Jonathan Eig’s 2007 biography Opening Day is the story of Jackie Robinson’s first season in major league baseball. Most folks know that Robinson broke the “color barrier” by becoming Major League Baseball’s first African American player with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Opening Day delves into all that was behind that pivotal moment in American civil rights history.
Drawing on recent interviews with many involved, including Jackie Robinson’s wife Rachel, as well as a great deal of research, Eig sets up the story of Dodger’s owner Branch Rickey’s great experiment against a backdrop of an America, just 60 years ago, where black citizens could not stay in the same hotels, or eat in the same restaurants as whites.
Branch Rickey's Great Experiment
As the great American pastime, baseball -–which was becoming even bigger in a relaxed postwar climate – seemed to be the perfect stage on which to test integration of the races, but it required just the right subjects if it was to work. Rickey, a forward-thinking man who believed that “luck is the residue of design” was a baseball innovator, the first to develop “farm” teams to supply his major league clubs.
Rickey was also a religious man, who believed that segregation was wrong. He developed a plan to integrate baseball, a game the majority of Americans followed closely, as a step towards full racial equality. Along the way, of course, he would corner the market on the better black players, most of whom were playing in their own “Negro Leagues.”
The Dodgers owner spent several years trying to find the one black athlete who was both good enough to justify this monumental leap, and more importantly, could handle being at the center of what would undoubtedly be an emotionally charged position. Every American would be watching closely. 28 year-old Jackie Robinson, a standout multi-sport athlete at UCLA, but certainly not the best black baseball player of the time, fit Rickey’s needs.
Jackie Robinson Was the Perfect Man to Break the Color Line
In Robinson he saw a strong silent type, seemingly able to let negativity roll of his back, but without “giving in” to it. He played ball with verve, but not with the characteristically showoff style of the Negro Leaguers. He had a certain dignity, and he was newly married with a young baby. After meeting with Rickey and promising not to lose his temper, Jackie Robinson took the field on opening day, April 15th, 1947. This book tells of what led up the moment, and of the season that followed, through game seven of the World Series.
Most good stories are character-driven, and one of the strengths of Eig’s book is the characters we get to meet. Besides Branch Rickey and Robinson himself (a man who, it will become clear, was hard to know), are the strong and supportive Rachel, Jackie’s friend, columnist, and cohort Wendell Smith, and many of the players of the era, including PeeWee Reese and Dixie Walker.
Opening Day Clears Up Some Historical Inaccuracies
Opening Day has been touted, in part, as a book that explodes some of the myths surrounding this historic season. For example, it has often been believed that Dixie Walker, one of the Brooklyn stars, was the best example of southern-bred players’ intolerance for Robinson. Eig shows that, while Walker and others (both Dodgers and throughout the league) may not have truly befriended Robinson, their “cruelty” has likely been exaggerated, especially as they came to see him as a teammate and fellow player. Perhaps more accurately, it is a book that, via its researched accuracy, clears up some things.
Author Jonathan Eig is also the author of a biography on Lou Gehrig (Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig. 2006, Simon & Schuster) and he writes about baseball with ease, with a true fan’s fanaticism, and respect for the game’s importance in our culture. As a result, his book Opening Day is one that will please both fans and historians, as well as anyone interested in a true tale of courage and progress.
Eig, Jonathan, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season, 2007, New York, Simon & Schuster, 346 pages. (ISBN: 978-0-7432-9460-7).
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