Jackie Robison was born in Cairo, Georgia, on January 31, 1919. He was the youngest of five children, and was raised in poverty. He attended John Muir High School, where he was an excellent athlete and played four sports: football, track, football, and baseball. He was named the region 's Most Valuable Player in baseball in 1938. Jackie continued his education at the University of California where he was the university’s first student to succeed in four sports. In 1941, despite his athletic achievements, Robinson was forced to leave UCLA just before graduation due to financial difficulty. He moved to Hawaii, where he played football for the Honolulu Bears. His season with the Bears was put on halt when the United States became involved into World War II.
Some may forget how great a player Jackie Robison was, because of the racial barrier he broke in his career. He had some very impressive stats. He hit .319 and averaged more than 110 runs scored per season. He drove in of eighty-five runs per season, and he averaged fifteen home runs per season. And he averaged 24 stolen bases per season. For his entire big-league career, he walked
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The integration of major-league baseball proceeded without critical incident. Though Robinson was scorned by some of his teammates, was harassed by enemy bench jockeys, and received a great number of fastballs close to his head; he faithfully abided by his promise to Rickey to turn the other cheek. Even when veteran outfielder Enos Slaughter of the Cardinals appeared to deliberately try to clip him with his spikes in an August 20 game at Ebbets Field, Jackie didn 't retaliate. In fact, baseball 's experiment was a huge success. Despite the concerns of the owners, integration proved to be a financial windfall for Major League Baseball. Robinson and the Dodgers broke the home attendance record they had set the previous year. They also broke single-game attendance records in every National League ballpark they played in during the 1947