Clash of Titans: Jackie Robinson Faces Robin Roberts

 This article originally appeared in Here's the Pitch, the newsletter of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA). If you are interested in the group and/or would like to subscribe to the newsletter you can find more information here.

Jackie Robinson’s historic 10-year major league baseball career paralleled the best years of the dominant right-handed pitcher of the era, Robin Roberts of the Philadelphia Phillies. Robinson had more plate appearances against Roberts than any other pitcher, 176 to be exact. Robinson began his Brooklyn Dodger career on April 15, 1947, while Roberts was still pitching for Michigan State University. By June of 1948, however, Roberts had taken his place in the Phillies starting rotation. From that point on, Robinson and Roberts faced off from sixty feet six inches on a regular basis for the next nine years.

As Roberts remembered it, it was a tough competition based on mutual respect. Years later he told MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki, “We battled toe-to-toe many times. I had more respect for Jackie than virtually anyone I played against.” Many of those toe-to-toe battles came at critical times in crucial games. Robinson more than held his own against the future Hall of Famer, hitting .281, with 45 hits in 160 at bats (plus 13 walks and 3 sacrifices), including 5 doubles, 21 RBIs and 9 home runs, by far the most home runs he hit against any single pitcher. As Roberts would later say, “One thing I could do was give up home runs.”

The first time Roberts faced the Dodgers and Robinson was August 18, 1948. The Dodgers Rex Barney beat Roberts 1-0 with a one-hitter and Robinson introduced himself to Roberts by smacking two singles in four at bats.

By 1950, both the Phillies and the Dodgers were pennant contenders. In 1949, the Dodgers had won the National League pennant led by Robinson in his MVP season. In 1950, a young and improving Phillies team challenged the Dodgers for supremacy in the National League. Robinson had perhaps his best game against Roberts on May 30 that year, going 3-4 with a double, a home run, and three RBIs in a 7-6 Dodger win.

The1950 pennant race came down to the last day of the season with the Phillies and Roberts facing off against the Dodgers and Robinson at Ebbets Field with the Phillies once formidable lead down to one game. A Phillies loss would mean a playoff with the Dodgers. Roberts, pitching on two days rest, and the Dodger ace Don Newcombe, faced off in a classic pitcher’s duel. Roberts had held Robinson to 0-3, when Jackie appeared at the plate in the bottom of the ninth, with one out, the score tied at one, and the winning run on third base. Manager Eddie Sawyer called on Robinson to be intentionally walked. Roberts then worked out of the inning by inducing a pop-up and a fly ball. The Phillies, of course, won the game in the 10^th inning on a Dick Sisler three-run home run. Roberts got the Dodgers out in the 10^th and was carried off the field by his teammates.

After the game, Robinson, who, when he broke the color bar in 1947, had been the target of the most vile racist abuse at the hands of the Phillies and their then manager Ben Chapman, came over to the visiting locker room and wished the victorious Phillies well. He walked up to Roberts, put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Congratulations.” This magnanimous gesture impressed Robin and became a story he told to the end of his life. “Think about that,” Roberts told Sports Illustrated’s John Posnanski, “Think about how much class that took. I couldn’t have done it; I’ll tell you that.”

In 1951, Roberts and Robinson again faced off on the final day of the season with the pennant on the line. This time the Phillies were out of the pennant race, but the Dodgers had to win to force a playoff game with the New York Giants. Roberts, who had pitched 8 innings the day before, entered this game in the eighth inning and gave up a game tying single to Carl Furillo. He then proceeded to pitch five gritty shutout innings. In the 14^th, Robinson, who had just saved the game in the bottom of the thirteenth with a diving grab of an Eddie Waitkus line drive, smacked a Roberts fastball far over the left field fence in Connie Mack Stadium for a game winning home run. Robinson called it the biggest hit of his career.

The Dodgers then went to the playoff series with the Giants that concluded with "the shot heard round the world",  one of the greatest baseball games ever played. As Roberts tells it, “If I don’t give up that home run to Jackie, there is no Bobby Thompson home run. There is no playoff. It’s a good thing I gave up that home run to him, isn’t it?”

Roberts won 28 games in 1952 and went 6-0 with six complete games against the Dodgers. Robinson, though, continued to be a nemesis, touching Roberts for six hits, including two home runs that season. The two continued to battle each other over the next several years as the Phillies faded from contention, due in no small part to their failure to recruit Black ballplayers like Robinson, and the Dodgers continued to thrive because they had. On September 26, 1956, Roberts and Robinson faced off for the final time. Robinson by this time was 37 and slowed by injuries and Roberts had lost some of the zip on his fastball. In this final encounter, Roberts held Robinson to an 0-4 with three strikeouts. Robinson would soon retire. Roberts would continue pitching for another ten years, although he would never again be the dominant pitcher he was throughout the early 1950s.

Robin Roberts later said, “I consider it a privilege to have competed against Jackie Robinson. A man I very much admired. He was a helluva ballplayer and an even better man.”