“Blacks lived right next door”: Interview with Ralph Branca.

  “the Dodgers are inept and helpless”: “. . . Cardinals and Red Sox Again—Who Else?” New York Post, April 15, 1947.

  “C’mon, Jackie!”: “Jackie Sparks Dodgers,” Richmond Afro-American, April 19, 1947.

  thirty-three ounces and thirty-five inches: Interview with Anne Jewell, Louisville Slugger Museum.

  “Too bad about that double-play”: “Powerhouse,” Daily News, April 16, 1947.

  “George Washington and Abraham Lincoln”: Interview with Gene Hermanski.

  a mob of 250 people: “Looking ’Em Over,” Richmond Afro-American, April 19, 1947.

  he released a heavy sigh: Ibid.

  “It was all right”: “Debut ‘Just Another Game’ to Jackie,” Sporting News, April 23, 1947.

  CHAPTER FIVE: UP IN HARLEM

  “on that Triple-Borough Bridge”: Arthur Mann, Baseball Confidential (New York: David McKay Co., 1951), 130.

  “I don’t even have a hotel room”: Ibid., 131.

  Stevens had grown up in poverty: Interview with Ed Stevens.

  “I was considered one of the best-fielding”: Ibid.

  his Dodger days were numbered: Interview with Howie Schultz.

  sprain an ankle and miss a few games: Parrott, The Lords of Baseball, 250.

  458,000 black people: Biondi, To Stand and Fight, 3.

  “The Negro people”: Ibid., 1.

  “I consider it a great honor”: “Jackie Robinson Chairman of UNAVA,” People’s Voice, June 1, 1946.

  “Branch Rickey was not favorably inclined”: Interview with Lester Rodney.

  go slowly and avoid unnecessary risk: Parrott, The Lords of Baseball, 250.

  “Jackie’s greatest danger is social”: “Meddling of Well-Wishers Hurts Jackie,” Amsterdam News, April 19, 1947.

  “The Negroes have the legs”: Roger Kahn, The Era (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1993), 43.

  Jackie Robinson Booster Club: “Jackie Robinson Boosters Ready to Support Star,” Amsterdam News, April 19, 1947.

  a high, inside curve: Allan Roth scorecard, Retrosheet, Inc.

  “That’s because their heels are longer”: Kahn, The Era, 44.

  736 servicemen: “Giants Defeat Dodgers, 4–3, As 53,000 Jam Polo Grounds,” Daily Mirror, April 20, 1947.

  dining at Lawson Bowman’s: Photograph, Chicago Defender, May 3, 1947.

  Filtered light and the sound of traffic: Interview with Stan Strull, former batboy.

  the worst locker in the clubhouse: Sketches of clubhouse made by Stan Strull for author Christopher Renino.

  Players were supposed to mark a chalkboard: Interview with Stan Strull.

  a woman named Mabel C. Brown: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  Without having seen the place: Ibid.

  Robinson gave an interview: Interview with Gil Jonas.

  “When my father had some money”: Ibid.

  “Would you prefer another infield position: “Robinson Confident of Brooklyn Pennant Success This Campaign,” Lafayette High School newspaper, undated article from Gil Jonas scrapbook.

  he snapped a picture of the athlete: Gil Jonas scrapbook.

  “All hands agree now”: “Robinson May Oust Stanky at Second Base,” New York Post, April 22, 1947.

  a few snippets of the invective: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 128.

  “Figuratively, he was still fighting the Civil War”: Interview with Howie Schultz.

  “For one wild and rage-crazed minute”: Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 60.

  “Listen, you yellow-bellied cowards”: Ibid., 61.

  Even Dixie Walker: Rowan and Robinson, Wait Till Next Year, 183.

  The Sporting News noted that all ballplayers: “Jockeys Ride Every Rookie,” Sporting News, May 21, 1947.

  “We will treat Robinson the same”: Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 183.

  “Ballplayers who don’t want to be in the same ball park”: “Name Guilty in Robinson Plot,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1947.

  “I didn’t know people could be that cruel”: Interview with Gil Jonas.

  “I watched people who were hard-hearted”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER SIX: PRAYING FOR BASE HITS

  “Hiya, Babe”: “. . . The ‘Big Guy’ of Baseball Comes Home,” New York Post, April 28, 1947.

  Bobby Thomson, a rookie: Interview with Bobby Thomson.

  Nor was he interested in Robinson’s color: Ibid.

  “We knew he was pretty good”: Ibid.

  Louis waved to Robinson: “Stanky Bunt Beats Ottmen in 9th, 9–8,” New York Times, April 28, 1947.

  still in debt by about $200,000: Donald McRae, Heroes Without a Country (New York: Ecco, 2002), 242.

  impressed by the sharpness of his mind: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 92.

  presenting him with an autographed baseball: “From A to Z,” Richmond Afro-American, May 3, 1947.

  Photographers sprang from the dugout: Red Barber, 1947: When All Hell Broke Loose (New York: Da Capo Press, 1982), 162.

  tiny bedroom, eight-feet-by-twelve: Interview with Rachel Robinson; visit to 526 MacDonough.

  Brown spent most of her waking hours: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  Finian’s Rainbow and Brigadoon: Untitled, undated newspaper article from Rachel Robinson’s scrapbook.

  “I think sometimes people miss that part”: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  Rachel would ask the sorts of questions: Ibid.

  “like an elevator in the Empire State Building”: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 145.

  gnashed his teeth: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  the only thing he ever admitted being worried about: Ibid.

  Robinson wondered if he would see Schultz’s name: Robinson and Smith, Jackie Robinson, 145–46.

  Robinson worried: Ibid.

  His biggest fear: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  Not one of them invited Jackie and Rachel: Ibid.

  Norma King, the wife: Interview with Norma King.

  Rachel had dreamed of the day: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  kneel by the side of their bed and pray: Ibid.

  “Our approach was almost humorous”: Interview with Colin Powell.

  stopped taping it: “Dodgers Stay With Robinson,” New York Post, May 1, 1947.

  “that blacks weren’t ready for the majors: Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 59.

  “There were times”: Ibid., 63.

  “There were things some people take for granted”: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  “Before I play with you”: Leo Durocher, Nice Guys Finish Last (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), 206.

  “Stanky, although he was from the South”: Transcript of Rowan interview of Robinson, Library of Congress.

  “That’s a hit in my book”: Barber, 1947, 213.

  “There’s no reason to get all excited”: “Dodgers Stay With Robinson,” New York Post, May 1, 1947.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: CARDINAL SINS

  two weeks to cut nine players: “Durocher to Help Rickey Cut 9 Dodgers Adrift by May 19,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 3, 1947.

  considerable sum of $250,000: “Pirates Purchase Higbe for Quarter of Million,” Daily News, May 4, 1947.

  “poverty and distress, want and sickness”: “Boro Opens $650,000 Drive for N.Y. Fund,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 2, 1947.

  “I remember when I was a young boy”: Peter Golenbock, Bums (New York: G.P. Putnam Sons, 1984), 149.

  “That there’s dissension on the club”: “Cards’ Poor Showing No. 1 Puzzle to Fans,” Daily News, May 3, 1947.

  “Sure, we’re down in the dumps”: “Cards Resolute Despite Slump,” Daily News, May 4, 1947.

  A milk-chugging, vitamin-popping: Interview with Marty Marion.

  “I heard talk”: Kahn, The Era, 56.

  carving and smoothing the handles: Interview with Marty Marion.

  “For me at the time”: Kahn, The Era, 56.

  “beat his gums”: Notes from Tygiel interview with Bob Broeg.

  “Tell them this is America”: Ford Frick, Games, Asterisks, and People (New York: Crown Publishing, 1973), 97.

  “I don’t know how Sam delivered the message”: Ibid.

  “You know baseball players”: Transcript of Jerome Holtzman interview of Frick.

  Stanley Woodward broke the story: “Frick, Breadon Together Quash Anti-Negro Action,” Herald Tribune, May 9, 1947.

  “If you do this you will be suspended”: Ibid.

  a race riot had left one prisoner dead: “Race Riot Rages in Army Prison,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 3, 1947.

  school officials in Albany were battling: “Judge Voids School Ban on Robeson in Albany,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 6, 1947.

  Burt Shotton didn’t believe it: “Check NL ‘Robinson Strike,’ ” Daily Mirror, May 9, 1947.

  “essentially right and factual”: “Views of Baseball,” Herald Tribune, May 10, 1947.

  playing golf and chopping down trees: Durocher, Nice Guys Finish Last, 261.

  “writers have been studiously trying to avoid”: “Robinson Issue Must Be Faced and Settled,” Daily Mirror, May 10, 1947.

  “the presence of Negroes”: “The First Negro Player Steps on the Scales,” Sporting News, May 21, 1947.

  “a big leaguer of ordinary ability”: “. . . Lynch Mobs Don’t Always Wear Hoods,” New York Post, May 10, 1947.

  “Man, they just don’t pitch Jackie”: “Dan Burley’s Confidentially Yours,” Amsterdam News, May 10, 1947.

  He checked the lineup card: Robinson, Jackie Robinson, 145.

  “the loneliest man”: “. . . Lynch Mobs Don’t Always Wear Hoods,” New York Post, May 10, 1947.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: THE GREAT ROAD TRIP

  players read and discussed: Barber, 1947, 176.

  It hadn’t occurred to Branca to ask: Interview with Branca.

  “just can’t bring the Nigger here”: Parrott, The Lords of Baseball, 242.

  Chandler had already been on the phone: “Report Robinson Asked Cops’ Aid After Threats,” Daily News, May 10, 1947.

  “Jackie has been accepted in baseball”: Ibid.

  Freddy Schmidt, a pitcher: Interview with Schmidt.

  “We voted not to play”: David Falkner, Great Time Coming (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 165.

  “Well, that’s the end of Williams”: Burt Solomon, Baseball Timeline (London: DK Publishing, 2001), 445.

  “And don’t bring your team back here”: Parrott, The Lords of Baseball, 243.

  he let the rest of the team check into: “Hotel ‘Bars’ Jackie in Philly,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 17, 1947.

  “At least two letters of a nature”: “Robinson Reveals Written Threats,” New York Times, May 10, 1947.

  hearing rumors of threatening letters: “Report Robinson Asked Cops’ Aid After Threats,” Daily News, May 10, 1947.

  “Mr. Rickey thought”: Interview with Buzzie Bavasi.

  “Some of the fellows may be riding Jackie”: “Opposing Players Attempting to Avoid Taking Rap for Any Mishap to Jackie,” Sporting News, May 21, 1947.

  Chapman told his players: Interview with Schmidt.

  “Jackie, you know”: Ibid.

  “I know what you are going thru”: Library of Congress archives.

  “I happen to be a white Southerner”: Ibid.

  “Saw you play in Wichita”: Ibid.

  “We are members”: Ibid.

  “Your decision to break”: Ibid.

  “I can’t take it anymore”: Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 169.

  His mood darkened: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  He made little or no effort: “Jackie Will Get Equal Chance, Rest Up to Him,” Sporting News, May 21, 1947.

  “He was the kind of person”: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  “a loving send-off”: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 180.

  an R-17 instead of a G-7: Hillerich & Bradsby archives.

  “He was under such pressure”: Interview with Branca.

  They appreciated the way he kept to himself: Interviews with Bragan, et al.

  just so long as they respected him: Transcript of Rowan interview of Robinson, Library of Congress.

  “I wasn’t much in favor”: Interview with Jack Banta.

  “To be a Negro was to live”: Sinclair Lewis, Kingsblood Royal (New York: Popular Library, 1947), 62.

  Robinson preferred newspapers: Interview with Rachel Robinson.

  “I happen to be a bit proud”: Transcript of Rowan interview with Robinson, Library of Congress.

  CHAPTER NINE: TEARING UP THE PEA PATCH

  Some apartment buildings banned: “Apartment Houses Barring Video Sets,” New York Times, February 13, 1947.

  ten beers at ten cents a beer: “Game Challenged by Television’s Growth,” Sporting News, May 21, 1947.

  manufacturers produced 20 million radios: Monthly reports, Radio-Electronics-Television Manufacturers, TV Factbook #18, January 15, 1954.

  “Certain Aspects of Bovine Obstetrics”: Bob Edwards, Fridays With Red (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 35.

  “one foot and five toes in the pickle bag”: “Allen and Barber Give Fans Crisp, Colorful W.S. Airing,” Sporting News, January 8, 1947.

  “Well, I’ll be a suck-egg mule”: “ ‘Suck-Egg-Mule’ Kicks Up Fuss, So Barber Explains,” Sporting News, October 22, 1947.

  a late lunch one afternoon: Barber, 1947, 49.

  “a fine young man”: Ibid., 50.

  “I’m going to bring a Negro”: Ibid.

  He dabbed some butter: Ibid.

  “He had shaken me to my heels”: Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 54.

  “I’m going to quit”: Jules Tygiel, editor, The Jackie Robinson Reader (New York: Dutton, 1997), 58.

  “It tortured me”: Ibid.

  “Well, I said, I’m Southern”: Ibid., 59.

  “If I did do anything constructive”: Ibid., 63.

  Margot Hayward and her cousin: Interview with Margot Hayward.

  “I always thought their lives”: Ibid.

  Little would sit next to his radio: Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine Books, 1965), 169.

  “become something in life”: Ibid., 35.

  “It didn’t bother my teammates”: Ibid.

  Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade”: Ibid., 36.

  “Well, yes, sir, I’ve been thinking”: Ibid., 43.

  “Jackie Robinson had, then”: Ibid., 179.

  CHAPTER TEN: PEE WEE’S EMBRACE

  “If tens of thousands of black Southerners”: Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 51.

  “Perhaps never in history”: Ibid., 52.

  “Police rookies patrol the streets”: The WPA Guide to Cincinnati (The Cincinnati Historical Society, 1987), 224.

  Robinson played cards: “Chandler Praises Jackie, Wishes Him Luck,” Richmond Afro-American, May 17, 1947.

  They played for no more than twenty-five cents: “Dugout Doings,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 7, 1947.

  William Mallory bussed tables: Interview with William Mallory.

  many carried shoeboxes: Interviews with Mallory, Donald Spencer, et al.

  skies started to clear two hours before the game: “Dodgers Bow to Reds, 7–5,” Daily Mirror, May 14, 1947.

  “It was like a picnic, like a holiday”: Interviews with Marian and Donald Spencer.

  “The place was packed—all blacks”: Interview with Eddie Erautt.

  “I was warming up on the mound”: Golenbock, Bums, 161.

  “I saw the incident in Cincinnati”: Interview with Lester Rodney.

  “the toast of the town”: “Dodgers’ Pitchers in the Groove—Bullpen to Mound to Showers,” New York Post, May 14, 1947.

  “applauded every time he stepped”: “Blackwell to Face Hatten Today; Tatum Goes Well in Debut Here,” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 14, 1947.

  “My father had done his own soul searching”: “In Brooklyn, Honoring Men Who Did the Right Thing,” New York Times, November 2, 2005.

  “You know, I didn’t particularly”: “What Jackie Robinson Meant to an Old Friend,” New York Times, July 17, 1977.

  warm-up pitches sailed high: “Dodgers Glad to Escape Reds’ Lair as Road Setbacks Increase,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 15, 1947.

  “Our team, baseballically speaking”: “Rickey Lauds Shotton, Team at Rotary Lunch,” Brooklyn Eagle, June 5, 1947.

  “It is true that I had stored”: Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 80.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE GLORIOUS CRUSADE

  not even to the beautiful young secretary: Interview with Wyonella Smith.

  “a glorious crusade”: W.E.B. DuBois, Dusk of Dawn (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 130.

  “Everybody was great to me”: Transcript of Jerome Holtzman interview of Wendell Smith.

  he was so affable: Interviews with Wyonella Smith and Will Robinson.

  “I wish I could sign you, too, kid”: “Wendell Smith—A Pioneer for Black Athletes,” Sporting News, June 22, 1974.

  He simply went home and cried: Interview with Wyonella Smith.

  seventeen-dollar-a-week job: “Wendell Smith—A Pioneer for Black Athletes,” Sporting News, June 22, 1974.

  “While Hitler cripples the Jews”: Hogan, Shades of Glory, 327.

  “Have you seen any Negro ballplayers”: Transcript of Holtzman interview of Wendell Smith.

  the owners stared in silence: Ibid.

  Smith would say he had phoned Muchnick: Ibid.

  “wasn’t necessarily the best player”: Ibid.

  “And when I said ‘Jackie Robinson’ ”: Ibid.

  “ ‘Yes, he’s a bad guy to get along with’ ”: Ibid.

  “Now, Mr. Rickey”: Letter from Smith to Rickey, Library of Congress.

  “Through all of this”: Transcript of Holtzman interview of Wendell Smith.

  “Sure there was added pressure being Jewish”: Hank Greenberg, Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2001), 110.

  “That particular play”: “The Sports Beat,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 24, 1947.

  “Hope I didn’t hurt you”: Ibid.