Religion's Role in Racial Integration of Baseball

In the face of recurring allegations of the use of performance-enhancing drugs against some of baseball’s elite players, Major League Baseball would love Americans to focus on some of the more noble chapters of the game’s history.  Thank God for Hollywood.  The film “42” shown in theaters in April (and soon to be released on DVD/Blu-Ray for home viewing) highlights the “noble experiment” of the racial integration of baseball, when Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to play for the major-league Brooklyn Dodgers.  While I have not yet seen the film, I have heard that the religious aspects of that “noble experiment” were included only briefly in the drama.  That does not surprise me.  Yet at a time when the more noble chapters of religion’s history could also use some retelling, especially in light of recent sex abuse scandals and religious violence, it is important to see that religion did play a decidedly significant role.

This was in part because both actors in what Robinson called “Mr. Rickey’s drama,” were raised in the bosom of Methodism.  Wesley Branch Rickey was a devout and pious Wesleyan, who was active in churches as a lay preacher, helped to find funding for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and promised his mother that he would never set foot in a ballpark on Sundays.  Given his propensity to use religious allusions and to give sermon-like speeches, baseball writers referred to him as “Deacon.”  While a director of a YMCA in Delaware, Ohio, he came in contact with the teachings of the social gospel and its emphasis on creating communities where all persons were treated with equal respect regardless of race.  He even invited such luminaries as Booker T. Washington, Jacob Riis, and Jane Addams to speak there.  All of these religious influences instilled in Rickey a commitment to justice and fairness and a desire to end discrimination in baseball if he ever had the opportunity.  Rickey would later write, “I couldn’t face my God much longer knowing that His black creatures are held separate and distinct from His white creatures in the game that has given me all I own.” 

The reason that Rickey chose Robinson from among all of the qualified African-American ballplayers was because Robinson was “a Christian by inheritance and practice.”  Robinson also grew up in the Methodist church.  His mother, Mallie Robinson, was a god-fearing woman who sought to instill in her children a commitment to live according to the will of God.  She taught her children, “God watches what you do; you must reap what you sow, so sow well!”  By example, she challenged the bigotry and racism she faced in Pasadena but in a way that sought to overcome such hatred with kindness and love.  His minister, the Reverend Karl Downs, helped Robinson to see the relevance of the biblical stories to everyday life.  Participation in the life of his church became a pleasure, what he later called “excitement in belonging.”  The combined influence of his mother and his minister helped Robinson to develop a strong sense of his own dignity and a belief that racial segregation was immoral.

As much a part of this drama was the religious text used by Rickey to get Robinson to agree not to retaliate in the face of the abuse he would experience both on and off the field.  The passage from the Sermon on the Mount to “turn the other cheek” will undoubtedly be highlighted in the film.  Less clear is whether or not there will be reference to the book Rickey gave to Robinson in the midst of their three-hour meeting, Papini’s Life of Christ.  In particular, Rickey asked Robinson to read the section on nonresistance, where Papini contends that “turning the other cheek,” which is an active not a passive stance, is the only response to violence that has the potential to end the cycle of violence and bring about community and reconciliation.  “Turning the other cheek means not receiving the second blow.  It means cutting the chain of the inevitable wrongs at the first link.”  Could Robinson, who had a “hair-trigger disposition” in the face of racial bigotry, do it?  He was not sure, but as he recalled the biblical message embodied by his mother’s example, to overcome hatred with love and patience, he knew it had to begin with him.  As Papini writes, “Only he who had transformed his own soul can transform the souls of his brothers, and transform the world into a less grievous place for all.”

The rest, as they say, is history.  The “noble experiment” succeeded in integrating major league baseball and contributed to the end of segregation in our nation, something the film “42” certainly accentuates.  The hero of that drama, Jackie Robinson, has been enshrined anew in the minds and hearts of all who see it.  And while there were many things that influenced the unfolding of this story, religion contributed greatly to the success of this moral transformation of American society.  I hope this is the role that religion will continue to play.