The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)

Minor Watson: Branch Rickey

Quotes 

• Branch Rickey : A box score - you know a box score is really democratic, Jackie. It doesn't say how big you are or how your father voted in the last election or what church you attend. It just tells you what kind of a ballplayer you were that day.

  Jackie Robinson : Well, isn't that what counts?

  Branch Rickey : It's all that ought to count, and maybe someday it's all that will count.

• Branch Rickey : We're tackling something big here, Jackie. If we fail, no one will try it again for twenty years. But if we succeed...

  Clyde Sukeforth : If we succeed, Brooklyn will win a pennant.

  Branch Rickey : Yes, that too. But we're dealing with rights here. The right of any American to play baseball, the American game. You think he's our boy, Clyde?

  Clyde Sukeforth : Well, he can run, he can hit, and he can field.

  Branch Rickey : But can he take it?

  Clyde Sukeforth : That I don't know.

  Branch Rickey : What do you think, Jackie?

  Jackie Robinson : Well, I can try.

  Branch Rickey : Think you've got guts enough to play the game no matter what happens? They'll shout insults at you. They'll come into you spikes first. They'll throw at your head.

  Jackie Robinson : They've been throwing at my head for a long time, Mr. Rickey.

  Branch Rickey : Suppose I'm a player in the heat of an important game. Suppose I collide with you at second base and when I get up I say, 'You - you dirty black so-and-so!' What do you do?

  Jackie Robinson : Mr. Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who's afraid to fight back?

  Branch Rickey : I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back. You got to do this job with base hits, stolen bases, and fielding ground balls, Jackie. Nothing else! Now I'm playing against you in a World Series and I'm hot-headed. I want to win this game. So I go into you spikes first. You jab the ball in my ribs and the umpire says, 'Out.' I flare. All I can see is your black face - that black face right over me. So I haul off and punch you right in the cheek. What do you do?

  Jackie Robinson : Mr. Rickey, I've got two cheeks.

  Branch Rickey : Good.

• Branch Rickey : You gotta girl, Jackie?

  Jackie Robinson : Well, I don't know.

  Branch Rickey : What do you mean you don't know?

  Jackie Robinson : Traveling around all the time and not writing as often as I should, I think I still have a girl.

  Branch Rickey : Good. You'll need one.

• Branch Rickey : Come on, Jackie, we don't want trouble.

  Jackie Robinson : I'm the cause of the trouble, Mr. Rickey. Maybe you'd like to call it off. Maybe you'd rather I went back to the Panthers.

  Branch Rickey : Not on your life. We started this together, boy, and we'll finish it together. We'll complete the training season and you'll complete it with us.

• Frank Shaughnessy : You'll break up the whole international league playing that colored boy. I've had letters, phone calls. I've even polled all the sports writers.

  Branch Rickey : What do the sports writers have to say?

  Frank Shaughnessy : Jim Flanagan thinks you're even hurting the negroes. This'll stir up a lot of trouble. They'll be black and white fights about it all over the country and you'll be sorry you ever started it.

  Branch Rickey : Frank, I've spent my whole life in baseball and I've always been proud of that, because, I've always thought baseball was fine game, a clean game. I've always thought it had a good influence on the American people, on the kids growing up. I always thought baseball taught fair play and sportsmanship. But, if what you say is true, then I've been all wrong. My whole life's been wrong. Wasted! I tell you what I'll do with you, I'll go out to Jersey City with you tomorrow and we'll sit in a front box. And if anybody has got any rocks to throw, they can throw them at me.

• Branch Rickey : All right, men, I respect your right to petition. But, I do question and I will fight any petition that denies any American the right to earn his living in the game that is supposed to represent the democratic principles of sportsmanship and fair play!

• Branch Rickey : [Jackie fields a ground ball, throws to first]  He's out! No other human being could have made that play.

  Hopper : Mr. Rickey, do you really think he is a human being?