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Parrott found Jackie and Smith later that night sitting in the visitors' locker room at Shibe Park, talking about what had happened earlier.

“Jackie, excuse me,” Parrott started. He looked more nervous than usual. “Um, a request came in. The Phillies manager, Ben Chapman, he'd like his photo taken with you.”

Jackie studied Parrott for a second, then made a show of sniffing the air around Parrott. “You been drinking, Harold?”

But apparently the team secretary was serious. “Mr. Rickey thinks it's a good idea,” he explained. “He says it'll be in every sports page in the country. An example that'll show everyone even the most hardened man can change.”

Jackie barked a laugh. “Chapman hasn't changed. He's just trying to take the heat off.” He'd heard about the article that had been in the paper that day. It had compared the Phillies to a lynch mob.

Parrott just shrugged. “Mr. Rickey says it doesn't matter if he's changed. As long as it looks like he's changed. Chapman said he'd come down here. Or meet you in the runway.”

Jackie's first instinct was to say no, that Chapman could go stuff himself. But Smith put a hand on his arm.

“See the ball come in slow,” he reminded softly. “See the photo come in slower.”

Jackie thought about that — and about what Rickey had told him, right at the start. He had to be the bigger man here. He had to show them all that he wasn't the one behaving badly. “Tell him I'll meet him on the field,” he said finally. “Where everyone can see him.”

Parrott smiled and nodded. “Perfect.” He hurried out.

Sure enough, Jackie soon found himself standing with Chapman out by home plate. He even managed to keep his mouth shut as Chapman told the assembled reporters, “Jackie's been accepted in baseball, and the Philadelphia organization wishes him all the luck we can. I only hope in some small way our trial of fire helped him along.”

It amazed Jackie that the Phillies coach could say that with a straight face. He hadn't realized Chapman was such a fine actor!

“How about a picture?” a photographer asked. He raised his camera. “Shake hands? Bury the hatchet?”

Jackie didn't really want to shake Chapman's hand, no matter how much he claimed he had changed. But Smith was nodding in the background, so he said, “You want a picture? Sure.” Then he stepped over to the on-deck circle and grabbed a bat.

It was worth it just to see Chapman's eyes widen as he turned toward him, bat in hand.

“We'll hold the bat,” Jackie told Chapman, too low for anyone else to hear. “That way we don't have to touch skin.” The look of relief that crossed the coach's face proved how everything he'd just claimed had been a lie. He hadn't changed at all.

They each grabbed ahold of the bat, Chapman with both hands on the handle, Jackie with one hand on the barrel. He waited until the photographers were just about ready to start snapping before muttering, “Ben, I hope all your friends back home like the picture.”

Chapman's jaw dropped, and his face went white. Jackie just smiled for the photo.

Sometimes, being the bigger man brought its own rewards.

J
ackie squared off at home plate. The Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher, Fritz Ostermueller, flicked a glance at the catcher, Kluzt, then turned his steely glare on Jackie.

When he unleashed, the ball was aimed straight at Jackie's head.

There wasn't any time to duck. Jackie only managed to get his arms up to cover his face before the ball slammed into him. He went down in a heap.

Instantly, there was an uproar as Branca and several other Dodgers boiled out of their dugout and onto the field. The umpire intercepted them as best he could. Higbe, now in a Pirate uniform, looked ready to cheer his new teammate for the hit.

“Ostermueller, you kraut!” Branca shouted at the pitcher. “You gotta bat, too! Don't you forget!”

“I'm ready, you wop!” Ostermueller replied with a sneer.

“It's gonna come right between your eyes! Like a kamikaze!” Branca warned hotly.

The Pirates pitcher gestured toward Jackie, who was shaking his head. “For him? He doesn't belong here!”

“You don't belong here,” Branca retorted. “Go home to Goering and Shmelling!”

Ostermueller grinned, a big, nasty look. “Make me, you dago!”

Jackie sat up, one hand going to the big lump forming on his head. It hurt a whole lot, but he was okay.

“What can I do for you, Pee Wee?” Rickey asked as Pee Wee Reese entered his office in Brooklyn a few days later.

Reese shuffled his feet. “Well, Mr. Rickey, it's like this,” he began. Rickey noticed that the shortstop was holding a folded paper in his hand. “The series in Cincinnati next week . . .” He trailed off.

“It's an important road trip,” Rickey agreed. “We're only three games out of first.”

Reese nodded. “Yes, sir. You know, I'm from Kentucky.”

“Cincinnati's nearly a home game for you,” Rickey commented. He already had a guess as to where this was going.

Reese stepped up to the desk and set the paper atop it. “I got this letter, sir. I guess some people aren't too happy about me playing with Robinson.”

Rickey took the letter, unfolded it, and scanned its contents.

“ ‘Nigger lover,' ” he read aloud. “ ‘Watch yourself. We will get you, carpetbagger.' ” He offered it back to Reese. “Typical stuff.”

“It's not typical to me,” Reese replied, taking the letter back. He looked surprised by Rickey's casual dismissal of it all.

Rickey sighed. “How many of these letters have you gotten, Pee Wee?”

“Just this,” the shortstop replied. “Ain't that enough?”

Rickey studied Reese for a moment. Then he pushed back his chair and stepped over to a filing cabinet. Motioning for Reese to join him, Rickey pulled open a drawer and removed a stack of flattened letters, then another, then a third.

“What are those?” Reese asked quietly.

“I'll tell you what they aren't,” Rickey answered. “They aren't letters from the Jackie Robinson fan club. Here —” He thrust a sheaf of them into Reese's hands.

Reese flipped through the stack of hate mail. “ ‘Get out of baseball, or your baby boy will die,' ” he read. “ ‘Quit baseball or your nigger wife will be . . .' ” His voice failed him, and he quickly flipped to another, his face pale. “ ‘Get out of the game or be killed.' ” The one after that shocked him so much he couldn't even read a word of it out loud. He looked up at Rickey, stunned. “Does Jackie know?” he asked finally.

Rickey tried to keep his voice calm. This wasn't Reese's fault, after all. “Of course he knows. So does the FBI. They're taking a threat in Cincinnati pretty seriously. So excuse me if I'm not too shocked at you being called a carpetbagger.” He tried to smile. “You should be proud of it!”

“We'd just like to play ball, Mr. Rickey,” Reese offered. “That's all we want to do.”

Rickey nodded. “I understand. I bet Jackie just wants to play ball. I bet he wishes he wasn't leading the league in ‘hit by pitch.' I bet he wishes people didn't want to kill him. But the world isn't simple anymore. I'm not sure it ever was. We just . . . baseball ignored it. Now we can't.”

Reese nodded and set the letters down on the desk. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly. “I gotta get to practice.” He left without another word.

The Dodgers took the field at Crosley Stadium in Cincinnati on June 21. There were a lot more jeers and insults than Jackie had heard in a while. He tried to ignore them, as usual.

Suddenly, Reese came jogging over to him.

“What's up?” Jackie asked. The abuse had gotten even louder, but now it wasn't just aimed at him.

“Carpetbagger!”

“Pee Wee, how can you play with that nigger?”

Reese looked sad and disappointed.

“They can say what they want,” he told Jackie. “We're here to play baseball.”

Jackie nodded. “Just a bunch of crackpots still fighting the Civil War.”

Reese cracked a smile. “We'd a' won that son of a gun if the cornstalks had held out. We just ran out of ammunition.”

Jackie laughed. He was impressed that his teammate could joke at a time like this. “Better luck next time, Pee Wee,” he said, playing along.

Then Reese surprised Jackie by putting an arm over his shoulder. “Ain't gonna be a next time,” he replied. “All we got is right now. This right here. Know what I mean?”

The gesture shocked the stands into silence, and after a second Reese smiled. “Thank you, Jackie.” His tone was serious now.

Jackie looked at him, a teammate he'd always admired, but was just starting to know. “What're you thanking me for?”

“I've got family here from Louisville,” Reese explained. He glanced up toward the stands. “Up there somewhere. I need 'em to know who I am.”

Jackie didn't know what to say. He just nodded.

“Hey! Number one!” the umpire shouted at Reese. “You playing ball or socializing?”

Reese laughed and yelled back, “Playing ball, ump! Playing ball!” As he turned away, he told Jackie, “Maybe tomorrow we'll all wear forty-two. That way they won't be able to tell us apart.”

Jackie watched his teammate walk away. He shook his head, then pounded his fist into his glove and got his head back in the game. Like Reese had said, they were here to play.

The next day, Jackie found himself sitting on the train playing gin rummy with Branca, Reese, and Smith. They were chatting and laughing over the cards, and he was amazed to realize that he was happy. He finally felt like he belonged, like he really was part of the team.

“You ever write about white guys in your paper?” Branca was teasing Smith. “I mean, if I threw a no-hitter and Jackie got a base hit, what would the headline be?”

“ ‘Jackie Leads Dodgers to Victory. Again.' ” Smith replied with a straight face. “Under that, ‘White Italian Guy Does Okay.' ”

They all laughed.

“I'd call your folks for ya, Ralph,” Reese promised. “Tell 'em how you did.”

Branca nodded. “No problem. It'll still make the
Post
.”

“We are on some kind of winning streak, huh, boys?” Reese commented as he took a card.

“Hey, maybe forty of our last fifty,” Branca agreed.

“Thirty-two and fifteen, actually,” Smith corrected gently. “Since the fourth of July.”

Branca grinned at him. “Math is why I throw a baseball for a living.”

Reese discarded the card he'd just taken. “This next series against the Cardinals,” he said aloud, “it's a big one.”

Branca and Smith both nodded. Then they all turned to Jackie, who hadn't said a word.

“Whaddya say, Jackie?” Branca asked.

In response, Jackie laid his hand down on the little table. Then he looked at his two teammates and his part-time chauffeur. His friends.

“Gin,” he told them.