Today is Saturday, April 13, 2013. My stats today: 10 minutes of yoga, 10 minutes on the ball and 37 minutes of walking = 2.0 miles for an April total of 27.8 miles. My weight was 161.4 pounds.
Inspiring QUOTE from Dear Abby: "Maturity is: The ability to carry money without spending it. And the ability to bear an injustice without wanting to get even."
My THOUGHTS today have to do with a movie. Yesterday Ruth Ann and I went to see the movie "42". It was the story of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball from 1945 to 1957. Branch Rickey deserves the most credit for breaking the barrier by having the guts to sign Robinson to a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers Triple AAA farm team in Montreal in1946. If it hadn't been for Rickey who knows how many years it would've been before the color barrier was broken. He picked Robinson because he was a fantastic athlete who had lettered in football, basketball, track and baseball at UCLA in the early 1940s. He also picked Robinson because he thought he could handle the abuse he would receive all over the league.
The abuse Robinson went through in Montreal in 1946 and 1947 in Brooklyn was unbelievable. The boos and verbal taunts would have destroyed most people. But Rickey had told him before he signed that "I want a player who will be smart enough not to respond to any of the hate that he would have to go through." Robinson did just that but he almost broke a couple of times. But with Rickey and his wife (Rachel) backing him up he managed to keep his pledge not to respond. The most racist scene in the film was when the Philadelphia Phillies manager (Ben Chapman) stood on the dugout steps when Jackie came to bat and called him every imaginable racist taunt you can imagine.
Another great scene was when Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese got a hate letter which threatened him for playing with Robinson. Pee Wee was from Kentucky. He got the hate letter when the Dodgers were playing their first game in Cincinnatti, just across the Ohio River from Kentucky. Pee Wee took the letter to Branch Rickey's office and showed it to him. Branch then went to his files and pulled out three big manila folders, stuffed with hundreds of letters, and laid them in front of Pee Wee. He read a couple of them and decided he didn't have much to complain about. The three folders were full of hate-filled letters that Rickey had received which threatened his life and Jackie Robinson's life.
Ruth Ann said it was the best and most memorable movie she had ever seen. I feel the same way.
We've come a long way since 1946-7. To think we now have a black president is almost unbelievable. However, President Obama has received more death threats than all the other presidents combined. I feel he has responded just like Jackie Robinson did - he has kept his mouth shut and never once acknowledged or reacted to any of the threats.
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