Carrying Jackie's Torch

Overview

Sheds light on the significant role baseball played in tearing down the walls of segregation

The real and painful struggles of the black players who followed Jackie Robinson into major and minor league baseball from 1947 through 1968 are chronicled in this compelling volume. Players share their personal and often heart-wrenching stories of intense racism, both on and off the field, mixed with a sometimes begrudged appreciation for their tremendous talents. Stories include incidents of white players who gave up promising careers in baseball because they wouldn’t play with a black teammate, the Georgia law that forbade a black player from dressing in the same clubhouse as the white players, the quotas for the number of blacks on a team, and how salary negotiations without agents or free agency were akin to a plantation system for both black and white players. The 20 players profiled include Ernie Banks, Alvin Jackson, Charlie Murray, Chuck Harmon, Frank Robinson, Bob Gibson, Hank Aaron, Curt Flood, Lou Brock, and Bob Watson.

Reviews

"A significant piece of baseball and American history. Revealing, moving, and long overdue." —Bob Costas, sports announcer, NBC-TV

"This is a story that we need to continually tell. It goes beyond baseball, it goes beyond America." —Ken Burns, award-winning filmmaker, Baseball

"Brings forth...a missing link between the fragmentary integration of baseball, beginning with Jackie Robinson's dramatic arrival, and today's conditions." —Marvin Miller, retired executive director, Major League Baseball Players Association

"For all fans who appreciate well-told stories of perseverance and inspiration." —Tom Verducci, senior writer, Sports Illustrated

"A must-read for baseball fans...a chronicle of a nation in transition with black ballplayers as courageous agents of change." —Mike Bevans, executive editor, Sports Illustrated

"A valuable new book." —The New York Times

"Recommended." —Library Journal

"An important work for all baseball fans and historians." —New York Daily News

Author Biography

Steve Jacobson is an award-winning sports journalist and author. A sports reporter and columnist for Newsday for 44 years, he was nominated twice for a Pulitzer Prize, awarded first prize by the Associated Press of New York for his coverage of the 1986 World Series, and recognized as one of the Top Five Sports Columnists numerous times by the Associated Press Sports Editors. He is the author of The Best Team Money Could Buy and The Pitching Staff: A Classic Portrait of Baseball's Most Unique Fraternity, and the coauthor of Nolan Ryan, Strike-Out King and Tom Seaver's Baseball Is My Life. In 2004 he created, interviewed, and helped script the documentary Jackie's Disciples for ESPN. He lives on Long Island in New York.