We don't always remember the history as well as we claim to. Burns has always done better in my opinion with shorter series like this one; having to focus seems to be beneficial for his narrative style, while the longer series can get pretty windy and repetitive at times. Here Burns has done, if nothing else, the great service of disabusing us of the myth that once Jackie Robinson made it to the majors and made it through a year without fighting back, all was well.
That kind of myth was pretty well established for a long time. The movie 42 exemplifies how the myth works, mostly by dint of the story ending after Robinson's rookie season in 1947. The virulent hate Robinson faced in 1947 might have been very slightly lessened in 1948 or 1949 or other later years, but it never went away. One could argue that, while it has probably softened somewhat (freely tossing around the "n-word" isn't acceptable in MLB any more), that racism never has gone away. Hank Aaron certainly felt it in the barrage of hate mail and death threats he received in his progress towards the all-time home run record in 1973 and 1974. Is it still out there, lurking in more coded language? Quite likely.
One can argue that such a burden as Robinson faced, prepared somewhat by Branch Rickey, was in some ways more than an athlete can bear. It's entirely possible, even likely, that the experience broke Robinson in ways even he probably didn't understand or realize. Not in spirit, mind you; if anything, Robinson only became more steadfast in his refusal to accept second-class citizenship merely over his skin color both during and especially after his playing career. But physically? Robinson had a pretty short career and health problems not always characteristic of baseball. I hate to speculate but it's hard not to wonder. The man was only 53 when he died.
At the same time, it's virtually impossible to imagine such a breakthrough happening in any other sport, then or now. Basketball might have established itself as the most racially progressive of current professional leagues, and the coming-out of Jason Collins was absorbed reasonably well, but it's still an uncertain league on some issues. The NFL, naturally, shows no signs of being capable of making progress on social issues as long as it's irreparably damaging some substantial number of its players.
The problem, though, is more accurately located in our fanciful hope that somehow any sport can be a vehicle for solving the hatreds and conflicts of society. Sports isn't cut out for that. It's a game. Whether it's the expectation of baseball fixing racism or sporting events being a megaphone for hyper-patriotism, it's not up to the task. There aren't that many Jackie Robinsons out there in any sport, or in most of life for that matter, who can handle the burdens that come with being an object or a cultural icon more than a human being. The degree to which we wish for sports to "fix" society is the degree to which we admit our failure to be a civilized society, to do, in the most basic sense, the right thing.
No sport can fix us. Don't ask it to try. Maybe it can be a piece of the puzzle (see: Tampa Bay Rays 4, Cuba 1), but it's never going to be a solution.
Meanwhile, baseball continues to cling to Robinson even as the sport seems to lose more and more traction among black athletes and fans, in a way the following picture seems to capture oddly well:
Robinson's jersey number 42 is retired in all of Major League Baseball, and on one day of the season every player in the league wears the number, in tribute or desperation I'm not sure. Among those who made the recent trip to Cuba with President Obama (and the Tampa Bay Rays) was Robinson's widow Rachel.
Baseball is still placing a large burden on Jackie Robinson.
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