A review by tavarin
Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season by Jonathan Eig
5.0
By telling the story of Jackie Robinson, Jonathan Eig is tackling a story that has been told many times through different mediums, ranging from children’s books like In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson to books like Baseball’s Great Experiment and films like The Jackie Robinson Story. This can be very daunting in the 21st century, as most readers will know so much about Robinson that it is important for the writer to try and dig even further into the story of the 1947 season.
In his second book, Eig does a great job combining primary sources and oral histories while also presenting his own interpretations of events. Eig also does good work examining apocryphal stories, like Pee Wee Reese putting his arm around Robinson in Cincinnati during the 1947 season, pouring through game stories not only to find out that there wasn’t any coverage of the event in 1947, but also to provide an alternate idea of when this story actually took place.
By not only examining the events on the baseball diamond, but also the stories of people living at the time and how the integration of Major League Baseball affected people, Eig is expanding the story of the 1947 season beyond just Jackie Robinson. And by looking at the 1947 season through the point of view of people ranging from Mike Royko to Malcolm X, the readers are truly able to understand the effect of Robinson on all of society, instead of just focusing on his impact on baseball.
In his second book, Eig does a great job combining primary sources and oral histories while also presenting his own interpretations of events. Eig also does good work examining apocryphal stories, like Pee Wee Reese putting his arm around Robinson in Cincinnati during the 1947 season, pouring through game stories not only to find out that there wasn’t any coverage of the event in 1947, but also to provide an alternate idea of when this story actually took place.
By not only examining the events on the baseball diamond, but also the stories of people living at the time and how the integration of Major League Baseball affected people, Eig is expanding the story of the 1947 season beyond just Jackie Robinson. And by looking at the 1947 season through the point of view of people ranging from Mike Royko to Malcolm X, the readers are truly able to understand the effect of Robinson on all of society, instead of just focusing on his impact on baseball.