In 2007. It is about an hour. I had the pleasure of introducing him two years ago. When he was discussing luckiest man, the life and death of lou gehrig. Now to be introducing him as he discusses his book opening day the story of Jackie Robinsons first season feels like a book end experience. I was looking at the similarities of the two men he has chronicled in baseball and beyond other aspects of their lives. Both men share these qualities courage, commitment, and commitment was not just playing excellent but to citizenship and contribution to larger society. The other quality both had indeed was character. They both died young. But are remembered as sports icons and in both cases as spectacular as their baseball statistics were there was a lot more to each man. And of course they each represented fabled new york teams and i guess mortal enemies and as such as the transition in life as i started off the fan of one and later made the crossing to the other. But have an appreciation for the outstanding players on both teams. From excerpts that i have read from our authors book on Jackie Robinsons first season, it is not just the usual account of first he did this and then he did that on the field. You get a feel for the larger context in which he operated. Is one great thing for oldtimers like me so that my son once asked me if there was an alphabet when i was a kid. I remember socalled baseball history in which it was just a hagiography. Things were wonderful, there was no discussion off of the field because there might have been a contradiction, but now to see how the discipline has matured over the last 30 or so years, and that has been to me evident that not so many years ago, there was a discussion or a journal article on the Jackie Robinsons first season in which Jackie Robinson, all the accounts came from white newspapers. One of the things that our offer author does so well, is two o talk about life beyond what the Privileged Society was like. If you think about it, you might not think about this when jackie integrated the baseball field, he went back to a small hotel. And when the team traveled, there were places that he could not stay. It was still almost a completely segregated society. Of course, jackie is breaking the color line and made for considerable change and even those people who did not like Jackie Robinson, felt threatened by him, by the end of the season respected him as a capable performer and a gentleman. Jonathans book is eminently readable as attested to by his kids. In one of the excerpts, i believe his son said he liked the book even better than the first one because it was shorter. I dont know how one could want the book to be shorter because it is totally fascinating. And as my son told me from the first day that he went to the a veteran ofand as preschool and kindergarten, he said very seriously to me on that first day of school that they are not messing around anymore. We have an author who was not messing around and it is my pleasure to introduce jonathan eig. Thank you for coming and thank you for that nice introduction. I have to correct an error. The program says i tried my hand at baseball before earning a degree in journalism. Anyone who knows me knows that i was called a four tool player in the little league. I had no glove, no stick, i could not run or throw. I turned to writing at a very early age because i recognized that i would not make it on my athletic skills. There is a famous statute in brooklyn. It is an eight foot bronze statue and by his side is peewee reese. The plaque reads the statue commemorates a moment in cincinnati with jackie may 13, 1947, robinsons rookie season first road trip. He was being heckled so brutally by the crowd, that his teammates who was from kentucky and had a considerable following, walked across the diamond and in a gesture of support and brotherhood put his arm around Jackie Robinson and silence that hostile crowd. Its considered one of the great moments in baseball history. There have been Childrens Books poems written to this moment. It was this moment i thought about two years ago when my view garrett book came out i received a letter from eight fan who said i should do a book about the two. First of all i was flattered that i received a letter that somebody wanted me to write another book. If anybody has any ideas for future books, i am all ears. Dont shout them out because i think there are other writers in the room. When i heard this idea, i thought it is not bad. It is a little saccharine perhaps, but i thought it was worth looking into. How much was there to that friendship . How much did peewee reese me to Jackie Robinson . How did take root in this climate of hostility and would very few people were welcome willing to welcome Jackie Robinson in the league. I found almost immediately was that the embrace did not occur. It did not happen in 1947. Jackie robinson, writing a few years later, saying he remembers an incident in 1948 or 1949 and peewee reese said he did not remember anything in 1947. I went back from blackandwhite papers looking for any mention of this incident and found no photographs or no mention at all. In fact, found robinson wrote in his column that day, he wrote a column for the pittsburgh courier, the black paper, he wrote cincinnati fans were among the kindest he has encountered yet. And even the white newspapers that robinson had been treated much better in cincinnati than other stops along the way. I talked to eyewitnesses that day said they remember anything they dont remember anything like that happening. They were packed with black people that day. The stadium was in a black part of town in a crowded out the white fans and they had been intimidated to call out Jackie Robinson. Suddenly there is a problem with my book idea, peewee and jackie as best friends. On the other hand it occurred to me if peewee reese was not there for Jackie Robinson, who was . If he did not have the support of the dodgers captain, the unofficial captain of the dodgers in 1947, then who did he get support from . How did he get through this year in which his own teammates threatened to boycott and not to play . Maybe i thought the entire experience could be crystallized into that 1947 season and how he goes from a ballplayer just trying to break in and get a chance and prove that he belongs in an environment in which his teammates not to mention the opposition desperately would like to see him gone. To leading his team to the pennant that season and presumably winning their hearts and minds. That is where the idea for this book grew. I realized the 60th anniversary for his game was coming up fast. I first began reading histories of the era. Growing up as a baseball fan, i was more fan than player as i mentioned, i learned a lot about of his street from kids of baseball. I bet there are a lot of people in the audience who would say the same. I would devour these old baseball books of these biographies that were written for young readers. You would pick up little glimmers of history and reading them and you would not even no youre getting that history. You read about babe ruth did you learn about prohibition because of all capone and what of the people who enjoyed more than anyone else in the country. Reading about Jackie Robinson you learned about jimcrow and segregation. I was a baseball historian in my own right because i would keep my box scores of every game i went to and stick them in my desk drawer and to go back years later and see how my favorite players were and how they did on that day. We learn to record history into and to appreciate it through baseball. In trying to get at 1947 i had to understand the climate and the times that we were in. It was a time when arthur sleshinger wrote a great history he wrote this in but he was 1948, writing about the same area, the grounds of our civilization are breaking up under our feet. The year institutions banish as we reach for them as jettison the falling dust. This is after world war ii and the country is on uncertain footing. We are just beginning to wake up to the atrocities of the holocaust and we have won this war. What does it mean for our democracy . The blacks are calling out for the Double Victory Campaign we had victory in europe but now we have to have victory in our own country so the black soldiers coming back from the war will have something or some stake in this country, what did they fight for if they are coming home to be treated as secondclass citizens . At the same time people are sensing long for a normal of of normalcy. E there are some shortages and there is a meat rationing. And baseball gives us a sense of what we used to be as a throwback. That is why we love the game today although it is getting harder to see it as an oldtime game with so much money. But joe dimaggio and bob feller were coming back. And americans cling to baseball. In 1946 attendance is breaking records at every ball park in the country. People are coming now and finding this offers them some solace. In 1947 Jackie Robinson comes along and baseball is as chaotic as everything else. Everything is out the window. To understand that i began calling all the oldtimers many as i could. There were quite a few. I asked my father in fact to who lived in queens and my grandfather had season tickets to that year. I asked my dad what does he remember . He was nine years old he said i have a lot of great memories. Unfortunately i dont remember what they are. Something from yogi berra i think. Other people had been the better memories fortunately. The oldtimers that played with jackie that year they all tell the stories about how they were so eager to embrace Jackie Robinson. Ralph had told me on opening day 1947, he made a point of april 15, standing next to Jackie Robinson during the singing of the you national anthem, and after his brother said what are you doing standing next to that guy what if a andiper takes a shot at him misses him and gets you instead . They all want to be associated with him now but the truth is on opening day nobody would shake his aunt. There was no meeting called by the manager to get them behind this effort. He was entirely alone. That is what intrigues me. What could i explore what he really went through . In one of the things i did early on is i went back to all the Old Newspaper clippings to see how these games were covered not only in the black media but in the white media as well. On that firstday this is a big day. We are celebrating it now with incredible hoopla. It feels like a national holiday. On april 15, 1947 the white newspapers did not mention Jackie Robinsons arrival. It was barely mentioned at all in the bottom of the sports stories and game stories. Not even on the front page of the sports section but at the bottom of the story that the dodgers beat the braves 523. 53. The black media on the other hand had this story stripped across the top of every paper. This was the banner headline. The pittsburgh courier and the York Amsterdam News had pages and pages of photos devoted to the event. One reporter filed a story just on where he sat during each inning during the game. Inning by inning account of where he sat on the bench and to who sat next to him. The black press recognized it was important to know who sat next to him. Would any of the teams leaders make a gesture of support in his direction . And sure enough as often happens with rookies, he was confined to the end of the bench sitting mostly with the other rookies. At one point he sat next to one of the assistant coaches. He was again forced to face this battle on his own. I should backtrack a little bit and tell you that in spring training when it was not clear whether he would make the team, at least six of his teammates came out and said they were willing to make a stand, willing to go public and refuse to play and they would demand a trade or robinson had to go or they would go. The players were mostly southerners like dixie walker raggin. By b reese always said he was not part of that rebellion. I could not find conclusive evidence one way or the other. The rebellion was quickly put down. The manager at the time would later be suspended. He was this unbelievably scary guy. Just pure rage, a very violent character, took no guff. He called a meeting in the middle of the night in cuba called the players out of their rooms in various states of undress and wearing his bright yellow bathrobe, said to his st team i dont care if this guy is black or white or green or yellow or a zebra. If he can play, he will be on this team. You can take your position and stick it up your you know what. Nobody questioned his authority. Players immediately back down. They were told the same the next day, if they did not want to play they will be traded. , the backup catcher had a very marginal hold on his job and he was willing to make this protest. Willing to risk his big league career, bigger at the time then than there was now. But reagan said i would rather be traded. I asked him about that. He said i was a white supremacist. I believed that whites were supreme and superior to blacks in every way. If Jackie Robinson were allowed to cross that line, all my values would crumble. I could not go home or go back to my family, my community would distress me because this is what we were raised to believe. I had a black family in my house all the time but they were mowing the lawn and entertaining us. But the thought of having them treated as an equal or superior to me because he is in the starting lineup i could not handle it. But he told him that day but if he had to he would play he backed down. This is a huge moment for the team. These players are essentially choosing their game, their love for the sport over their prejudice. They are at least willing to live with this and see what happens. Which is all rickey had ever hope for. He is the general manager and part owner of the dodgers. He is a fascinating character. He wanted to integrate because he believed it was the right thing to do and there was money to be made. He had the worst team in york city, that drew the smallest crowds. He sensed there was a possibility to be more competitive by bringing in a black players because there was an untapped talent poll. He also knew he could pay them very little because they would have no other options. He was very complex and doing the right thing and the cheap thing for his career. Fortunately, his commitment to bringing in Jackie Robinson was so great that it helped us overlook some of his parsimonious ways. He decided on Jackie Robinson, we might pause again and ask why jackie . He was not the best black player by far. There were many more qualified players. I think he chose jackie because he was a little older, 28, very smart guy went to ucla did not graduate, he chose him because he was a tough guy. The famous story is that Branch Rickey said can you turn the other cheek . Are you Strong Enough . In Jackie Robinson said yes. So we have this image of robinson as a martyr and pass it pacifist. He was not a all. He was a rage filled man. He was angry all his life and nothing made him angrier than being treated by being mistreated by white people. He saw racism in every glance. He was courtmartialed in 1944 for refusing to go to the back of the bus in the army. He beat the charge and saved his career. This is a guy who is taking a chance with. He had to know if robinson was provoked and people were going to provoke him without a doubt and he responded in anger if he threw a punch or went into a tirade, that it might be the end and who knows how many years it would set integration back. But rickey wanted to send a tone of strength, that we are not just asking blacks to go along and get along and find their way and slipped quietly into the game. He was saying we are going to send a message that black americans are here and part of baseball and you have to deal with it. You have to deal with him. Jackie robinson is not someone to be trifled with. So on that opening day, i mention that the black newspapers covered it and white papers did not. White fans did not show up. 3 5 of the crowd was africanamerican and 6,000 seats were empty. Which suggests white fans were staying away in huge numbers because they were afraid of what was going to happen. There was a lot of talk. A lot of people thought the strategy would backfire. There were writing it was up to African American baseball fans to be on their best behavior and not do anything to do this job any harder for jackie. Every ballpark he visited that year, there were warnings from the black press saying remember dont drink or dont celebrate too much or dont embarrass him. It was a Community Wide effort. Robinson in that first game was zerothree. He scores a run which turned out to be the winning run. I talk to the left fielder that day and he said george , washington did not know it when he was making history and Abraham Lincoln didnt know he was making history when he was delivering that gettysburg address and i did know i was making history when i drove in a black man. I said you better go back and look at the box score. You drove in the fifth run and Jackie Robinson was the fourth. He started again. He said Abraham Lincoln did not know he was making history and i didnt know, dont try to get these guys to change their story after 60 years it is brutal. As i began to chronicle this story, as i realized that these ballplayers tended to embellish their memory. There was one source for this story that i had to have one key person. Who could open this up to me. I wanted to set Jackie Robinson in his historical context. I wanted to show what he meant to america, not now with the gloss of 60 years but right than an there. How he changed lives in a moment. And i wanted to show what his personal journey was like. What he experienced. And the key was his wife who is Rachel