth changed baseball, Ty Cobb wrote.

But he was the most natural
and unaffected man I ever knew.

I look forward to meeting
him again someday.

It was hot in New York, but 100,000
fans turned out to see him lie in state...

at Yankee Stadium.

At the funeral, Ruth's old
teammates had served as pallbearers.

I'd give a hundred bucks for an ice
cold beer, said Joe Dugan to Waite Hoyt.

Hoyt nodded.

So would the Babe.