When Jackie Robinson entered the Dodgers clubhouse for the very first time, two team members shook his hand. Several others nodded. The rest ignored him. Maybe they welcomed all rookies that way…

In that first game, Jackie got on base in 1 of his 4 at bats, and subsequently scored. After the game, he said in an interview: “I know that I have a certain responsibility to my race, but I’ve got to try not to feel that way about it because it would be too much of a strain. I’ll do my best.”

Not surprisingly, Jackie only played OK ball initially, ignoring all the racial remarks yelled from the crowd and the other teams. In Philadelphia, the manager reportedly ordered his players to yell racial remarks at Jackie. Those remarks were so awful that FANS wrote to the commissioner of baseball who consequently warned the owner of the Phillies to control his manager or face punishment.

Jackie later recalled: “For on wild and rage-crazed minute I thought, ‘To hell with Mr. Rickey’s noble experiment. To hell with the image of the patient black freak I was supposed to create. I would throw down my bat, stride over to the Phillies dugout, grab one of those white sons of bitches and smash his teeth in with my despised black fist. What a glorious cleansing thing that would be. Then I could walk away from baseball.” But Jackie didn’t.

The statistics showed Jackie was getting hit more by pitches than anyone else in either league. That tapered off after May, perhaps when pitchers saw that it didn’t rattle Jackie.

However Jackie started rattling the pitchers every time he got on base, taking long leads, causing the pitcher to have to concentrate on him trying to steal a base, as well as on the next pitch. He started playing an aggressive, confident game – his way of fighting back, showing equal parts of speed and guts.

Even when he made a mistake, Jackie could turn it around. One day he took too long of a lead from second when the batter popped out just beyond the infield. Jackie was going to be tagged out, no matter what he did. But he put on quite a show, running back and forth between second and third. He had four opponents watching him, trying to tag him out. No one notice that during all this, the Dodger who HAD been on first base was now on second. Only then did Jackie allow himself to be tagged out. The next Dodger at bat hit a solid single to right field, and the Dodger on second scored, courtesy of Jackie Robinson.

Another time, Jackie was caught between third and home. For 40 seconds he kept 5 of his opponents busy trying to tag him out. Then there was a wild throw which got past the 3rd baseman and Jackie scored.

Jackie knew he was playing major league baseball. But he still wasn’t sure what his teammates thought of him.