At the end of ESPN's telecast of the game in new York's Shea Stadium commemorating the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's major league debut, former Mets third baseman Ed Charles read a poem he had written upon Robinson 's death in 1972. The final stanza went: "So go now, and rest for a while/ For again you shall come, a spirit aflame/ In the form of another black child/ That God and destiny shall name."
At that, millions of minds must have leaped 1,000 miles south and two days backward, to where and when Tiger Woods strode up the 18th fairway at Augusta National. It would have been thrilling enough that a 21-year-old had won the Masters or that any golfer had outstripped his competition by 12 strokes, the largest margin of victory in a major tournament in this century. Neither reality seemed as significant, though, as the color of his skin, because almost 50 years to the day that Robinson integrated baseball, Woods became the first nonwhite victor of what was once the whitest of all golf tournaments.
The serendipity of the two celebrations seemed almost too good to be true. It was as if they were both orchestrated by a higher power, namely Nike. Indeed, the two most compelling commercials on that ESPN telecast were Nike productions that ended with its trademark swoosh: "Thank you, Jackie Robinson," in which African-American ballplayers expressed their gratitude to Robinson, and "I am Tiger Woods," in which children of all races say that mantra before heading out to the golf course.
It would be too much to expect Tiger Woods, or anyone else, to say "I am Jackie Robinson." What Jack Roosevelt Robinson accomplished is chilling even to this day. This son of a Georgia sharecropper endured unspeakable indignities and taunts to become baseball's first black player. (Just last week officials in the small Florida town of Sanford issued an apology for their predecessors who forced Robinson off the field during a minor league game in 1946.) He won over hostile teammates, opponents and newsmen with his ferocity on the field and grace off it. In his 10 short years in the majors, he revolutionized base running and carved out a Hall of Fame career. And he never stopped taking a lead. In his last public appearance, during the 1972 World Series, he chided major league baseball for not having a black manager.
What would Robinson say now if he had a microphone? He would probably wonder why the Dodgers have only one African-American player in 1997. He would call on the 30 major league teams to hire more black managers than four, more black general managers than one. He would look at the faces in the stands and ask what, if anything, baseball is doing to attract minority fans. He would say retiring his No.42 is an empty gesture so long as baseball's executive washroom remains WHITES ONLY.
The vogue among sportswriters is to criticize current major leaguers for not appreciating what Robinson did, but the vast majority do. "Jackie Robinson stands for bravery, dignity, intelligence, intensity," Willie McGee of the St. Louis Cardinals said this spring. "He changed baseball and America. I wish he was still here to change them some more. As far as I'm concerned, he is the man of the century."