True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson
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4.6 • 14 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year
True is a probing, richly-detailed, unique biography of Jackie Robinson, one of baseball's—and America's—most significant figures.
For players, fans, managers, and executives, Jackie Robinson remains baseball’s singular figure, the person who most profoundly extended, and continues to extend, the reach of the game. Beyond Ruth. Beyond Clemente. Beyond Aaron. Beyond the heroes of today. Now, a half-century since Robinson’s death, letters come to his widow, Rachel, by the score. But Robinson’s impact extended far beyond baseball: he opened the door for Black Americans to participate in other sports, and was a national figure who spoke and wrote eloquently about inequality.
True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson by Kostya Kennedy is an unconventional biography, focusing on four transformative years in Robinson's athletic and public life: 1946, his first year playing in the essentially all-white minor leagues for the Montreal Royals; 1949, when he won the Most Valuable Player Award in his third season as a Brooklyn Dodger; 1956, his final season in major league baseball, when he played valiantly despite his increasing health struggles; and 1972, the year of his untimely death. Through it all, Robinson remained true to the effort and the mission, true to his convictions and contradictions.
Kennedy examines each of these years through details not reported in previous biographies, bringing them to life in vivid prose and through interviews with fans and players who witnessed his impact, as well as with Robinson's surviving family. These four crucial years offer a unique vision of Robinson as a player, a father and husband, and a civil rights hero—a new window on a complex man, tied to the 50th anniversary of his passing and the 75th anniversary of his professional baseball debut.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
As time passes, the legend of history-making baseball player Jackie Robinson can sometimes obscure the man himself. So in this detailed biography, Kostya Kennedy paints a stunning portrait of Robinson’s extraordinary life—not just as a star athlete but as a human being. The longtime Sports Illustrated writer follows Robinson from the minor leagues through his turbulent and ultimately triumphant time with the Brooklyn Dodgers and into his frequently uneasy post-baseball life. Kennedy also digs into corners often left unexplored in other biographies: The anecdote about Robinson unwittingly buying a Christmas tree for some Jewish friends is truly priceless. We particularly loved that Kennedy also makes sure Robinson’s awe-inspiring wife, Rachel, gets her due. What Robinson endured as the first Black athlete to play in baseball’s modern major leagues is terrible, but Kennedy never relies on hyperbole. This amazing look at the beloved player lets the facts speak for themselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Kennedy (Lasting Impact), a former Sports Illustrated editor, takes an idiosyncratic and heartfelt look at the enduring legacy of sports pioneer Jackie Robinson through four seminal chapters of his life. Beginning with the spring of 1946, Kennedy reports on Robinson's time in the minor leagues as a member of the Montreal Royals. There, the field became a stage for Robinson's athletic gifts—including his uniquely rigid batting stance, which, Kennedy writes, "may have been the most notable and influential of them all." After joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 as the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball, Robinson delivered on the promise of his rookie year by being named the league's MVP in the summer of 1949. The fall of 1956 saw Robinson's career end on a down note: he struck out in his final at-bat for the Dodgers, ending the World Series against the Yankees. With the winter of 1972 came the retirement of Robinson's number, 42, and his death from a heart attack. Lyrical throughout, Kennedy's narrative radiates with reverence and ends on a resonant note with his description of Robinson's funeral procession in Harlem: " gathered thick along the sidewalks.... There was a time in many of lives when Jackie Robinson carried the brightest light of hope." Baseball fans shouldn't miss this.
