Tuesday, April 17, 2007 |
The Only Interview Of Jackie Robinson
``The Brooklyn Dodgers had an absolute rule that Jackie Robinson did not do interviews,'' Brooks recalled Friday night while watching the Cedar Rapids Kernels play at Memorial Stadium. ``They wouldn't let him speak to the press or anything, in every major league city.''That didn't stop Brooks, who was working for the campus radio station at Iowa (WSUI). He had press credentials for Brooklyn's game against the Cubs that day and went to work.
``I went down on the field during batting practice - I was rummaging around - and Jackie was in the dugout there, all by himself, because at that time there were come players on the Dodgers who were freezing him out, you know,'' Brooks said. ``So he kind of looked like he wanted to see somebody to talk to.
``I was just a kid. I was just a rookie, at least.''
...
``This is a true story,'' Brooks said. ``I went over to Jackie and we started to talk, and I had a (wire) recorder with me ... and we chatted about baseball, in the main. I didn't pursue the part of being the first black or anything. He, of course, was an educated man who had been at UCLA.
``I got done with the interview and I saw the traveling secretary of the Dodgers glaring at me. His name was Harold Parrot. He was practically the No.2 guy in the Brooklyn Dodgers below Branch Rickey. He started to come after me, and he had a couple of thugs with him, too, that were getting into the act.''
Brooks sensed it was time to go.
``At Wrigley Field in those days, they just had one iron bar where you could get out of the field very fast,'' he said. ``And in those days, I could run a little bit. As they approached me another guy said, `Hey, we've got to have that recorder. There's no interviews with Jackie Robinson. He doesn't give interviews.' And I think I shouted at him, `Well, he just did.' And that was going to be the end of it.''
But it wasn't.
``I ran out and up the stairs, up through the grandstand at Wrigley Field,'' Brooks said. ``And I ran out in front of Wrigley Field and melded myself into the crowd, so that they'd have a hard time spotting anybody.
``So then later, I hid the recorder and I went back up into the press box. The Brooklyn writers and the New York writers, the Chicago writers, are all bitching at Harold Parrot because some guy got an interview with Jackie Robinson.''
Labels: dodgers
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