Jackie Robinson Was No DEI Hire – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

April 15th was Tax Day, but it was also Jackie Robinson Day. In 1947, Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager and President Branch Rickey hired Robinson to be the first black major league player, but his was not a DEI hire. Rickey wanted Robinson so he could get the previously mediocre Dodgers — they were referred to by fans as “Dem Bums” — into the World Series, and he succeeded. That year, the Bums represented the National League in the series losing to the Yankees in seven games.

This is not to say that Rickey did not also have idealistic motives. When coaching Ohio Wesleyan earlier in the century, his team’s only black player was denied lodging at a hotel during a road trip. An incensed Rickey bullied the hotel manager into allowing the player to stay, but he never forgot the incident.

Rickey was a winner wherever he went as a manager and businessman. He had a long and successful career with the St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles) and the Cardinals before coming to Brooklyn in 1943, when the Dodger’s general manager enlisted to fight in World War II. Rickey was a superb innovator as well. During his long career in the sport he introduced the farm system, batting cages, pitching machines, and batter’s helmets.

By the late 1940s, Rickey realized that the existing Negro League had a vast pool of talent, and that the first major league team to break the color barrier could get superstar talent at bargain basement prices. After luring Robinson away from the Negro League — where players made almost no money — Rickey placed him with the AAA affiliate Montreal, the Dodgers’ farm team where he  excelled. In 1947, he moved Robinson up to the Dodgers with much publicity. Getting Robinson ushered in the franchise’s first golden era. Other black players such as Don Newcombe would help the Dodgers win their first world championship in 1955.

Robinson won over Brooklyn fans when he became the first major league Rookie of the Year, but he had to endure racial slurs from players and fans when on the road until other teams became integrated as well. 

This year’s Robinson Day was somewhat marred when in March, the Pentagon temporarily removed its website recognizing Robinson’s military service when either a low level bureaucrat or AI bot mistook it for a pro-DEI site. The same type of mistake happened temporarily in the Air Force with the Tuskegee Airmen and with the Marines concerning the Navajo Code Talkers. Any time a radical change happens bureaucracies tend to mistakenly overcompensate. These were three unfortunate mistakes in a long overdue reform.

Jackie Robinson was no DEI hire; he was the real deal. He would have been a hall of famer in any era.

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Gary Anderson is a frequent contributor to the American Spectator He played and coached baseball at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and remains a baseball history buff.