By Mallory Mattingly
Former Major League Baseball player Ralph Branca had the incredible opportunity of being teammates with Jackie Robinson, the first African-American baseball star.
In a letter to Guideposts, Branca reflected on the “quiet strength of Robinson.”
“I was there with him on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers. I was a scared 21-year-old pitcher, trying to make it in the majors. Jackie was just doing the same, I thought. Until he walked into the Dodgers clubhouse for the first time that Opening Day,” Branca recalled.
“I hadn’t thought much about segregation in baseball. Few of us ballplayers did. We were too worried about our own jobs. That’s what my prayers were about. I didn’t want to get sent back down to the minors,” he continued. “I had heard about Jackie, of course. Everybody on the team had. How big and fast and strong he was. Duke Snider, our future Hall of Fame centerfielder, who grew up near Los Angeles, used to watch Jackie play at UCLA.”
At that time, there was “a petition that had circulated around the clubhouse. A handful of players said they wouldn’t play with Jackie on the team.”
However, Branca never signed that petition.
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“Twenty-six thousand Brooklyn fans came out that Opening Day. Somehow, in the minutes before we took the field, I ended up sitting beside Jackie in the dugout,” he remembered.
Robinson turned to Branca and said, “You know, Ralph, this is a big day for me.”
“I knew what he meant: It wasn’t a big day just for him, but for all African-Americans. I was a little surprised he was confiding in me,” Branca continued. “‘Just go out and play your game,’ I said. ‘Don’t change anything. Be your natural self.'”
Branca quickly realized that wasn’t possible for Robinson. Pitchers throughout the league would throw at his head.
“There were no batting helmets in those days. Runners went out of their way to try to spike him,” Branca said. “In Philadelphia, the Phillies manager, Ben Chapman, shouted from his dugout, ‘Hey, boy! I need a shine.’ On the Dodgers bench, we could see Jackie just burning up inside.”
That’s when Branca would pray, “God, give me the strength to act.”
Later, Branca and Robinson sat down for dinner in Philadelphia, and Branca asked his teammate, “How do you just sit silently and take it?”
When Dodgers’ owner, Rickey Branch, met with Robinson for the first time, he handed him “a book titled Life of Christ, by Giovanni Papini, opened it to the passage on the Sermon on the Mount, and read it aloud.”
“’Ralph,” Robinson said, “many nights I get down on my knees and pray to God for the strength not to fight back.”
“Jackie hit .297 that year, led us to the World Series and was named Rookie of the Year. But after that night, to me it wasn’t his baseball ability that stood out. It was his strength of character. His faith. What he accomplished that year was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen in sports,” Branca shared of his friend.
“I don’t know if courage is a quality you can pass along. But I know I drew strength from him that night in Philadelphia. I thought, ‘I’m blessed to be here, to be Jackie’s teammate. To be his friend,'” he concluded.
Read Next: THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY
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