As influential as [the] Rev. Downs had been, though, no one had a more profound impact on Robinson’s life than Branch Rickey, whose religious devotion was such that he didn’t attend baseball games on Sundays. During their first meeting, after Rickey had read aloud the passage from Papini’s “Life of Christ,” he also asked Robinson to read from the section about “nonresistance.” Robinson understood what was needed for him to succeed.
Nobody in sports had ever faced the sort of pressure, and abuse, that Jackie Robinson did when he took the field for the first time in a Brooklyn uniform on April 15, 1947. And yet Robinson didn’t merely endure, he thrived.
In a 1950 newspaper interview, he emphasized his faith in God and his nightly ritual of kneeling at bedside to pray. “It’s the best way to get closer to God,” Robinson said, and then the second baseman added with a smile, “and a hard-hit ground ball.”
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