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Jackie Robinson ALS With Great Content Re Campy, Stengel, Rickey
Having to hold his temper inside for so many years as the price to pay for making the case for African Americans in baseball, Jackie was free to let off steam after he retired from the game in 1957. And he did just that in this amazing handwritten letter to Pulitzer Prize-winning L.A. Times sports columnist Jim Murray after reading in Murray’s column that Roy Campanella was actually Branch Rickey’s choice to become the first black in the majors, but Campy apparently didn’t know what Rickey was offering and the Dodgers turned to Jackie. Taking the revisionist history as a slap against him, a livid Robinson dashed off the letter, which drips with contempt and sarcasm. “The problem with the story was it was a lie,” he wrote. “Check your facts Jim, it would appear to me a good reporter does that but more importantly honest ones do...I suppose you feel because you have the media you have the right to pop-off and beyond that lie....Frankly I couldn’t care less about what you think of me it just irritates me when someone like you without knowing what it’s all about writes so the public knows where he stands. I shall continue to speak what I believe to be right, if Jim Murray doesn’t like it it’s too damn bad. Of course, you can always use your typewriter to write the big lie as you see it [but] as far as I’m concerned it just shows again your stripes.” Jackie also takes a pot shot at Casey Stengel, saying “his record proves the players make the manager...with the Braves and Mets [he] finished at the bottom, with the great Yankee teams he won.” He concludes the letter, “Sincerely, Jackie Robinson.” And how. Letter (which probably expresses the loathing every player feels for the media) is on “Jackie Robinson” stationery and written in blue ink, with the signature a NRMT Jackie marker. 7 x 10.5” page is EX-MT with one staple hole in the top left corner and two light folds and a subtle diagonal crease on the lower third. Terrific find, and some of the best proof ever uncovered about Jackie’s pride and anger..
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