Baseball and its Broken Barrier

Baseball was first known an official professional sport in 1871. The game was invented in 1845, as you will read on this page. It was invented by Joy Cartwright who was a resident of New York City. Along with Cartwright, his teammates on the first ever team known as the New York Knickerbockers created the first rules and regulations in 1845. The first recorded game was in the year of 1846. As you have read baseball's first game was in 1846, but what you haven't read may startle you. It was exactly 100 years after baseball was created that a black man finally participated in a professional game. That man was the famous Jackie Robinson. Robinson was a highly talented athlete, yet it was always hidden due to extreme racism during his teenage years. He attended the local high school in his hometown of Cairo Georgia. After high school he went off John Muir Junior college because his single mother could not affort to send him to a large school. In college he was a 4 sport standout athlete. He played football, baseball, basketball, and ran track. His best sport was baseball and was named the regions best player in 1938. After junior college, Robinson continued on the education path and went to UCLA. Robinson excelled in 4 sports at one of the biggest known colleges in America. Not only that, he was the first ever to letter in 4 varsity sports. Although he had all this success, he was forced to leave due to money problems at home. This didn't allow him to graduate from college. He was forced to go into the service for 3 years. Once he was out of the service, he joined the Negro League. The Negro League was also a professional baseball league, but not well known and very poor. He played in that league from 1944 to 46. Also in 1946 he got an offer from the Brooklyn Dodgers to join there team in the true professional baseball league.

The color barrier of professional baseball was finally broken. It took 100 years for it to be broken, and the man named Jackie Robinson was the one. He will be forever remembered by anyone that knows baseball. He is arguably the most known name in baseball history, and may always be. He had many hardships while playing for the Dodgers, as you will read here. Fans from everyone, mainly away games shouted racist comments, and threw things at him while playing. Despite all this, he was very succesfull in his first year, leading the league in hitting with a .349 average. In that same year, he lead the league in stolen bases, and took home the MVP award. To honor Jackie Robinson baseball teams around the league wear his number 42 on the day of April 15th, which was his first professional game. The Hall of Fame also banned his number for anyone to wear. Jackie Robinson was that important to baseball to where not any single man can wear his number. If that isn't prestigious, I dont know what is. Jackie Robinson will never be forgotten.