"Why Jackie?" Part 1: Bob Kendrick & Jerry Hairston on the life of Jackie Robinson

Black Diamonds

SiriusXM

History, Baseball, Black History, Sports, Negro Leagues, Documentary, Equality, Society & Culture, Civil Rights

4.8 • 617 Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hear from Negro Leagues icons Buck O'Neil, Henry Aaron, and Jackie Robinson himself, as Bob Kendrick takes you deep inside the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum to tell the story of Jackie Robinson's rise from the Kansas City Monarchs to the Brooklyn Dodgers and American History, and answers the simple question: "Why Jackie?" Then, (37:49) former Dodger Jerry Hairston joins Bob to talk about his grandfather's Negro Leagues career, and the legacy of Jackie Robinson in the Dodger Blue, 74 years later.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jackie Robinson changed baseball.
0:09.0	He changed America.
0:11.0	He started the Civil Rights Movement.
0:13.0	He ended 60 years of exclusion.
0:16.0	But why Jackie?
0:18.0	I'm Bob Kendrick,
0:20.0	president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City,
0:23.2	and this is Black Diamonds, the stories of Negro League's baseball.
0:31.0	We're tackling something big here, Jackie. If we fail, no one will try again for 20 years.
0:38.3	But if we succeed...
0:39.8	If we succeed, Brooklyn will win a pennant.
0:42.4	Yes, that too.
0:44.6	But we're dealing with rights here,
0:46.5	the right of any American to play baseball, the American game.
0:50.6	You think he's our boy, Glenn?
0:53.1	Well, he can run, he can hit, and he can field. But can he take it? That I don't know. What do you think, Jackie? Well, I can try. Think you've got guts enough to play the game no matter what happens? They'll shout insults at you. They'll come into your spikes first, they'll throw at your head.
1:13.8	They've been throw to my head for a long time, Mr. Ricky.
1:16.2	Suppose I'm a player in the heat of an important game.
1:22.6	Suppose I collide with you at second base, and when I get up I say, you'll dirty black so-and-so.
1:23.7	What do you do?
1:28.2	Mr. Ricky, do you want a ball player who's afraid to fight back?
1:31.3	I want a ball player with guts enough not to fight back.
	...

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