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Jackie Robinson

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Jackie Robinson, Why Him?

The story of Jackie Robinson has become one of America's most iconic and inspiring stories. Since 1947, American history has portrayed Jackie Robinson as a hero, and he has been idolized as a role model to the African American baseball community. It is an unarguable fact that he was the first to tear down the color barriers within professional baseball. The topic of Robinson’s role in integration has long been a point of discussion amongst baseball historians. Researchers have accumulated thousands of accredited documents and interviews with friends and team mates such as short stop, Pee Wee Reese, and team owner, Branch Rickey. However, few journalists have asked why Robinson was selected and what was Branch
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It was a moral contradiction that was a shining example that America’s statement of “separate but equal” was a lie. It was right after World War II that Branch Rickey decided to come up with his plan that some call the “Noble Experiment or Great Experiment” to integrate baseball (Glasser). The Jackie Robinson Story is based on the life of the baseball playing, civil rights leader; however, integration in baseball goes deeper. The story should actually begin with the events that motivated Rickey to change the culture in professional baseball. After all, without his dedication, the movement would have been set back years. As a little background on Rickey, some say he was baseball’s first scientist. He had a reputation for intelligent design. He devised new and effective ways to instruct players and sharpen their skills; invented training devices, like base-sliding pits and batting tees that are commonplace today but were unheard of then; and pioneered the use of complex statistical measures to evaluate performance. He created what came to be known as the farm system, a network of minor-league teams under the control of the major-league team, where young players could be placed, taught, developed, and evaluated, eventually providing a “harvest” of fresh talent for the parent club (Glasser). In a 1954 article, Dodson quotes “Rickey had a
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