Where I Stand: Breaking baseball color line involved many heroes

Thursday, April 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

LINES AREN'T easily crossed. Make that double for lines of color.

This week the entire nation has proudly celebrated the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier in Major League Baseball. There is a generation of Americans who remember as if it were yesterday the baseball teams that sported all-white faces until 1947 when the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, signed Robinson to play for his team. There is also a generation of Americans who grew up with heroes like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Elston Howard who knew there was a difference on and off the field for people of color. And there is yet another, younger generation of our countrymen who would think it strange and clearly unusual if their favorite sports teams did not have a healthy contingent of black players breaking records and setting new ones with each passing season.

In short, we take for granted in 1997 the fact that minority athletes are a vital part of any athletic endeavor, amateur or professional. The proof is last week's incredible rout of the Masters' field by Tiger Woods, a young golfer who broke most existing records and set a few new ones as he brought a huge share of the nongolfing world to television and the wonderment of his game.

Could he have been there and done that if Jackie Robinson had not endured the slings and arrows of outrageous bigotry as he climbed out of the Negro Leagues and into the rarified air of the white major leagues? Would Michael Jordan be the superstar and super-person he is had it not been for a man like Robinson paving the way for young black athletes to follow him into the pros many decades later?

We know the answer without having to hear it again. That's one reason why 50,000 people turned out in New York the other night to celebrate Robinson's historic crossing of that color barrier. That's a main reason why his number, 42, has been officially retired by Major League Baseball. And that's the reason why we celebrate that day 50 years ago when bigotry and ignorance officially left the ballfields in America.

That doesn't mean all is well in our country. We know differently. But the fact that we can celebrate Jackie Robinson's entry into a brave new world of integrated athletics means we recognize that we are on the right track -- however long it takes to make the full journey.

My friend, Dan Chandler, and I were discussing what Robinson meant to the sporting world and the relationship between his bravery in the face of bigotry and Tiger Woods' conquering of Augusta, Ga., not a place known for its overzealousness in crossing the racial divide.

Dan agreed, of course, with baseball's decision to break down its white wall but, in sharing his feelings of that time so long ago, there was a sense of pride that someone our age should not have displayed because we were not really players on that stage. That's when it dawned on me what the source of Dan's great pride was. His father.

That, I could understand because I, too, am a son who is forever proud of his father's great contributions to a better world. I could see the tears well up in Dan's eyes when he recounted to those within earshot the real story of how Jackie Robinson got to play in the major leagues. It is a story that bears retelling because in it is a very simple lesson that reminds us that events bring out the greatness in men and that nobody really can do it alone.

When baseball's first commissioner, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, died in 1945, it fell upon the owners to elect a new commissioner who not only would do the owners' bidding but also have the appearance of propriety because with the job came the absolute discretion to act "in the best interests of baseball." That's because baseball operated under a congressional waiver of anti-trust laws which provided enormous financial benefits to the league and the owners. It was essential that "independence" be a hallmark of any commissioner to keep Congress off the financial backs of that very good thing the owners had.

They settled on a man who knew the insides and out of the federal legislative process and a person who was well thought of in the corridors of power throughout the country. They also settled on a man who knew not only what was best for baseball but who was "sensitive" to the wishes of the team owners. In selecting a two-term U.S. senator named Albert B. "Happy" Chandler, they thought they had their man.

What they had was a man who, before being elected to the U.S. Senate, was a two-term governor of Kentucky. What they had was a man who was not only strong and decisive but who, as he proved in the case of Jackie Robinson, was no other man's lackey. In the face of personal difficulty he remained his own man.

When Dodgers owner Branch Rickey polled the league's owners on the question of whether, after 24 years of strict adherence to the color line, blacks should be allowed to play and participate in the national pastime, the vote was a not-so-surprising 15-1 against allowing Robinson to join the majors. While the vote was nonbinding, it was meant as a clear message to Commissioner Chandler of how he should react. After all, his contract renewal required a two-thirds vote of the owners and with such an overwhelming display of solidarity, well ... you get the picture just as he got the message.

But the decision to allow Robinson in rested solely within the discretion of the commissioner. And, as Dan tells the story, the meeting between Rickey and Happy Chandler must have been one of those profiles of courage moments. Chandler told the Dodgers owner that he didn't know why God had made him one color and Jackie Robinson another but he was confident that when the time came to ask the question, "Why did you keep Robinson out of Major League Baseball?" that, "because he was black," would not be a satisfactory answer.

Based on that belief, Chandler told Rickey to sign Robinson to the Dodgers and that he, as the commissioner and the only man capable of letting Jackie play, would take the heat from the owners. Of course, when contract renewal time came, Happy Chandler went.

But he left with his head held high and the certain knowledge that the decision he made in the Chandler cabin in the middle of Kentucky back in 1947 would forever change the face of American sports. He was right. And his son, Dan, is justifiably button-popping proud of his daddy for being the man he was.

The man who helped Jackie Robinson break the color barrier.

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