Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt Robinson (1919 to 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. He broke the color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, ending a segregation that had confined black players to the Negro leagues since the 1880s. Raised in Pasadena, California, he was a four-sport student athlete at Pasadena Junior College and UCLA, better known at the time for football than baseball. In a ten-year major league career he won the first Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons from 1949 to 1954, and took the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949. He played in six World Series, helped the Dodgers win the 1955 title, and entered the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. In 1997 Major League Baseball retired his number 42 across every team, and each April 15 is now marked as Jackie Robinson Day. This entry treats him as an athlete whose play changed the sport itself.