This interview with Dick Cavett was conducted in 1972, the year Baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson passed away. (Jackie Robinson would have turned 100 in 2019.)
When the Brooklyn Dodgers positioned Robinson at first base for the first time on April 15, 1947 it broke the color line, the first black baseball player to play in the American Major League. He was named Rookie of the Year that first year, then led the Dodgers to six league championships and one World Series victory.
“Plenty of times I wanted to haul off when somebody insulted me for the color of my skin,” Robinson remarked. “But I had to hold to myself. I knew I was kind of an experiment. The whole thing was bigger than me.”
He ignored the taunts from fans and opposing players alike, Robinson stayed focused on being the best ball player possible, “Above anything else, I hate to lose.”
Jackie Robinson contributed significantly to the civil rights movement in the sixties as he noted, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, the first black person accepted. In 1997, Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson’s uniform number, #42, across all major league franchises, the first professional athlete of any type to be so honored.
“Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life.” - Jackie Robinson
