KAPAA — Today, Major League Baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson Day, commemorating the man who broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The MLB has done so annually since 2004 when former baseball commissioner Bud Selig proclaimed April 15 as such and started the tradition. Since 2009, all on-field personnel — including players, managers, coaches and umpires — wear Robinson’s No. 42 on game day.
Though Robinson broke that color line in 1947, it would be many years after until baseball truly accepted non-white athletes.
“So when I went to Vero Beach (Florida) and I’m with the Dodgers that spring, we’re going along in our bus. Gilliam, Newcombe, Black, all the other Negro ball players are in another car beside us,” Kapaa resident Glenn Mickens recalled in a recent interview with TGI.
“I’m sitting in the bus next to (manager) Charlie Dressen. I said, ‘Charlie, why aren’t those guys on our bus?’ He said, ‘They can’t stay at our hotel. They can’t eat at our restaurant,’” Mickens continued. “I’m in shock. I said, ‘They can’t what?’ He said, ‘Mick, you’re in the South now. That’s the way it is down here.’”
That was in 1953, when Mickens was a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers and was a teammate of Robinson.
Mickens, a native of Los Angeles who retired to Kauai in 1989 following a long career in baseball, shared a commonality with Robinson.
“We both went to UCLA.” he said. “We talked about it. I said, ‘Jackie, for a guy like you to letter in four sports — the only athlete in UCLA’s history of all the athletes that went there … baseball, football, basketball and track — I said, ‘I’m in awe, Jackie.’ He just kind of shook his head.”
Mickens said he’d never seen discrimination until 1950 while he was traveling on the road while playing in the minor leagues.
“Even my first year, when they signed me to play pro ball, they sent me to Billings, Montana — way up north,” Mickens said. “We had a kid named Eddie Moore, a black kid. Heck of a ball player. Great kid. And (we had) another black kid from USC named Bill Brown. Four of us went into a restaurant to get a snack before we went out to the game. We order sandwiches or something. Glenn Cox and me, my other buddy, they brought our sandwiches. ‘Where’s theirs?’ ‘Oh, we can’t serve them.’ I said, ‘What?’ Remember, we’re in Montana now.
“I was in complete shock. I said, ‘You guys keep your sandwiches,’ and we walked out of the place. But to see the start of racial bigotry at that time, it was just hard to accept. And then when we get to Vero Beach, the Southern states, (there was) black drinking fountains and white drinking fountains, black restrooms and white restrooms. It was really hard for me to understand this ‘way of life’ they called it.”
Mickens described Robinson as “fiery” but he never retaliated against those who showed their disdain of him or even abused him.
“When you talked to Jackie, he never discussed it. You just, you could feel it when you talk to him,” he said.
Mickens played just six games for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Though his time in the majors was brief, he described it as a “thrill” and that he “was in another world.”
When he was sent down to the Montreal Royals, a Dodgers minor league affiliate, he remembers an encounter he had with Robinson — one he says is very “personal” to him.
“When they finally sent me back to Montreal from the big leagues, 99 percent of the time those guys in the big leagues, they don’t even know who you are,” Mickens said. “One day, I’m waiting to get some food. I’m standing in the corner, and the Dodgers had come back and they were on their way to Miami.
“Jackie comes over to the corner and says, ‘How you doin’ Mick?’ I said, ‘I’m doing fine. I’m trying to have a good year.’ He said, ‘Well, we’re waiting for you to come back.’ I’ll never forget that. The average person never even knew who you were. But to have this guy come back, a legend, and tell me, ‘Hey, we’re waiting for you to come back up here,’ it really meant a lot to me. But this was his modus operandi.”
Mickens last played pro ball in 1963 for the Kintetsu Buffaloes in the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan. Afterward, he was an assistant baseball coach at UCLA from 1964-89.
Mickens was inspired to retire to Kauai after a business trip regarding a baseball he manufactured, inspired by Japanese-style balls.
He called it the G.M. baseball, using his initials.
“I saw in Japan, they had a good baseball. It was lively. The center was a little different than ours had — wound rubber bands. It was a livelier ball than ours was, but I had to make it with the center the same as ours. I was distributing it in colleges all around the United States. I had some of my baseball buddies that are scouts, they were distributing it for me.
“Then, I come over to Hawaii to meet my manufacturer from Japan. When I’d meet him here, I didn’t have to go to Japan and he didn’t have to come to the Mainland. I met him over here. That’s when I got to see Hawaii. That’s when I said, ‘If I can ever retire, this is where I want to retire.’ I’m lucky enough to be here.”
Robinson died in 1972 at age 53 following complications from diabetes.
“He probably went blind at the end,” Mickens said. “He had great vision. He could stand a mile from that eye chart. Like they say about great hitters, he could read a mile away. He had great eyesight. … I did (remember when he died). I was shocked at that time, but he had been ill for a while with the diabetes.”
To this day, Mickens holds Robinson with high regard. For MLB to hold the annual event in remembrance of him, Mickens said it’s “absolutely wonderful.”
“I have nothing but the greatest (admiration for him) and his wife, Rachel. She was a wonderful woman, too. I got to know her a little bit and talk to her. She was a wonderful lady,” he said. “When you think about all that he had to go through to break that color line, (Dodgers general manager) Branch Rickey, again, he was the architect. He was the designer of being able to pick who he wanted there, and he certainly picked the right guy.”
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Nick Celario, sports writer, can be reached at 245-0437 or ncelario@thegardenisland.com.
