Leo T. reviewed Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season on + 1775 more book reviews
I check the sale shelves at some branch libraries for wish listed books to help out PBS comrades and this is a winner. It is a somewhat scholarly book because Mr. Eig has interviewed all sorts of people, not exclusively in baseball, and done great research, including Colin Powell and Adam Clayton Powell. This book is well suited to a general audience rather than only baseball junkies.
There is an emphasis on Mr. Robinson's first years in pro baseball and the postwar milieu is well and succinctly described. Harlem was terribly crowded, given the strength of the great migration during the war. And General Powell recalls how Black people hoped against hope that the first person to integrate a profession would do well, for example that the first Black driver hired by Greyhound would not crash.
The photos are well chosen to evoke Jackie Robinson's career. There are some game action photos and teammate pictures, but also "At the United Nations, reporters skip out on the General Assembly to watch the World Series on television." We see a goodly crowd watching a televison with a small screen set up on a desk. Dodger fans who waited in line all night to obtain a bleacher seat to the Series, Jackie and Rachel being given a new Cadillac, and Branch Rickey seated at a desk while being interviewed by several eager reporters are choice photographs.
Endnotes, index.
There is an emphasis on Mr. Robinson's first years in pro baseball and the postwar milieu is well and succinctly described. Harlem was terribly crowded, given the strength of the great migration during the war. And General Powell recalls how Black people hoped against hope that the first person to integrate a profession would do well, for example that the first Black driver hired by Greyhound would not crash.
The photos are well chosen to evoke Jackie Robinson's career. There are some game action photos and teammate pictures, but also "At the United Nations, reporters skip out on the General Assembly to watch the World Series on television." We see a goodly crowd watching a televison with a small screen set up on a desk. Dodger fans who waited in line all night to obtain a bleacher seat to the Series, Jackie and Rachel being given a new Cadillac, and Branch Rickey seated at a desk while being interviewed by several eager reporters are choice photographs.
Endnotes, index.
