Jackie Robinson Impact On African American Sports

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”(Robinson). The sports world developed in the 1920’s with the explosion of America’s pastime, Major League Baseball. Baseball was formed in 1850’s in the United States but did not really become widely watched until 1920. The majority of those who watched baseball were middle-upper class Americans. This meant that the black community had not indulged in playing or watching baseball. Starting around 1920, the Negro League was created to allow MLB caliber African Americans to play baseball at a high level. This angered the black people because they were being separated once again from something that was “only allowed for white people”. Around this time was when the pioneer of African Americans in baseball was born, 1919. Jackie Robinson was an amazing athlete starring in track and football with baseball being his worst sport, …show more content…
Robinson began playing in the Negro League in 1945. The executive of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey saw the talent that played in the Negro League and felt the oppression was not deserved. Even with the threat of ridiculed, hatred and maybe even being killed, Rickey needed to find the right player to become the first African American player in baseball. A player who could take the hatred and ignore it, make his team better and break the barrier, this player was the 28 year old, Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson, the first African American baseball player in the MLB, shaped the landscape of the future generations in baseball and helped conquer the battle for equal rights in society.
Robinson transformed the scope of baseball for future generations and transformed the “white man’s” game of baseball into an interracial sport that gave poor Americans an avenue to succeed in a world that gives