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He looks awkward, but isn't. He stops and starts as though turned off & on with a toggle switch. He seems to hit a baseball on the dead run. Once in motion, he wobbles along, elbows flying, hips swaying, shoulders rocking—creating the illusion that he will fly to pieces with every stride. But once he gains momentum, his shoulders come to order and his feet skim along like flying fish. He is not only jackrabbit fast, but about one thought and two steps ahead of every base-runner in the business. He beats out bunts, stretches singles into doubles. Once Jackie made second on a base-on-balls; he saw that the catcher had lost the ball, so he just kept on going.
He has stolen 26 bases this season, more than any other National Leaguer. He dances and prances off base, keeping the enemy's infield upset and off balance, and worrying the pitcher. The boys call it "showboat baseball." He is not, in his first year, the greatest baserunner since Ty Cobb, but he is mighty good. Cobb made a practice of coming in with spikes aimed at anyone brave enough to get in his way. It wouldn't have been politic for Jackie to do it that way very often. Robinson's base running, which resembles more the trickiness of "Pepper" Martin, is a combination of surprise, timing and speed. Says Jackie: "Daring . . . that's half my game."
Turnstile Sociology. Jackie's daring on the baselines has been matched by shrewd Branch Rickey's daring on the color line. Rickey gave Robinson his chance. As boss of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Rickey is a mixture of Phineas T. Barnum and Billy Sunday, who is prone to talk piously of the larger and higher implications of what he is doing. There were large implications, of course, in signing Jackie Robinson, but the influence on the box office was a lot easier to figure. Jackie Robinson has pulled about $150,000 in extra admissions this season.
Wherever the Dodgers have played, Negroes have turned out in force to see their hero. In Chicago, where Negro fans sported Jackie Robinson buttons, Jackie's fans came early and brought their lunch. In Jim Crowish St. Louis, where Negroes must sit in the right-field pavilion, the Robinson rooting section was more noticeable. Their adulation embarrassed Robbie: it made it harder for him to act like just another ballplayer. Rickey had promised to treat Jackie "just like any other rookie," and he certainly did on the payroll. Though he may have to pay Jackie more next season, so far Rickey has paid the crowd-pulling rookie-of-the-year only $5,000. Under league rules that is the least that the poorest rookie can be paid.