The Giants just won the Super Bowl. Not one, but two parades celebrated the victory.
A collective feeling of amicability was in the air. The newscaster said the broadcast was watched by more people than any program in television history. Businessmen and bums were chatting up the game from the Village to Times Square.
Last week was a very good week.
Me, Nicole and Miranda were walking to the David Letterman Show at the historic Ed Sullivan Theater. I stopped to take a photo of the painting on the side of a vacant building nearby that read: “NY Giants No. 1 in the world!”
When we took our seats inside the theater, Paul Shaffer and his band played a tribute to the Beatles. It was the 48th anniversary of the band appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show.
During commercial breaks the people around us discussed the Super Bowl.
Sure, while I was in the city I was talking about the Giants too, the other Giants — with the greatest man in the world — my dad.
“My favorite team was the Giants. I saw Willie Mays play at the Polo Grounds,” he said.
I didn”t know until that moment that the Giants were a New York team before San Francisco. My dad said probably four professional teams played at the Polo Grounds until it closed and an apartment complex replaced the venue.
We talked about Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige.
It”s Black History Month and we agreed a baseball pioneer”s story would make for interesting reading.
I hung on my dad”s words and the sleeve of his sweater, absorbing every syllable, facial expression, fully involved with his presence as we sat together in the cafeteria of the Museum of Natural History.
In the spirit of that conversation, I will share what I learned.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in Georgia in 1919 to a family of sharecroppers. His single mother raised five children. They were the only black family on their block.
Robinson was the first player to break the Major League Baseball color barrier.
Robinson was a natural at all sports. He attended UCLA where he became the first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football and track.
In 1941, Robinson was named to the All-American football team. Money got tight, and he was forced to leave college. Later he enlisted in the U.S. Army. In two years, he earned the rank of second lieutenant.
In 1945 Robinson played a season in the Negro Baseball League for the Kansas City Monarchs.
It was in 1947 that a visionary man, Branch Rickey, Brooklyn Dodgers president, asked Robinson to join the team.
Rickey took a lot of flack publicly. Most, not all, of the players were unkind to Robinson. Prior to Robinson”s emergence on the big league diamond, the last black Major League player took the field in 1889. Rickey and Robinson paved the way for black players.
Robinson had the qualities of a real American hero.
Do what you”re good at and do what you love.
Don”t let anyone, including yourself, tell you that you can”t.
That”s the message my hero, my dad, gives me.
Learn more about black History at www.africanamericanhistorymonth.gov/.
Mandy Feder is the Record-Bee managing editor. She can be reached at mandyfeder@yahoo.com or 263-5636 ext. 32.
