Jackie Makes Good

Last fall, Brooklyn's Branch ("The Brain") Rickey tossed a bomb into baseball and stuck his fingers in his ears. He signed up Jack Roosevelt Robinson, a Negro shortstop and onetime football star at U.C.L.A., for his Montreal farm club (TIME, Nov. 5). It was the first time a Negro had ever played Class AA ball without being passed off as a Cuban, a Mexican, or an Indian and there were a good many skeptics who said that it wouldn't work. By last week some of them would admit they were wrong: Jackie Robinson was the International League's leading batsman (.378) and Montreal's standout star.

The first test rangy, graceful Jackie Robinson had to pass was a session at the plate in spring training. On the mound were some fastball pitchers, some of them Southerners. There was a feeling that one of them might try "spinning his cap" (pitching at his head). They didn't, but Jackie Robinson was blazing the way for other Negro ballplayers and he Was jittery.

He flunked the batting test. Afield he showed a minor talent, too. His aim was erratic and he had to be moved from shortstop to second base for the easier peg to first. All he seemed to have was dazzling speed on the bases and a modest, earnest attitude that quickly put him in solid with his white Montreal teammates.

Southern Cross. Because of its Negro player, Montreal had to cancel a Southern exhibition tour. But in the first game of the regular season Jackie belted four hits including a homer and he lost his jitters.

He expected trouble at Baltimore, lone "Southern" city on the circuit, but got more at Syracuse, where the players ragged him a bit. Says he: "When I didn't pay any attention, they dropped it." He stays at the same hotel as his teammates in every city but Baltimore, rides in a compartment by himself on trains, gets along well with Manager Clay Hopper, an ex-Mississippian. Robinson neither drinks nor smokes. In 100 games with Montreal this year, he has made 133 hits, stolen 33 bases, scored 100 runs. With him as its top attraction, Montreal's paid admissions on the road jumped to triple last season's.

Although not a power hitter (he has only three home runs), Robinson makes up the difference by beating out bunts, stretching singles into doubles and doubles into triples. Last week, with Montreal 15 games out front and the parent Brooklyn Dodgers puffing to stay one jump ahead of the Cardinals, Boss Rickey asked himself whether he should call Robinson up to the majors but apparently thought better of it. But even if Robinson got no chance at a Brooklyn uniform until 1947, he had already accomplished his mission. Other big-league moguls were already hunting around for Negro rookies of promise.

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