The Day I Met Jackie Robinson
Since PBS is showing its Jackie Robinson documentary this week, I thought I’d post my memory of JR, along with the letter that Arthur Ashe wrote me about possibly including my essay in one of his anthologies; but Arthur died before he could use the article. 
On December 31, 2014, I met Vin Scully in Santa Monica and emailed him the article at 2:29 pm, and he replied at 7:18 pm on New Year’s Eve: THANKS FOR YOUR MEMORY..HAPPY NEW YEAR..VIN.
NOW: HERE’S THE ARTICLE
It was the summer of 1965. I was a kid of eleven, and I had been sent up from my home in Larchmont, New York, to Camp Norway, a summer camp in Ely, Vermont. It was the summer I saw my first bobcat; a summer spent watching Bob Hope movies in a rain-spattered tent; and it was the summer that I met, for the first and only time, Mr. Jackie Robinson.
It all happened in a moment, and it left an indelible imprint on my mind. Even now, almost fifty years later, it still feels as if it happened only yesterday. And what happened is one of the big events of my life—at least, of my childhood.
In youth, there are magical moments that persist forever in our memories. This was one such moment, and the funny thing was, it didn’t happen to me—well, not really.
I had a friend at Camp Norway, named Doug Earle. We were cabinmates, and we both played on the camp baseball team. I don’t remember what position Doug played, but I played second base, my favorite position. I knew all about Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, and the rest of that legendary Yankee team—Bobby Richardson, Tom Tresh, Elston Howard, Clete Boyer, and manager Ralph Houk. I kept a scrapbook in 1961 following Mantle and Maris on their home run derby. I even saw them hit four home runs in one day (Mantle three, Maris one) against the Washington Senators, during a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on May 6, 1962.
But Jackie Robinson was before my time, and I didn’t really know who he was. Of course, I’d heard his name, and I knew that he was the first black man to play in the major leagues, but I didn’t really know how good a player he was, or what made him so great. I had never seen him play. My mind was filled with images of Bobby Richardson fouling off ten pitches behind the plate, and then belting a single up the middle; or Clete Boyer making a stab at third base; or the great Mantle switch-hitting, and homering from the left side.
But Doug Earle knew who Jackie Robinson was. Maybe it was because Doug came from Long Island, while I was from Westchester. After all, he was closer to Ebbets Field. I never went there, although I did go to the Polo Grounds before they tore it down, to see the Mets play St. Louis and the great Musial.
One day during the summer of 1965, the Camp Norway baseball team traveled south to Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, where we played a baseball game against another team.
But all I remember about that day was coming face-to-face with Jackie Robinson. Doug and I were walking across the campus, and we were passing by the front steps of the Alumni Gymnasium, when down those steps came a man. Doug recognized him immediately and said, “That’s Jackie Robinson!” We climbed up the steps to the man, and he towered above us. As I remember, he was dressed in a suit. I only have a vague memory of his face on that day, but even now, I remember a sense of pride and dignity about him, and a feeling of calmness.
He just stood there as Doug asked if he could shake his hand. He consented, as I watched on. For some reason, maybe out of shyness, I didn’t ask to shake his hand. I really wasn’t that conscious of just how great a man, and how great a player, he was, although I knew that he was a baseball legend.
I must have smiled at him and nodded my head, all in an instant, but as soon as Doug shook his hand, Doug was off and running, holding up his right hand with his left and proclaiming, “I shook Jackie Robinson’s hand! I shook Jackie Robinson’s hand!”
I followed after Doug, and Mr. Robinson went on his way, but to this day I regret the fact that I didn’t shake Jackie Robinson’s hand when I had the opportunity.
But I do have a memory of a great presence on a stone step in front of a building in central New Hampshire one summer day in 1965, and for that memory I will always be grateful.
Copyright © 2016 by Mathew Tekulsky
