Shared with you
- Branch Rickey: We're tackling something big here, Jackie. If we fail, no one will try it again for twenty years. But if we succeed...
- Clyde Sukeforth: If we succeed, Brooklyn will win a pennant.
- Branch Rickey: Yes, that too. But we're dealing with rights here. The right of any American to play baseball, the American game. You think he's our boy, Clyde?
- Clyde Sukeforth: Well, he can run, he can hit, and he can field.
- Branch Rickey: But can he take it?
- Clyde Sukeforth: That I don't know.
- Branch Rickey: What do you think, Jackie?
- Jackie Robinson: Well, I can try.
- Branch Rickey: Think you've got guts enough to play the game no matter what happens? They'll shout insults at you. They'll come into you spikes first. They'll throw at your head.
- Jackie Robinson: They've been throwing at my head for a long time, Mr. Rickey.
- Branch Rickey: Suppose I'm a player in the heat of an important game. Suppose I collide with you at second base and when I get up I say, 'You - you dirty black so-and-so!' What do you do?
- Jackie Robinson: Mr. Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who's afraid to fight back?
- Branch Rickey: I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back. You got to do this job with base hits, stolen bases, and fielding ground balls, Jackie. Nothing else! Now I'm playing against you in a World Series and I'm hot-headed. I want to win this game. So I go into you spikes first. You jab the ball in my ribs and the umpire says, 'Out.' I flare. All I can see is your black face - that black face right over me. So I haul off and punch you right in the cheek. What do you do?
- Jackie Robinson: Mr. Rickey, I've got two cheeks.
- Branch Rickey: Good.
- Branch Rickey: A box score - you know a box score is really democratic, Jackie. It doesn't say how big you are or how your father voted in the last election or what church you attend. It just tells you what kind of a ballplayer you were that day.
- Jackie Robinson: Well, isn't that what counts?
- Branch Rickey: It's all that ought to count, and maybe someday it's all that will count.
- Branch Rickey: We're tackling something big here, Jackie. If we fail, no one will try it again for twenty years. But if we succeed...
- Clyde Sukeforth: If we succeed, Brooklyn will win a pennant.
- Branch Rickey: Yes, that too. But we're dealing with rights here. The right of any American to play baseball, the American game. You think he's our boy, Clyde?
- Clyde Sukeforth: Well, he can run, he can hit, and he can field.
- Branch Rickey: But can he take it?
- Clyde Sukeforth: That I don't know.
- Branch Rickey: What do you think, Jackie?
- Jackie Robinson: Well, I can try.
- Branch Rickey: Think you've got guts enough to play the game no matter what happens? They'll shout insults at you. They'll come into you spikes first. They'll throw at your head.
- Jackie Robinson: They've been throwing at my head for a long time, Mr. Rickey.
- Branch Rickey: Suppose I'm a player in the heat of an important game. Suppose I collide with you at second base and when I get up I say, 'You - you dirty black so-and-so!' What do you do?
- Jackie Robinson: Mr. Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who's afraid to fight back?
- Branch Rickey: I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back. You got to do this job with base hits, stolen bases, and fielding ground balls, Jackie. Nothing else! Now I'm playing against you in a World Series and I'm hot-headed. I want to win this game. So I go into you spikes first. You jab the ball in my ribs and the umpire says, 'Out.' I flare. All I can see is your black face - that black face right over me. So I haul off and punch you right in the cheek. What do you do?
- Jackie Robinson: Mr. Rickey, I've got two cheeks.
- Branch Rickey: Good.
- [first lines]
- Narrator: This is the story of a boy and his dream. But more than that, it is the story of an American boy and dream that is truly an American.
- Jackie's Mother: Jackie, I don't know what kind of advice to give you, only, only there must be churches in a big town like New York. Why don't you go find yourself a church and talk to the minister and see what he has to say. And Jackie, anytime you have a real problem, listen to God awhile.
- Jackie Robinson: I want to quit college - right after the basketball season.
- Mack Robinson: What for?
- Jackie Robinson: I gotta get a job. I want to marry Rae. School's one thing, but, even Mom can't support Rae too.
- Mack Robinson: Can't it wait till you graduate?
- Jackie Robinson: What good will a degree do me? They're not hiring colored football coaches. Not our color, anyway.
- Mack Robinson: Don't you want to play baseball this season?
- Jackie Robinson: What good will that do me? Baseball's one sport they'll never let me in.
- Mack Robinson: Yeah. It's your best sport too.
- UCLA Scout: He led the conference in TDs. Only, there's one problem, Bill.
- Bill Spaulding: What do you mean, the Trojans have already got him?
- UCLA Scout: No-no. No, he's a colored boy. I heard somebody squawking about giving colored boys too many athletic scholarships.
- Bill Spaulding: Colored boys are all right with me if they're the right color.
- UCLA Scout: The right color?
- Bill Spaulding: I like a good, clean, American boy with a B average; if that's the kind of a boy you're talking about. His colors are blue and gold.
- UCLA Scout: UCLA colors, huh?
- Bill Spaulding: That's right and you can tell it to Robinson for me.
- Branch Rickey: You gotta girl, Jackie?
- Jackie Robinson: Well, I don't know.
- Branch Rickey: What do you mean you don't know?
- Jackie Robinson: Traveling around all the time and not writing as often as I should, I think I still have a girl.
- Branch Rickey: Good. You'll need one.
- Jackie's Mother: [on the phone] Hello, Jackie. You all right? You've got a chance - for what?
- Jackie Robinson: Well, I can be the first negro to ever play in organized baseball, Mom, if I I'm good enough. If I can make the grade.
- Jackie Robinson: I'm a ball player, Reverend. I've just learned that the Brooklyn Dodgers have been scouting negro ball players for a couple of years and Mr. Rickey thinks I'm good enough to - well, Reverend, it just means that a colored man will be able to play on the same field with a white man for the first time.
- Minister: Who goes out to these ballparks, Jackie? Just white men?
- Jackie Robinson: No. Anybody can buy a ticket Reverend, colored or white.
- Minister: Tell me, Jackie, what do you think would actually happen if you were to get out on a white baseball field?
- Jackie Robinson: Well, I don't know? They might call me names. They might even beat me up.
- Minister: I don't mean what would happen to you, Jackie. I mean, what would happen to the colored people?
- Jackie Robinson: Might start fights. Might even start a riot!
- Minister: That's true. On the other hand, every step forward for our people has started a fight somewhere, for the time being, anyhow. This is a big thing you have to decide, Jackie. And not just for you alone. It's a big thing for the whole colored people.
- Jackie Robinson: I know. That's why I came to you for help.
- Minister: A great deal depends upon you, Jackie: what kind of a man you are.
- Branch Rickey: Come on, Jackie, we don't want trouble.
- Jackie Robinson: I'm the cause of the trouble, Mr. Rickey. Maybe you'd like to call it off. Maybe you'd rather I went back to the Panthers.
- Branch Rickey: Not on your life. We started this together, boy, and we'll finish it together. We'll complete the training season and you'll complete it with us.
- Frank Shaughnessy: You'll break up the whole international league playing that colored boy. I've had letters, phone calls. I've even polled all the sports writers.
- Branch Rickey: What do the sports writers have to say?
- Frank Shaughnessy: Jim Flanagan thinks you're even hurting the negroes. This'll stir up a lot of trouble. They'll be black and white fights about it all over the country and you'll be sorry you ever started it.
- Branch Rickey: Frank, I've spent my whole life in baseball and I've always been proud of that, because, I've always thought baseball was fine game, a clean game. I've always thought it had a good influence on the American people, on the kids growing up. I always thought baseball taught fair play and sportsmanship. But, if what you say is true, then I've been all wrong. My whole life's been wrong. Wasted! I tell you what I'll do with you, I'll go out to Jersey City with you tomorrow and we'll sit in a front box. And if anybody has got any rocks to throw, they can throw them at me.
- Baseball Broadcaster: What will the highly publicized Jackie Robinson do today? Will organized baseball's first negro player make good? Or, will he fail?
- Baseball Broadcaster: Here's the moment that everybody's been waiting for. This big crowd is silent and tense as Jackie stands there at the plate. He's a right-handed batter, you know, stands well back in the box, feet wide apart, very good form. And every eye in this stadium is on that boy. Anxious, as Jackie stands there waiting for that first pitch.
- Frank Shaughnessy: You know where Montreal is playing next week, Branch, and they don't like colored people there.
- Brooklyn Fan in Stands: I see we gotta Shine playing here this afternoon.
- Spike: Not me, brother. I ain't got 'em. You got 'em.
- Brooklyn Fan in Stands: I got 'em? Huh! I don't even live here.
- Spike: Where you from?
- Brooklyn Fan in Stands: I'm from Brooklyn. I drive a truck down here once a week.
- Spike's Friend: Well, when you get back home, tell Rickey that you spoke with a couple of friends of the friends of his nigger ball player.
- Tough Lodge Member in Stands: Yeah!
- [makes a motion like he's cutting his throat]
- Tough Lodge Member in Stands: Friends!
- Brooklyn Fan in Stands: Don't tell me about it. I just don't like Shines.
- Spike: I thought you was one of the boys.
- Brooklyn Fan in Stands: One of the what boys?
- Spike's Friend: Shut up, Spike!
- Spike: Aw, what's the diff? We got a little club, kind of, branches all over the country.
- Tough Lodge Member in Stands: Yeah, when they get uppity, we, we kinda put 'em in their place.
- Tough Lodge Member in Stands: We're going to call on Robinson, as soon as the game is over.
- Spike: We don't like them boys playin' ball around here.
- Tough Lodge Member in Stands: Not in this town!
- Spike's Friend: Where you goin' black boy?
- Spike: Don't run away black boy. We're the welcoming committee.
- Branch Rickey: All right, men, I respect your right to petition. But, I do question and I will fight any petition that denies any American the right to earn his living in the game that is supposed to represent the democratic principles of sportsmanship and fair play!
- Baseball Announcer in Booth: Not only the official scorer's eyes are on the negro rookie, the whole world is waiting. Everybody wants to know, if Branch Rickey has made a mistake. Will they be able to say, "I told you so"? Let's see.
- Rae Robinson: [massaging Jackie's back] You're still the best base runner, they can't take that away from you.
- Jackie Robinson: Yeah, but, you can't steal first. Ow! What have you got in those hands? Steel springs?
- Rae Robinson: They're nurses hands, remember?
- Jackie Robinson: Well, they better nurse me out of this slump or Mr. Rickey will be looking for a new boy.
- Jackie Robinson: I know that life in these United States can be mighty tough for people who are a little different from the majority. I'm not fooled because I've had a chance, open to very few negro Americans. But, I do know that democracy works for those who are willing to fight for it and I'm sure it's worth defending. I can't speak for any 50 million people. No one person can. But, I'm certain that I and other Americans of many races and faiths, have too much invested in our country's welfare to throw it away or to let it be taken from us.
- [last lines]
- Narrator: Yes, this is the Jackie Robinson story. But it is not his story alone. Not his victory alone. It is one that each of us shares. A story, a victory that can only happen in a country that is truly free. A country where every child has the opportunity to become President or play baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
- Reporter: Coach, do you think the public will accept a colored second baseman?
- Hopper: [pauses] Let's wait to see if I do.
- Mack Robinson: More mail again. I bet you spent fifty bucks on stamps!
- Jackie Robinson: If it gets me a job, it'll be worth it!
- Rae Robinson: You know, sometimes when you wait for real good news, you wait forever.
- Jackie Robinson: I guess so.
- Rae Robinson: I don't want to wait forever.
- Jackie Robinson: You marry me now and you're asking for trouble.
- Rae Robinson: All right, Jackie, I'll ask for it.
- Branch Rickey: [Jackie fields a ground ball, throws to first] He's out! No other human being could have made that play.
- Hopper: Mr. Rickey, do you really think he is a human being?