The Movie 42 Essay

42, a movie that focuses upon the time when Jackie Robinson first entered Major League Baseball, was released in 2013 and directed and written by Brian Helgeland. Produced by Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment, the film stars Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson, Harrison Ford as Branch Rickley, Nicole Beharie as Rachel Robinson, Christopher Meloni as Leo Durocher, Ryan Merrimam as Dixie Walker, Lucas Black as Pee Wee Reese, André Holland as Wendell Smith, Alan Tudyk as Ben Chapman, Hamish Linklater as Ralph Branca, T.R. Knight as Harold Parrott, John C. McGinley as Red Barber, Toby Huss as Clyde Sukeforth, Max Gail as Burt Shotton, and Brad Beyer as Kirby Higbe, and James Pickens Jr. as Mr. Brock. As depicted in 42, after being signed by Branch Rickey to the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson made history by breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier by playing his first game with the team on April 15, 1947. En route to this and during the 1947 season that lead to

the team facing the New York Yankees in the World Series, Robinson endured racial prejudice as a member of the organization.
Regarding the actual events that inspired the film, Jackie Robinson played shortstop for in the Negro League for the Kansas City Monarchs before being recruited by Branch Rickey in 1945. In 1946, Robinson played for the Montreal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ farm team. That same year, he married Rachel Isum, and she gave birth to their son, Jackie Robinson Junior. After playing well with the Royals, Jackie joined the Dodgers for the 1947 season whilst breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball by doing so. In addition, Wendell Smith, an African American sportswriter, played a key role in this by enhancing Robinson’s public image through his writing during the season. Early on in the season, Robinson and his family received death threats, yet he managed to remain calm about this situation. However, there were also people inside the sport of baseball who were opposed to Robinson’s presence.
Prior to the beginning of the 1947 regular season, Dodgers players signed a petition that opposed Robinson’s status as a player, but Branch Rickey had manager Leo Durocher give a speech to the team about accepting their black teammate. During the season, there was an incident in which Ben Chapman, the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, directed racial slurs toward Robinson during a three-game series against the Dodgers. When the teams faced off again later in the season, Chapman posed for a picture with Robinson to make it appear as if he was accepting of the latter. In a game versus the St. Louis Cardinals, slugger Enos Slaughter spiked Robinson on a play at first base that left the latter with a large gash. Later, Robinson and the Dodgers defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates to advance to the World Series. However, the team was defeated by the New York Yankees in the end.
One significant change from that occured in the film is that Jackie Robinson tossed a baseball to a young Ed Charles, who grew up to become a baseball player.

In reality, Jackie and Ed had a face-to-face interaction, but the latter did put his ear to the train tracks when Robinson was riding with the Dodgers in Florida. Another major change made was that the movie depicts Pirates pitcher Fritz Ostermueller throwing a baseball at Jackie’s head, but he hit his elbow in real life. Also, the movie depicts Robinson smashing his bat in private after Ben Chapman directed racial epithets toward him, but Robinson did not break down that way in reality. In the movie, Jackie Robinson is depicted as the only black player at spring training with Montreal Royals, but a player named John Wright was there in reality. Furthermore, Billy Rowe, a photographer, was instrumental in helping Robinson braving segregationist Florida in 1946 while he was with the Royals, but he is not present at that time in the

film.
I believe these changes were made in order to better portray Jackie Robinson as an individual who had to endure much in order to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball, and it is mentioned in the closing credits of the movie that events were altered for dramatic effect. I do not believe that these changes significantly harmed the reputations of those individuals, except for Billy Rowe and John Wright, because the changes served to enhance their reputations. For Rowe and Wright, there exclusion from the story damages their reputations because their actions and accomplishments are essentially deemed irrelevant. Although I prefer their inclusion in the story, that compromise to actual history that was made is worth the end result.