This film is the story of Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) as the first Black player to play major league baseball. 42 is the number Robinson wore throughout his career. The owner of the Dodgers, Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) was looking for a Black player to join the Dodger's organization. A sports writer suggested Jackie Robinson. Rickey, according to the film, did this because he was tired of the racism of major league baseball. Of course there were economic issues as well. Bringing the black community to the ball park would be good for revenues. His first year Robinson played with the Toronto Royals, the Dodger's triple A ball club. This film tells of his success that year, and then the subsequent year with the Dodgers as a rookie. Robinson had to face serious racial discrimination, at first form his own teammates, who signed a petition not to play if Robinson played, and then from coaches and players on other teams. This racist vitriol was most poignant from the Philadelphia manager. Robinson for his part had to learn to keep his place, until he won people over. Then we could better influence others, and others would sometimes defend him, and he could defend himself. Robinson proved himself with his bat, base stealing, base running and play in the field. The Dodgers made it to the World Series his rookie year.
The next year, more teams had black players. After the ice had been broken, a team was foolish not to draw from this talent pool for his team.
Check out my review of a book about Jackie Robinson with this link. And here is a blog looking at the veracity of this storytelling of this movie.
Harrison Ford does a good job. I could hardly recognize him in this character of a baseball owner.
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