"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Baseball’s season, like life, is long -- 162 games, 1,458 innings. In the end, the cream rises -- quality tells.
Quality told in April 1946, when Jackie Robinson went to spring training with the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers’ highest minor league affiliate.
In an exhibition game he faced a veteran pitcher, a Kentuckian, who thought he would test Robinson’s grit by throwing a fastball at his head. Robinson sprawled in the dirt, then picked himself up, dusted himself off and lashed the next pitch for a single.
The next time Robinson came to bat, the Kentuckian again threw at Robinson’s head. Again, Robinson hit the dirt. And then he hit the next pitch. Crushed it, for a triple.
After the game the Kentucky pitcher went to Robinson’s manager, another southerner, and said simply, one Southerner to another: "Your colored boy is going to do all right."
''The Jackie Robinson story is to Americans what the Passover story is to Jews: it must be told to every generation so that we never forget.'' Jules Tygiel
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