dual personalities

The other night I watched 42 (2013) starring Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play Major League Baseball, and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey. I had seen it before and liked it, but I was really struck by it this time around.

Obviously Jackie Robinson is the heroic figure at the center of the film. He blazed an amazing and courageous trail. But I have to say, I found the character of Branch Rickey, co-owner, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to be equally fascinating. Why did he do what he did? Why did he take it upon himself to integrate the Dodgers and thereby professional baseball? At one point in the film Rickey explains that his inspiration for bringing Robinson on to the team was the ill-treatment he saw received by his black catcher Charles Thomas on the Ohio Wesleyan baseball team, which he coached in 1903 and 1904, and feeling that he hadn’t done enough to help him. Granted, but the movie also seems to suggest that a large part of what motivated him was his Christian faith.

When Rickey decides that Robinson is the man to do the job, one of his main reasons is “He’s a Methodist, I’m a Methodist… And God’s a Methodist; We can’t go wrong.” He is not kidding.

He also tells Robinson after one of many altercations, “I want a player who’s got the guts not to fight back. People aren’t gonna like this. They’re gonna do anything to get you to react. Echo a curse with a curse and, uh, they’ll hear only yours. Follow a blow with a blow and they’ll say, ‘The Negro lost his temper.’ That ‘The Negro does not belong.’ Your enemy will be out in force… and you cannot meet him on his own low ground. We win with hitting, running, fielding. Only that. We win if the world is convinced of two things: That you are a fine gentleman and a great baseball player. Like our Savior… you gotta have the guts… to turn the other cheek. Can you do it?”

I think Martin Luther King would have agreed.

And there is this exchange after the racist manager of the Phillies has bated Robinson mercilessly:

• Robinson: Do you know what it’s like, having someone do this to you?
• Rickey: No. No. You do. You’re the one living the sermon. In the wilderness. Forty days. All of it. Only you.
• Robinson: And not a damn thing I can do about it.
• Rickey: Of course there is! You can stand up and hit! You can get on base and you can score! You can win this game for us! We need you! Everyone needs you.

Anyway, I salute Branch Rickey: preach!

Bonus: This movie also stars Lucas Black as Robinson’s teammate Pee Wee Reese. “Maybe tomorrow, we’ll all wear 42, so nobody could tell us apart.”

Amen.