Each year on April 15th, Major League Baseball commemorates one of my heroes: Jackie Robinson. Jackie was as gifted in life and leadership as he was athletically. The reason he was chosen, by Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to be the first black baseball player was in part due to his talent, but in greater measure due to his character. Rickey told Jackie once, “Jackie, we’ve got no army. There’s virtually nobody on our side. No owner, no umpires, very few newspapermen. And I’m afraid that many fans may be hostile. We’ll be in a tough position. We can win only if we can convince the world that I am doing this because you’re a great ballplayer, and a fine gentleman.” There were other great black baseball players at the time, even ones who were possibly more talented than Jackie (Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson to name two), but none had the combination talent and character Jackie had. Jackie knew all too well the injustice poisoning our country – he was nearly court-martialed while in the US Army for not moving to the back of a segregated bus in 1944 (11 years before Rosa Parks famously made the same protest) – but he also had the courage not to respond in anger when taunted. Part of the deal he made with Rickey was that he would turn the other cheek and not respond to the hate he was sure to face. The fact that Jackie had the courage to nobly endure what was to come sealed the deal for Rickey, and he decided in 1947 to make Jackie the first black Major League Baseball player since the 1880s.

The transition for Jackie wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy for Jackie’s teammates, the Dodgers, baseball, or America either. There were slurs from the stands. There were slurs from the dugouts. There were even slurs in his own locker room. Jackie handled it all with class, dignity, and professionalism. Oh yeah, he hit too. He hit so well he was named the rookie of the year in 1947, the first year the award was given out. Jackie didn’t do it alone. No leaders ever do. Thanks to the public nature of his struggle we know the other players in this story. There is of course Branch Rickey who scouted and signed Jackie to play. Ford Frick, the president of the league and Happy Chandler, the commissioner of baseball, both stood up for Jackie’s right to play from the very beginning. Jackie’s teammates also stood by him figuratively and literally. While the Dodgers were playing in Cincinnati in front of a particularly venomous crowd, Dodger captain Pee Wee Reese came over to Jackie and put his arm around him in a show of support. This gesture has become iconic in baseball and immortalized in a bronze sculpture currently on view outside the home of the Mets’ single-A baseball affiliate in Coney Island.

Jackie Robinson’s story demonstrates the best kind of leadership – a group effort that moved people, groups, organizations, and an entire country in a better direction. Nineteen forty-seven in Brooklyn was a year of incredible leadership with Jackie Robinson forging the way. Sixty-three years ago today, not three miles from where I sit writing this post, Jackie Robinson took the lead and changed the world.

In the Jackie Robinson rotunda at their new ballpark, the Mets have this quote from Jackie Robinson gracing the façade, in addition to plaques honoring some of the characteristics Jackie displayed throughout his life: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” Jackie’s life continues to impact millions of people, even today.