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I am perfectly happy with the current state of major league baseball.
I am also the OP.
Jackie Robinson played in Pasadena, not too far from where I live.
I only wonder why "42" has to be such a big deal.
It's called a MOVIE!!! you are making it a big deal for whatever reason. Are you shocked that Hollywood spends money to promote their movies so you go watch them? Seriously, is this the first movie you have ever heard about?
Why did they make such a big deal about the Avengers, their not even real.
As a baseball purist I believe that on field performance should be the only criteria for ones admission into the Hall of Fame. Can someone in good faith please tell me how Jackie Robinsons play warrants a position in the Hall of Fame? As a diehard Yankees fan aLLOW ME TO THROW SOME STATS YOUR WAY
Nothing against Mattingly, but posting the statistics of your favorite white player isn't making you look any better here.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smittyjohnny38
As a baseball purist I believe that on field performance should be the only criteria for ones admission into the Hall of Fame. Can someone in good faith please tell me how Jackie Robinsons play warrants a position in the Hall of Fame? As a diehard Yankees fan aLLOW ME TO THROW SOME STATS YOUR WAY
Don Mattingly hits: 2152
Jackie Robinson hits: 1518
Don Mattingly homeruns: 222
Jackie Robinson homeruns: 139
Don Mattingly fielding percentage: 996
Jackie Robinson fielding percentage: 983
Don Mattingly gold gloves: 9
Jackie Robonsin gold gloves: 0
I can go on and on even further with more stats if you want!
How is it fair that Jackie Robinson is in the hall of fame and not Don Mattingly if Don Mattingly is better in every category and overall better? I think so. Jackie Robinson was above average but not Hall worthy. Racism got Jackie Robinson into the Hall of Fame
You just attacked Jackie Robinson for not winning awards that didnt even exist when he was playing the game.
Dear God, the man retired before Mattingly was even born.
Jackie played 9 years, Don Mattingly played 13
and LOL that you switched between percentages and raw numbers, if you do all your categories by percentages, then they are tied with both players having 2 categories where they are clearly ahead of the other player.
Thank you for your honesty, but please dont say he paved the way for baseball as we know it today. I would argue that Roberto Clemente paved the way for baseball in its present day as there is a huge Hispanic contingent in baseball and only 7% AA.
Jackie paved the way for Roberto Clemente too because Clemente was black, and wouldn't have been able to play pre-1947.
Besides, Clemente was not the first great Latino in the MLB.
BTW...most of this new Hispanic contingent in the MLB are black.
The movie is promoted as "don't play the game, change the game."
What does "change the game" mean?
People who were good baseball players drive the success of the major leagues.
A lot of good baseball players in major league baseball happen to be black people.
Jackie Robinson was a good baseball player.
80% of baseball fans today most likely watched their first baseball game after Doby Gray and Jackie Robinson first played and during a time when black baseball players were a league fixture.
What is the point of the movie, 42?
Jackie Robinson and Dobie Gray accomplished what they did.
Why make a big deal about it?
Very few people will alive find black baseball players unusual.
How come we can't "judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character?"
Jackie Robinson's story is a great one that I predict will do well at the box office. Feel free to sit this one out since it obviously upsets you.
He went to UCLA, then served in the military during WWII, where he had to deal with the segregation and racist sentiments in the Army.
After attending Pasadena Junior College, he transferred to UCLA. Baseball was not where he was first noticed though, by the general public anyway. In the 2000 ESPN Emmy award winning documentary "Sports Century" former Brooklyn Dodger Joe Black pointed out that whenever he would go to a matinee, instead of showing upcoming movie trailers, they would show small snippets of current events, not only news but sports items as well. Jackie Robinson was shown on different occasions as he was a star running back for the UCLA Bruins. In fact, as proof of being an all around athlete, he was a 4 sport letter man. In the documentary, long time L.A. Times sports reporter Jim Murray reported in that documentary that it was not uncommon at all for Jackie to participate in a couple events in the track field, get done, get dressed, and play in a baseball game. The 4 sports he lettered in? Baseball, football, basketball, and track.
Then for three years after that he served in the military. And after the charges on Robinson were dismissed, he received an honorable discharge from the Army. After one year in the Negro Leagues and the one year in Montreal, he became a Dodger at 28 years of age.
Did he continuously win batting title after batting title from the mid 40's to the late 50's? Nope, I believe those accomplishments would go to Stan Musial first, and later by Willie Mays (and a few other players.) But Robinson did win the batting title in 1949. In a ten year MLB career he was an all-star six times..
And led the league twice in stolen bases. Stolen bases wasn't a high priority for the Brooklyn Dodgers as they had the big bats, starting with Duke Snider and Roy Campanella, both in the HOF. Gil Hodges and Carl Furillo also were power hitters, Furillo winning the batting title in '53. But if anybody could spook a pitcher and to get the pitcher to commit a balk, Robinson could do it better than anybody. Same goes for being caught in a rundown between the bases. I can count on one hand the amount of players who would steal home in a World Series game. Robinson is one of them.
Robinson went into the Hall Of Fame in 1962, his first year of eligibility. He went in with 77.5% of the vote.
One last thought regarding that Sports Century documentary. Sportscaster Bob Costas closes out the show with this observation.
"Were there better players than Jackie Robinson? Yea. Are there more important baseball players than Jackie Robinson? Who?"
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