I Never Had It Made by Jackie Robinson Page B

league, the American Association. After that the Royals and Louisville would play off in the crucial little world series. The three games held in Louisville were vital baseball-wise and extremely significant racially. Louisville turned out to be the most critical test of my ability to handle abuse. In a quiet but firm way Louisville was as rigidly segregationist as any city in the Deep South. The tension was terrible, and I was greeted with some of the worst vituperation I had yet experienced. The Louisville club owners had moved to meet anticipated racial trouble by setting a black attendance quota. Many more than the prescribed number of blacks wanted to come to the game since it would be the first instance of interracial competition in baseball in the city’s history. As white fans surged through the turnstiles unhampered, numbers of blacks, some of whom had come long distances, were standing outside the gates, unable to gain admittance.
    I had been in a deep funk for a few days before the game. Although I didn’t expect the atmosphere to be nearly as bad as it turned out to be, I knew that bad trouble lay ahead. To make matters worse I had descended into one of those deadly slumps which are the despair of any player who has ever been afflicted by them. I was playing terrible ball in Louisville. In all three games I managed one hit out of eleven tries. The worse I played, the more vicious that howling mob in the stands became. I had been booed pretty soundly before, but nothing like this. A torrent of mass hatred burst from the stands with virtually every move I made.
    â€œHey, black boy, go on back to Canada—and stay,” a fan yelled.
    â€œYeah,” another one screamed, “and take all your nigger-loving friends with you.”
    I couldn’t hit my stride. With a sick heart, damp hands, a sweaty brow, and nerves on edge, I saw my team go down to defeat in two of the three games. To make up for this, we would have to win three out of the four final games to be played in Montreal. When we arrived in that city, we discovered that the Canadians were up in arms over the way I had been treated. Greeting us warmly, they let us know how they felt. They displayed their resentment against Louisville and their loyalty to us on the first day of our return to play the final games by letting loose an avalanche of boos against the Louisville players the minute they came on the field. All through that first game, they booed every time a Louisville player came out of the dugout. It was difficult to be sure how I felt. I didn’t approve of this kind of retaliation, but I felt a jubilant sense of gratitude for the way the Canadians expressed their feelings. When fans go to bat for you like that, you feel it would be easy to play for them forever.
    I guess the rest of the team felt that way, too. At any rate, we played as if we did. When we came on the field, our loyal Canadians did everything but break the stands down. Louisville showed some spunk as the game opened, jumping to a 2-0 lead in the first inning and going ahead 4-0 by the fifth. After that, the game changed. The confidence and love of those fans acted like a tonic to our team. In a classically hard-fought game, we won the game and tied up the series. We ended up winning three straight to win the championship. My slump had disappeared, and I finished the series hitting .400 and scoring the winning run in the final game.
    I was thrilled but I was also in a hurry. I had a reservation on a plane to Detroit to take off on a barnstorming tour. The tour, starting in Detroit, was to last a month. I rushed through the happy Montreal crowds swarming over the field, got into the clubhouse, but before I could shower and dress, an usher came in to tell me the fans were still waiting to tell me good-bye. He neglected to mention that there were thousands of them. They grabbed me, they slapped my back. They hugged me. Women kissed me. Kids grinned and crowded