This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the colour barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, and the others when their glory days were behind them. In short, it is a book fathers and sons and about the making of modern America. 'At a point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet discovered how to be a man, it was my fortune to travel with the most marvelously appealing of teams.' Sentimental because it holds such promise, and bittersweet because that promise is past, the first sentence of this masterpiece of sporting literature, first published in the early '70s, sets its tone. The team is the mid-20th-century Brooklyn Dodgers, the team of Robinson and Snyder and Hodges and Reese, a team of great triumph and historical import composed of men whose fragile lives were filled with dignity and pathos. Roger Kahn, who covered that team for the New York Herald Tribune, makes understandable humans of his heroes as he chronicles the dreams and exploits of their young lives, beautifully intertwining them with his own, then recounts how so many of those sweet dreams curdled as the body of these once shining stars grew rusty with age and battered by experience.

Describes the racial prejudice experienced by Jackie Robinson when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and became the first Black player in Major League baseball and depicts the acceptance and support he received from his white teammate Pee Wee Reese.

Pee Wee Reese played shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1940 to 1957. He played in nearly 2200 games and had a life time batting average of .269. While with the team the Dodgers won six National League Pennants. In 1959 he became one of the first baseball sports broadcasters. He was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1984.

The bestselling classic biography of Jackie Robinson, America's legendary baseball player and civil rights activist, told from the unique perspective of an insider: his only daughter. Sharon Robinson shares memories of her famous father in this warm loving biography of the man who broke the color barrier in baseball -- and taught his children that the only measure of life is the impact you have on others lives'. Promises to Keep is the story of Jackie Robinson's hard-won victories in baseball, business, politics, and civil rights. It looks at the inspiring effect the legendary Brooklyn Dodger had on his family, his community ... his country. Told from the unique perspective of Robinson's only daughter, this intimate and uplifting book includes photos from the Robinson family archives and family letters never published before. Jackie Robinson is one our great national heroes. Promises to Keep reminds us what made him a champion -- on and off the field!

Explores Jackie Robinson’s compelling and complicated legacy Before the United States Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools, and before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the twentieth century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him. Many are familiar with Robinson as a baseball hero. Few, however, know of the inner turmoil that came with his historic status. Featuring piercing essays from a range of distinguished sportswriters, cultural critics, and scholars, this book explores Robinson’s perspectives and legacies on civil rights, sports, faith, youth, and nonviolence, while providing rare glimpses into the struggles and strength of one of the nation’s most athletically gifted and politically significant citizens. Featuring a foreword by celebrated directors and producers Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, this volume recasts Jackie Robinson’s legacy and establishes how he set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from Black Lives Matter to Colin Kaepernick.

Offers a history of African American exclusion from baseball, and assesses the changing racial attitudes that led up to Jackie Robinson's acceptance by the Brooklyn Dodgers.

When Jackie Robinson was penciled into the lineup for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, America's national pastime and America's future changed forever. How much is reflected in a remark Martin Luther King Jr. made to Don Newcombe: “You'll never know what you and Jackie and Roy did to make it possible to do my job.” Red Barber was perfectly situated to observe this drama. Broadcaster for the Dodgers, friend of Branch Rickey—who confided in him before and during the year of decision—and keen student of the game and the behavior of its players, Red held the microphone as the story unfolded with a cast of characters that included baseball immortals Duke Snyder, Leo Durocher, Pee Wee Reese, Peter Reiser, Larry McPhail, and Joe DiMaggio. Towering above them all are Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey—who together made baseball and American history and whose courage and toughness Red Barber captures so beautifully in this book.