Jackie Robinson: His Contribution to Sports
             There was once a time when Goliath white men roamed the earth. They had names similar to Boog, Harmon, and Moose (Richmond 184). They wandered throughout the empty countryside carrying wooden sticks, smacking harsh fastballs delivered by pitchers with names like Whitey and Don and Bob. Peter Richmond writes, "They lived for one thing and one thing alone: to swat mighty homeruns that would make us roar in delight. They were the stars of the favorite game in the land." In the meantime, the grass turned into plastic and a new group of sluggers swiped through the artificial turf. Then catastrophe struck the game of baseball. Greed, complacency, and unions took the sport into a Dark Age, and the people began to lose interest. As other sports transcended baseball's popularity, the once national pastime started to become extinct. Then, the game discovered a new way to survive: "by adapting, and by promoting and embracing and marketing its multiethnic heritage" (Richmond 184). A legendary hero, Jack Roosevelt Robinson, was born. Robinson is a pioneer of modern society – he set a personal standard for determination and in doing so raised the power of African- American athletes, thereby transforming the sports world.
             On January 31, 1919, Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia; he was the last child of sharecroppers Mallie and Jerry Robinson. His mother became the heart of the Robinson household. Frustrated and overwhelmed by an inadequate income, Jerry abandoned his wife and five children. Alone, Mallie could not meet the physical demands of the farm, so she moved with the children to join her brother in Pasadena, California. In Margaret Davidson's biography of Jackie Robinson, he states, "She was wise in the ways of human beings. I thought she must have some kind of magic to do all the things she did, to work so hard, and never complain and make all of us ...