Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson was an American Major League Baseball second baseman. He was born Jack Roosevelt Robinson on January 31, 1919. He was the first African American to play in the major leagues in the modern era. When the Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base, he broke the baseball color line. That was April 15, 1947. The Dodgers ended the racial segregation that kept black players out of the MLB.
His baseball career lasted 10 years, he won several awards and played in six World Series baseball career. He received the inaugural MLB Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons from 1949 through 1954, and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949, the first black player to do so. Robinson played in and contributed to the Dodgers’ 1955 World Series championship. In 1997, 25 years after his death, on October 24, 1972, MLB “universally” retired his number 42. Since April 15, 2004, every year on “Jackie Robinson Day,” for the first time, every player on every team wears No. 42.
Jackie Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
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