The "Waitin' for '42'" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Watching "Meet the Press" on NBC and found the small segment featuring Ken Burns, Harrison Ford, David Gregory and Rachel Robinson to be extremely interesting.  Since baseball has always been my favorite sport, watching Rachel talk about her late husband was immensely enjoyable for me.  In case you don't know by now who Rachel Robinson may be, she is the wife of former baseball star/civil rights activist Jackie Robinson.  The movie "42" is going to be released soon and quite a bit of hype is preceding the opening of the film.  Harrison Ford played the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Jackie to a contract in 1947.  At the time I was too young to realize what impact that would hold for the sport, but as I grew in age and in the sport, I gained more insight into what that momentous occasion really meant to not only baseball, but to the civil rights movement.  As I have rehashed a few times in other stories, my first involvement with baseball was in 1956, nine years after Jackie had signed with the Dodgers.  At that time my dad took me to the south end of the city of Lancaster for tryouts for the Schick Midget-Midget baseball team.  Little did he realize that the team consisted of mostly black players.  To me, it was no big deal, since they loved baseball as much as I did.  I had one of the greatest experiences that year while playing the game I love so much with a great bunch of black and white guys I grew to love.  To me it was a natural to have any color player on the team, as long as they loved the game and could play on the same level.  As I grew and started to realize that Mr. Robinson had broken the color barrier in the Major Leagues, I found it hard to believe that it hadn't been like that forever. I don't believe that today's black and Hispanic children appreciate what Jackie did for them back in the late 40s.  They have, just the same as I did, grown up in baseball with no racial barriers.  Too bad that the sport of baseball can't be carried over into the rest of our lives as well.  I realize that there are still many barriers for the black and Hispanic cultures that haven't shown the progress that sports has accepted.  Maybe I never will see racial injustice be corrected in my lifetime.  Pretty hard to believe that to be true.  As for the movie "42", I can hardly wait to see it.  Written and directed by  Brian Helgeland, "42" is said to be mostly an  unexceptional film about an exceptional man.  The movie is said to remind us that black Americans fought and died for their country in World War II, but returned home to a country with separate drinking fountains and a ban on Negroes in the major leagues.  The movie depicts Jackie Robinson's first year in the majors and all the turmoil and racist fans as well as players and managers which he has to maneuver through in order to succeed in the game of baseball and life.  He is considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time.  Not just black players, but baseball players.  I can hardly wait to see the film. I'm sure I will have more memories to share after I watch the film.  It was an ordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.