Robinson's restraint a noble quality

"With [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so." [James 3:9-10]

Jackie Robinson could have had a prosperous career as an anger management consultant. It seems inarguable that few Americans have withstood more provocation from more sources and endured the same silently -- with dignity and honor. What I know about Robinson, the first man of color to break the whites-only barrier in Major League Baseball in the late 1940s, I know from books and newsreels -- and most recently, the movie "42," now in theaters. His entire baseball career happened before my birth.

Let's get one thing out of the way. Longtime readers of this column who know this writer's history will think it odd if the following goes unmentioned: Robinson, and the baseball executive who advocated his entry into the "show," Branch Rickey, were both members of what used to known as the Methodist Church [now the United Methodist Church]. This is unremarkable. What should matter is these two, linked forever in the history of race relations in the United States, were professing Christians who chose a specific "tribe," e.g., Methodism, in which to practice their faith. That's all the attention the matter deserves.

Robinson, who wore No. 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, was a remarkable athlete. He played football brilliantly for UCLA, and in track and field he was a world-class long jumper. He also was a veteran who survived an ugly and undeserved court-martial -- and who mustered out of Army service honorably. Robinson had been through a great deal before ever running onto the field for Brooklyn in 1947.

Rickey, who built the farm system in a long career with the St. Louis Cardinals, came to Brooklyn and signed Robinson at the close of World War II to a minor league contract. The effervescent and notoriously thrifty Rickey knew Robinson could play. What he didn't know, until he had apprenticed on the Dodgers' farm team in Montreal, Quebec, is whether Jackie could take abuse. Even after his one-year audition in Canada, Rickey still didn't know if Robinson could handle the red-hot glare of life in the National League. As Harrison Ford's Rickey confided in the film, "I want a player who's got the guts not to fight back."

How easy it is, how satisfying it is, to give as good as you get. How many times have I pastored folks who've told me, probably disingenuously, at all times they say whatever is on their minds, believing it a strength. It's not. A strong person exhibits restraint.

Imagine the career brevity of the first black major leaguer had he fired back. If he returned the invective he received from fans and even fellow players, his tenure might have been measured in weeks, perhaps days. Rickey couldn't afford a hotheaded pioneer.

Journalist William Manchester, who has chronicled the lives of men such as Winston Churchill, Douglas McArthur and John F. Kennedy, observed the supreme necessary quality of leadership is not intellect, but temperament. There are always smart people around. What situations are desperate for are men and women who can keep their heads while everyone else is losing theirs.

A bigoted manager of an opposing team peppered his catcalls to Robinson with the n-word. Some of Robinson's own teammates, Pee Wee Reese a notable exception, circulated a petition protesting Robinson's place on the roster. In all places on baseball's senior circuit, Robinson was subjected to verbal abuse that easily could have spun into violence.

Years of restraint and constant stress, necessitated by his status as baseball's trailblazer, may well have contributed to a too-short life. Jackie Robinson was just 53 when he died in 1972. May we remember those who do not fight back, not with their fists -- and echoing the letter of James, not even with their mouths.

Dr. Jeff Long is executive director of the Chateau Girardeau Foundation, a retired United Methodist pastor, and a part-time instructor in religious studies at Southeast Missouri State University.