Jackie Robinson’s legacy explored in play

Kirk Baird

Friday, Aug. 16, 2002 | 6:26 a.m.

What: "National Pastime."

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Aug. 25.

Where: Horn Theatre, Community College of Southern Nevada, 3200 E. Cheyenne Ave.

Tickets: $8; $5 children, students and senior citizens.

Information: 651-5483.Tiger Woods. Michael Jordan.

Living legends who transcend sports; their names more recognizable than those of most politicians.

Without Jackie Robinson, though, there might not be a Tiger Woods or a Michael Jordan.

Robinson broke the color barrier for Major League Baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

Two years later Robinson hit .342 and drove in 124 runs en route to a National League Most Valuable Player award.

Robinson the player had clearly arrived. But it was Robinson the man whose legacy is best known.

During his Hall of Fame career, Robinson was subjected to racial taunts and slurs by white players who did not like sharing the field with a black player; and from baseball fans who could not get past the color of Robinson's skin to see one of the premiere players of his era.

Beginning Wednesday, the Community College of Southern Nevada is bringing the Robinson story to its stage with "National Pastime." The play runs through Aug. 25.

"National Pastime" is centered on Robinson's life from 1945, while he was still in the Negro Leagues, through his first few years with the Dodgers, and ends with the player's induction into the Hall of Fame in 1962.

More than a stage re-creation of his on-the-field exploits, the focus of "National Pastime" is the relationship between Robinson and Branch Rickey, the Dodgers' president and general manager, who signed Robinson.

Martha Watson, who plays Jackie's wife Rachel in the play, said when she was growing up in the '50s, her parents regaled her with exploits of Robinson and boxer Joe Louis as examples of what she could accomplish through perseverance.

"It was their way of encouraging us to be successful, since we didn't see many (black) role models growing up," she said.

Now, however, Watson said she is afraid the on- and off-the-field accomplishments of Robinson are being forgotten or even ignored by younger generations.

"I feel like a historian. A lot of kids don't know about a lot of people who should be special in their lives," she said. "We talk about having idols and somebody that did something nobody did before and made a change ... (Robinson) is one."

The play already has educated one of its actors.

Susan Blonksy, who plays Rickey's wife, Jan, said that growing up in the Northeast she was unaware of the prejudice blacks suffered in the South.

"It really shocked me," the 57-year-old Blonsky said. "It made me very uncomfortable with the fact that this was how we lived, that people accepted this as OK."

She also knew very little about Robinson before the play, other than the fact he was the first black in the Major Leagues.

But the play made her realize the importance of his legacy.

"I feel so proud that he was able to do that and survive what he went through," she said. "He was the strongest man I've probably ever read about."