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“I'm so sorry about the rush,” Rickey told him. “Events are unfolding too fast to keep up with. The burden has finally fallen to me, and so be it.”

Jackie didn't know what Rickey was talking about, exactly — and he didn't much care. All that mattered to him right now was the piece of paper in front of him, and the fact that it put together two very important names: “Jack Roosevelt Robinson” and “Brooklyn Dodgers.” He barely glanced at the rest before pointing near the bottom. “Sign here?”

Rickey nodded. “Yes, yes.” But as Jackie started lowering the pen to the page, the Dodgers general manager suddenly shouted, “Stop!”

Jackie froze.

“History,” Rickey announced out of nowhere. “And I'm blabbing, blabbing through history, rushing it along. What am I thinking?” He stuck his head out the door. “Jane Ann, come in here,” he called, then twisted to holler farther down the hall. “Harold!” Parrott stuck his head out from an office down the hall. “Gather some of our employees and get them up here!”

A few minutes later, Jackie was finally allowed to sign the contract. As he set the pen down, Rickey started clapping. So did Parrott, Jane Ann, and a janitor — the only employee Parrott had been able to find in the building this early.

“Excellent!” Rickey clapped Jackie on the shoulder. “Harold, telegram the press. Say this: ‘The Brooklyn Dodgers today purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals. He will report immediately.' ”

Parrott hurried off, Jane Ann returned to her desk, and the janitor went back to mopping floors. And Jackie sat there, still trying to take it all in.

The sun was just rising in Pasadena when the phone rang at the Isum house. Rachel answered it, already awake but still in her nightgown. “Hello?”

“Rae,” Jackie said over the phone, “I'm in Brooklyn.” The glee in his voice was clear.

Brooklyn! Rachel let out a whoop, then quieted, guiltily glancing down the hall to where Jackie Junior had just settled back to sleep. She waited a second but didn't hear any crying. She hadn't woken him again. Whew! She kept her voice quiet as she turned her attention back to her husband. Which was fine, since all she had to say was, “What did I tell you?”

Jackie's laugh was music to her ears.

C
ough syrup, tissues, cotton balls . . .” Jackie walked slowly down the aisle of Singer's Drug Store, scanning the products on each side. At last he spotted the small pink bottle he'd been looking for. “Ah, there you are!” He claimed some Pepto-Bismol off the shelf just as someone in the next aisle over took a bottle from that side, and Jackie glanced up — to find himself staring into the face of Pee Wee Reese.

“Opening-day nerves,” Reese commented as they left the store together, hefting the bottle in his hand. “Doing my stomach something awful.”

Jackie nodded. He was having the same problem, which was why he'd come here. The first game of the season — his first game in the major leagues — was starting soon, and his stomach was tied completely in knots.

As they stood there, neither one saying anything, a garbage truck rumbled past, its odor wafting along ahead of it and lingering behind.

Reese chuckled. “There goes another one,” he said, gesturing toward the truck. “Every time I see a garbage truck go by, I still can't figure why the guy driving isn't me.”

Jackie smiled at that. He didn't know the Dodgers shortstop well, but so far he liked the man. “We'd both better get on base.”

Reese nodded, and they started walking toward the stadium together. “Know when I first heard of you?” he said after a minute.

Jackie shook his head.

“On a troop transport, coming back from Guam,” Reese told him. “A sailor heard it on the radio, told me the Dodgers had signed a Negro player. I said that was fine by me. Then he said the guy was a shortstop. Least you were then. That got me thinking. Thinking gets me scared.”

Jackie smiled and lifted his bottle of Pepto in mock salute. “Black, white — we're both pink today, huh?”

Reese nodded.

They walked a few more blocks before Jackie broke the silence by asking the question he couldn't get out of his mind: “You still scared, Pee Wee?”

His teammate looked around. And then he smiled. “Of garbage trucks?” he answered. “Terrified.”

And both of them laughed.

They reached Ebbets Field, and as they entered the Dodgers locker room, everyone there stopped to look at Jackie. He did his best to ignore them as he searched for his locker.

Not every face was unfriendly, though. Two players came right over to him.

“I'm Hermanski,” one of them offered, along with his hand. “Welcome to Brooklyn.”

“Hey, man,” the other said, also shaking with Jackie. “Ralph Branca.” Jackie remembered Branca waving at him, that time down in Daytona Beach.

Then a familiar face joined them and slapped Jackie on the back. It was Spider Jorgensen, who had been on the Royals with him.

“We made it, huh, Jack, huh?” Jorgensen told him. “Good luck.”

“You, too, man,” Jackie said, thumping him back. He'd always gotten along with Jorgensen, right from that first day of spring training.

As the others drifted away to get ready, Jackie continued looking for his locker. He was starting to get concerned, and maybe a little annoyed, when an older guy came over to him.

“You're looking for your locker, kid?” he asked, and Jackie guessed he was Babe Hamburger, the clubhouse manager. “Follow me.”

Hamburger led Jackie over to the corner, where there was a uniform hanging from an exposed hook. A folding chair had been placed below that.

“I just got the word,” Hamburger explained. “Best I could do. I'll get you straightened out tomorrow though, huh?”

Jackie stared at him for a second, wondering if this was a prank, but the older man looked genuinely sorry, and it
had
been short notice. So he just nodded and started unbuttoning his shirt. What did it matter if he didn't have a regular locker yet, he decided. He was a Dodger, his uniform was here, and he was going to play. That was all he needed.

He'd just started getting ready, however, when Jackie felt somebody else standing in his space. He glanced up to see a little guy in a Dodger uniform glaring at him. He recognized the player as Eddie Stanky, the second baseman.

“You putting on that uniform,” Stanky told Jackie sharply, getting in his face, “means you're on my team. But before I play with you I want you to know how I feel about it. I want you to know I don't like it. I want you to know I don't like you.”

Jackie stared at him for a minute. He had more than a few inches over Stanky, and at least twenty pounds, but the little guy didn't flinch or back away. And he wasn't spitting curses or insults. Jackie had to give him credit for that.

“That's fine,” he told Stanky. “That's how I prefer it. Right out in the open.”

Stanky nodded back and walked away, and Jackie went back to suiting up. If that was the worst he'd get on this team, he was doing pretty well.

“C'mon, Brooklyn!” a hot-dog vendor shouted from behind his stand. “Get your Harry M. Stevens special here!” He handed one over to a customer, accepting a pair of dimes in return. Then he turned and searched for someone in the seats nearby. “Hey, lady!” Rachel looked over, baby Jackie in her arms, as the grizzled old vendor took a baby bottle out of the hot water in his steamer and offered it to her with a smile. “I think it's ready.”

Rachel smiled and thanked him, and turned to get her son situated. There was a commotion on the field, and she glanced up to see the Dodgers making their way out of the tunnel from their locker room. And there, number forty-two, was her man. A cheer broke out all around her as he came into view, and Rachel held Jackie Junior up so he could see his father. “There's Daddy,” she whispered to him. “That's who they're all cheering for, you know.” Jackie was looking around, scanning the stands, and finally their eyes met. He smiled and waved, and Rachel felt her heart burst with pride. He looked so fine in his Dodgers uniform!

After a moment, she took her seat and watched as they sang the national anthem. And then it was time to play some ball!

The cheers continued when number forty-two, Jackie Robinson, finally stepped up to the plate for the first time. Overhead, he could hear the local sportscaster, Red Barber, announcing, “One out in the bottom of the first. Headed toward the plate for his first big-league at bat is Dodger rookie Jackie Robinson. Jackie is very definitely brunette.” That got a few laughs and a lot more cheers, and Jackie smiled.

He settled into his stance at home plate, bat raised high, and studied the Boston Braves pitcher, Johnny Sain. “Sain looking in,” he heard Barber report. “When he's got that fastball working, he can toss a lamb chop past a hungry wolf.”

Sain threw him a fastball — and Jackie slammed it down the third base line.
Crack!

The Braves' third baseman snagged the ball after its first bounce, but Jackie was already flying toward first. His foot hit the bag right before the ball smacked into the first baseman's mitt. He was happily slowing down and struggling to catch his breath when he heard the umpire clearly say, “You're out!”

What? Jackie glared at him, but the umpire stared back, daring him to complain. Jackie just shook his head, fighting back his anger. He'd been safe and he knew it. But what could he do? It was a bad call, and that sort of thing happened to everybody, no matter what color. But did it have to be on his very first at bat in the majors?

“It's a game of inches, Jackie!” a voice called down, and Jackie glanced up to see Rickey smiling at him from a seat just above the dugout. The general manager didn't look upset at all — at least, not at Jackie.

Next to him, however, Parrott was hollering toward the field, “Get some glasses, ump!”

A few days later, Rickey sat waiting in his office as he listened to footsteps and voices coming down the hall.

“How's Florida, Burt?” he heard Parrott ask.

“Roses need pruning,” Burt Shotton answered, “but it was fine when I left it last night. Branch said it was important and I heard about Leo. Any idea what this is about?”

Rickey held his breath, but all Parrott said was, “You'd better just talk to him.”
Good man!

There was a knock at the door, and Rickey straightened his glasses. “Come in!” He smiled at the two men as they entered, but directed his words toward Shotton. “Baseball has returned to Brooklyn, Burt. Another season is underway.”

Shotton nodded. “Yeah, it's a shame about Leo.”

Rickey leaned back in his chair. “Inevitable, I suppose. I asked him if she was worth it and he said yes. How's the retirement?” Shotton had been an outfielder for the Cardinals back in the day, and had started filling in as temporary manager back in the twenties, covering Sundays only. Rickey had been the coach then, and he'd needed Sundays so he could attend church. Shotton had become the Cardinals coach himself in 1923, and had then coached the Phillies, the Reds, and several farm clubs before retiring in 1946. But Rickey wasn't ready to let him go just yet.

“It's fine,” Shotton started. “The roses —”

“It's a wonderful thing when a man has good health and enough money and absolutely nothing to do,” Rickey commented.