Jackie's day

On this day, April 15, 2009, the 62nd anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in a major league baseball game, here is an excerpt from "The Boys of Summer," by Roger Kahn.

Jackie's wife, Rachel, is talking:

"Another time the Dodgers were playing in West Palm Beach and I took (our son) Jackie, and when we got there they wouldn't let us through the turnstile. No colored, the man said. Go around to the outfield. The colored entrance, they called it, was where they'd taken some boards out of the outfield fence. You had to climb over boards. Skirts were long then. I remember holding little Jack's hand and helping him through.

"I never discussed any of these humiliations. I tried to pretend they weren't there. And young Jack never discussed them with me. But he must have noticed, He had to notice don't you think?"

"He noticed," Robinson said.

"My husband underplays things," Rachel said. "That's his style. Don't let him fool you. What he came up against, and what we all came up against, was very, very rough."

Robinson's eyes remained half closed.

"He was explosive on the field," Rachel said, "and reporters used to ask if he was explosive at home. Of course he wasn't. No matter what he'd been called, or how sarcastic or bigoted others had been to him, he never took it out on any of us.

"After we moved up here," Rachel said, "there was one clue to when he was upset, when things had gone particularly badly. He'd go out on the lawn with a bucket of golf balls and take his driver, and one after another hit those golf balls into the water."

Robinson sat up. His eyes grew merry. "The golf balls were white," he said.