Jackie Robinson Mitoque ma Busting Out

The new Ken Burns documentary does not tell the full story of arms Robinson with Pee Wee Reese.

His excellent new documentary about Jackie Robinson, which premiered at PBS this week, Ken Burns argues that one of the most enduring images of racial brotherhood in sport-Brooklyn Dodgers shortstop Pee Wee Reese, Kentucky white man, putting his arm around Jackie Robinson, his pioneer teammate- black "never happened." Burns although it is true that there is some mythology around the event, my research suggests that the event did in fact occur, but not when and where most people think.

The Reese-Robinson embrace, according to the documentary, is one of the enduring myths surrounding the US national pastime, like history now discredited on Abner Doubleday inventing baseball in Cooperstown, New York, or home "Called shot" Babe Ruth Cubs pitcher Charlie run out during the Serie Root

1932. World According to this line of thought, the statue in front of the stadium

Brooklyn Cyclones' MCU Park in Coney Island in memory of the alleged hug is a

feel-good story it is taken too far. 

It is true that the statue, like most other accounts of the event, the mythical part of repeats episode as fact. But it would be better to update only the inscription under the statue to tear it down completely.

Pitcher Rex Barney recalled the time course of the oral history of Peter Golenbock Brooklyn Dodgers, Bums. Barney and some other teammates Robinson insisted they saw Reese put his arm around Robinson in 1947, his first season Major League Baseball, either in Philadelphia or Cincinnati (the statue says he was in Cincinnati). Robinson, who promised the Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey not respond to insults

Racist fists or mouth in 1947, would have needed a friend in those two cities. Since the dugout Phillies manager Ben Chapman Philadelphia hurled racial slurs at Robinson. Cincinnati was one of the southernmost cities in the first division in time and where Robinson received death threats after; Reese also have been playing in front of family and friends from his near Louisville, Kentucky, home. Over time, however, They faded memories, and now the evidence is scarce happened in Cincinnati. 

I was there, "Dodger great Duke Snider told me in 2006," but I do not remember the incident. I seemed which was in Cincinnati. That's what I read. "

The documentary observes correctly that the likely embrace that did not happen in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, or anywhere else during the first season in 1947. But Robinson will too far in implying that it did not happen at all. "Today is remembered in statues, in children's books, but I think happened, "Jonathan Eig, author of the fantastic book day Opening on that first season, he said in the documentary. "The myth serves a very good purpose.

Unfortunately, it is a myth. "EIG tempers his remarks on his blog insisting that" there are very little reason to believe that occurred in 1947, when he would have mattered most. 

" baseball historian John Thorn appeared in more open to the possibility Eig happened, but not in 1947. "We know that this has happened," Thorn said in the documentary. "We do not know when occurred. It is likely that if it happened, did not happen in 1947 because Reese would have had to Walking through the diamond to first base to throw his arm around Jackie ".

During his rookie season, Robinson played exclusively at first. He documentary concluded that "there was no mention of the gesture of that year, either Press in white or black. "In an interview with ESPN, Burns was more blunt, He is stating that "it never happened." "There is no picture or write-up anywhere," he said.

There is no way to know for sure when Reese put his arm around Robinson. But

most likely not happen in April 1948 in Boston, this is according to another self

Robinson.

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