The Ballplayer With Guts Enough Not to Fight Back

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field as the first Black man to play Major League Baseball in the modern era. What followed was a relentless barrage of hatred — death threats in the mail, pitchers throwing at his head, base runners deliberately spiking his legs, and crowds hurling the ugliest words the human mouth can form.

Before signing Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey had sat across from him and posed a challenge. Robinson fired back, "Are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?" Rickey's answer changed the course of sports history: "I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back."

Robinson was no coward. He was a fierce competitor and a man of deep Christian faith. It was that faith — not weakness — that gave him the power to absorb hatred without returning it. Night after night, he knelt beside his bed and asked the Almighty for strength to forgive men who never asked for his forgiveness.

Paul writes in Colossians 3:13, "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

Forgiveness is not the absence of strength. It is strength's highest expression. Robinson didn't ignore the evil done to him — he refused to let it make him evil in return. That is the gospel at work on a baseball diamond.