Each year, I try to read a new book about his life in time for his birthday, January 31.
His life has been documented from every imaginable angle, preserved in books, movies, statues, and a museum. To those who have followed my reviews for awhile, then you know that Jackie Robinson is one of my American heroes. These four crucial years offer a unique vision of Robinson as a player, a father and husband, and a civil rights hero―a new window on a complex man, tied to the 50th anniversary of his passing and the 75th anniversary of his professional baseball debut. Kennedy examines each of these years through details not reported in previous biographies, bringing them to life in vivid prose and through interviews with fans and players who witnessed his impact, as well as with Robinson's surviving family. Through it all, Robinson remained true to the effort and the mission, true to his convictions and contradictions.
True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson by Kostya Kennedy is an unconventional biography, focusing on four transformative years in Robinson's athletic and public life: 1946, his first year playing in the essentially all-white minor leagues for the Montreal Royals 1949, when he won the Most Valuable Player Award in his third season as a Brooklyn Dodger 1956, his final season in major league baseball, when he played valiantly despite his increasing health struggles and 1972, the year of his untimely death. But Robinson’s impact extended far beyond baseball: he opened the door for Black Americans to participate in other sports, and was a national figure who spoke and wrote eloquently about inequality. Now, a half-century since Robinson’s death, letters come to his widow, Rachel, by the score. True is a probing, richly-detailed, unique biography of Jackie Robinson, one of baseball's―and America's―most significant figures.įor players, fans, managers, and executives, Jackie Robinson remains baseball’s singular figure, the person who most profoundly extended, and continues to extend, the reach of the game. Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year
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