After Jackie: A Critical Analysis

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After Jackie: A Critical Analysis
The world of athletics offers a unique opportunity for professional players to showcase just as unique athleticism – and protest. The history of sports is, in fact, full of acts of protests, often developing into major political and social changes. The more recent events of protest to call for social and racial justice, particularly kneeling down during national anthem, are perhaps a novelty to new generations unaware of a long history of protest during games. The actual state of protest during sport events is, in fact, as ancient as games are and, more importantly, is just as profound in impact and reach, if not more fatal. In one most recent and media-hyped act of protest, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick act/decision of defiance to kneel for U.S. national anthem during 2016 season is, for one, emblematic of powerful impact of protests by professional athletes (Horger). Then again, using sport platforms as stages to share messages
– political, economic and/or social – is perhaps integral to, yet predominantly dismissed from, history of sports and athleticism. The case for Jakie Robinson is, for current purposes, of central interests. Informed by a long history of protest in athletic arenas, pre, during and after games, an excerpt of After Jakie: Pride, Prejudice, and Baseball's Forgotten Heroes (Fussman) is investigated in order to explore, rhetorically, means and dynamics of protest enacted by Robinson as America's first African-American baseball player in a major league. This paper aims, accordingly, to investigate rhetorical strategies employed in an excerpt of After Jakie in
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order to showcase Jackie Robinson's contribution to athletic protests against different forms of social and racial injustices.
Titled After Jakie: Pride, Prejudice, and Baseball's Forgotten Heroes, Fussman captures reader's interest. The after/before dichotomy, usually used to mark a watershed, is successfully used by Fussman to indicate Robinson's contribution to baseball by opening doors to many African-Americans to practice baseball in a major league as professional athletes but, more importantly, to showcase Robinson's very act of defiance to status quo. In order to drive Robinson's contribution home, Fussman ingeniously captures only one moment recorded in a decades-long footage. Having established a proper setting for a scene whose experiences he shares with Yogi Berra, a baseball catcher for The New York Yankees who was also playing against Robinson in said footage, Fussman (133) picks one shot from a 1955 World Series. The shot, now mythologized and iconized as Robinson's most definitive act of defiance against (white) mainstream dominance of baseball, shows Robinson making a home steal. The revelation of such a shot runs against a stark contrast to a much less flattering image of Robinson as a “natural” baseball player:
Jackie's not a sleek speedster. He's a football pla...