Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season [Hardcover]

Jonathan Eig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2007

April 15, 1947, marked the most important opening day in baseball history. When Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond that afternoon at Ebbets Field, he became the first black man to break into major-league baseball in the twentieth century. World War II had just ended. Democracy had triumphed. Now Americans were beginning to press for justice on the home front-and Robinson had a chance to lead the way.He was an unlikely hero. He had little experience in organized baseball. His swing was far from graceful. And he was assigned to play first base, a position he had never tried before that season. But the biggest concern was his temper. Robinson was an angry man who played an aggressive style of ball. In order to succeed he would have to control himself in the face of what promised to be a brutal assault by opponents of integration.In Opening Day, Jonathan Eig tells the true story behind the national pastime's most sacred myth. Along the way he offers new insights into events of sixty years ago and punctures some familiar legends. Was it true that the St. Louis Cardinals plotted to boycott their first home game against the Brooklyn Dodgers? Was Pee Wee Reese really Robinson's closest ally on the team? Was Dixie Walker his greatest foe? How did Robinson handle the extraordinary stress of being the only black man in baseball and still manage to perform so well on the field? Opening Day is also the story of a team of underdogs that came together against tremendous odds to capture the pennant. Facing the powerful New York Yankees, Robinson and the Dodgers battled to the seventh game in one of the most thrilling World Series competitions of all time.Drawing on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters, and eyewitnesses, as well as newly discovered material from archives around the country, Jonathan Eig presents a fresh portrait of a ferocious competitor who embodied integration's promise and helped launch the modern civil rights era. Full of new details and thrilling action, Opening Day brings to life baseball's ultimate story.

--This text refers to the MP3 CD edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The author of the acclaimed Luckiest Man (2005)a biography of Lou Gehrig, turns here to another great American sportsman, Jackie Robinson. So elegant in its logic is Eig's angle--chronicling Robinson's first major-league season (1947) with the Brooklyn Dodgers--it's a wonder no one thought of it before. From Robinson's preseason call-up by Brooklyn's legendary GM, Branch Rickey, to the 1947 World Series, in which the Dodgers took the Yankees to a seventh game (Brooklyn lost), Eig details the dynamics of Robinson's hard-earned acceptance by teammates, the well-chronicled abuse Robinson took from opposing fans and players, the response of local and out-of-town press, and the impact the season had on Robinson's family and on African Americans. Eig also shows what a flat-out great player Robinson was that season. If Eig's workmanlike writing style doesn't necessarily pull the reader along, his account of the Dodgers' dramatic 1947 pennant race will. Even Dodger haters--and they are legion--will cheer on the Bums in this fine account. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Jonathan Eig is a senior special writer for The Wall Street Journal based in Chicago. He was formerly executive editor of Chicago magazine. He is the author of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition; First Printing edition (March 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743294602
• ISBN-13: 978-0743294607
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #726,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #39 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( R ) > Robinson, Jackie

More About the Author

Jonathan Eig is the best-selling author of "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig" and "Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season." His most recent book is "Get Capone," which the New York Times called a "gore-spattered thriller." Eig is a former senior writer for The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Chicago with his wife and children. For more information, go to www.getcapone.com or wwww.jonathaneig.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Before Martin Luther King, There Was Jackie Robinson, April 7, 2007

By 

C. W. Emblom "Bill Emblom" (Ishpeming, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season (Hardcover)

The story of Jackie Robinson has been told in several books by many distinguished authors. Now Jonathan Eig, author of the definitive book on Lou Gehrig, has given us a fresh look at the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1947, which was Robinson's initial season with the team. First let me say this man (Eig) can write. This is not a rehash of other stories you may have read. The author skillfully weaves the role of influential individuals such as Branch Rickey, Pee Wee Reese, Harry "The Hat" Walker, Leo "The Lip" Durocher, Burt Shotten, Eddie "The Brat" Stanky, Dick Young of the New York Daily News, and others in this historic story. Baseball rosters were heavily made up of players from the south. The Dodgers were no exception, and they brought their long held prejudices along with them. You may think you have heard all the anecdotes relating to Robinson and the Dodgers, but the gifted author of this book will provide you with nuggets of information culled from a variety of sources. Years after the fact, several former Dodger players said Robinson "made them better men." However, the author notes, these claims were made only after supporting civil rights became fashionable. In 1947, when Robinson needed these friends, he found none on the Dodgers. At least significant ones! Reese developed a genuine friendship with Robinson, but in 1947 Pee Wee was one of the boys and whether the often told incident of him supporting Robinson in Cincinnati when he was being heckled is open to question. At least for 1947. This is quite simply one of the very best of hundreds of baseball books that I have read. It is definitely a keeper for anyone's library. It's a great story, especially with the 60th anniversary rapidly approaching. I can't wait to see what this new author, Jonathan Eig, is preparing for us to read next.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book - for both history and enjoyment, March 24, 2007

By 

Scott Schleifer (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season (Hardcover)

I just finished Jonathan Eig's book "Opening Day", and loved it. Like his earlier work "Luckiest Man", Eig sticks to facts and historical sources (interviews [old and new], newspaper sources) and is able to separate some of the myths surrounding Jackie Robinson and the 1947 season from the truth. For example, the story about Pee Wee Reese draping his arm around Robinson's shoulder in Cincinnati in 1947. Great story, but not much fact supporting whether it happened. Eig reports the known sources and lets the reader decide whether to believe the facts or the myth (in this case, I like the myth!).

This is the first book that I know of that chronicles the 1947 season (w/some "flashbacks", which are necessary to understand some of the people and the culture and thought of the time). Eig's writing style keeps the reader interested, as Robinson joins the Dodgers after a year with the minor league Montreal Royals, proceeds to take the field and ultimately become Major League Rookie of the Year - there was only one for both leagues at the time. Interviews with Rachel Robinson, Jackie's wife, show both the courage Robinson shows, as well as the emotional turmoil, as Robinson had promised Branch Rickey that he would not fight his tormentors.

As the season progresses, Eig does a great job of how Robinson's Dodger teammates loosen up to him, believing that his playing as a ballplayer is more important than skin color. By the end of the season, Ralph Branca is catching Robinson who is diving for a foul ball, something that might not have happened earlier in the year. There's a great scene where Dixie Walker, possibly unfairly maligned as an instigator of a potential major league strike against Robinson, calls Robinson aside to give him batting tips. Rachel Robinson is even invited to hang with the other players' wives.

All in all, an awesome book. The cliches are true, as this is a book about courage and facing adversity, but it is also a plain old good baseball book, chronicling a very important moment and year in history, not just baseball history. I heartily recommend this book, as well as Eig's first book "Luckiest Man".

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RICK SHAQ GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "I LOVE JACKIE ROBINSON!", June 11, 2007

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Rick Shaq Goldstein "*SHAQ*" (Danville, Ca, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season (Hardcover)

I am a born and raised Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodger fan. In fact my family moved from New York to Los Angeles the same year as the Dodgers. Before my brothers and I were born, my parents went to Ebbets field every weekend. I still have a box full of Brooklyn scorecards from those days. I was too young to see Jackie in his prime, but my Dad took me to some games in 1956 and I got to see Jackie and all the "Boys Of Summer"! I was a Brooklyn Dodger fanatic even at that age. Besides watching the Dodgers, I read everything available on them, and still do, 50 years later. I can unabashedly say I love Jackie Robinson. One of my many fond memories of my Dad, was him talking to me in front of our tiny black and white TV watching the Dodgers. He said "I have gone to hundreds of baseball games, and have seen 1,000 players, and the most exciting player I ever saw was Jackie Robinson!" "What Jackie did, was not displayed only in the statistics. Over the history of baseball, many players stole more bases. (Such as Ricky Henderson stealing bases with a 7 run lead in the 8th inning.) But no one unnerved every player on the team just by leading off the base and dancing on his pigeon toes, like Jackie. This book points out little, subtle, beneficial affects, on the whole Dodger team, that the average fan wouldn't see. The pitcher and catcher would be so nervous with Jackie dancing around on the base paths, that they would be afraid to throw curve balls, so the batters got better pitches to hit. Jackie stole home more times, than just about anyone except Ty Cobb. When we moved to Los Angeles there was a program on called the "Million Dollar Theatre", in which they showed the same movie on TV every day for a week. When the "Jackie Robinson Story" was on, I watched it every night, and literally memorized the dialogue. People forget that the Brooklyn Dodgers were the "original America's team". And that was because of Jackie. When Jackie broke the color line, he wasn't only fighting for the blacks, but he also was fighting for the Jews, and every minority that has been suppressed. When I watch old sports shows, when they talk about Jackie, I actually get tears in my eyes, because I know what he went through. I've read just about every meaningful book on Jackie and the Brooklyn Dodgers. I would rate this book as the 2nd best Jackie book of them all. (My personal favorite is "Great Time Coming".)

This book was interesting to me as compared to many others, because it not

only zoomed in on his first year as a player, but also went deeper into

his personal life during that first year. All the way to the size of a little room he and Rachel rented, along with their infant son. If you were to ask me, what, with all my knowledge, I have on Jackie's playing, was the biggest thing I learned from this book, I would say his affect, and dominance, in every facet of the game, that didn't appear in his batting average, in a losing cause as a rookie in the 1947 World Series against the hated and despised Yankees. This is a great book and I recommend it to everyone. P.S. In my opinion Jackie was the greatest all around athlete since Jim Thorpe. A lot of people forget that Jackie was the first 4-sport letterman at UCLA. He was an All American football player, the top scorer on UCLA's basketball team, a record setter in the long jump, and of course baseball, which was actually his weakest sport at that time. Duke Snider tells a story about when Duke was in high school in Compton California, and Jackie was playing for Pasadena City College (A junior college). Duke went to see Jackie play a baseball game. One inning Jackie hit a homerun, and then in his full baseball uniform, with spikes on, ran over to the track field between innings, won the broad jump, and ran back to the baseball field in time to play the next inning!