Good sense makes a man slow to anger, and it is to his glory to overlook an offense.

Proverbs 19:11, RSV

Among the things I like reading most about in history are those stories of men and women who sought to move ahead, rather than look backwards, those who did their best to bring people together, rather than separate. Such is the true story of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey. Not as well known now as he was a few years back, Branch Rickie was the owner of the famous Brooklyn Dodgers before they ruined themselves and moved to California. Just about everybody knows who Jackie Robinson was. He was the first man to break the color barrier in major league baseball.

Jackie tells the account of the first time he met Branch Rickey. Mr. Rickey had arranged for an interview in Brooklyn to discuss his idea for integrating baseball. His motives were two-fold. As owner of a professional baseball team in a business that rewarded success with handsome profit, Mr. Rickie saw firsthand that there were many excellent black athletes that could help his organization achieve those goals. More importantly, Mr. Rickey was a Christian, and he was determined to do his part to right some very serious wrongs of the past.

For Jackie's part, he was an outstanding athlete. He was the first man to letter in four different sports at UCLA. But Jackie was by no means the best black baseball player at the time. So why did Branch Rickey choose him to help break baseball's color barrier? It was because of something that Mr. Rickey believed he saw in Jackie's character. He had been carefully observing Jackie Robinson for some time and he was convinced that he could handle the pressure that would surely come from bringing a black man into an exclusively white man's game.

And it wasn't because Jackie was in any way weak or subservient in nature. Jackie Robinson had to go through a court marshal a few years prior because he refused to ride in the back of a bus while he was in the military - years before anybody had heard of Rosa Parks. The reason was because not only was Jackie Robinson a tremendous athlete, but Branch was convinced that he could hold his temper, even when it was tested to the harshest extreme. 

According to Jackie, the two met in Branch's office for three hours discussing together a plan for how they would accomplish this difficult goal. At one point Jackie said, "There will be trouble ahead. For you, for me, for my people, and for baseball."

Jackie recorded Branch Rickie's reply:

"God is with us in this, Jackie. You know your Bible. It's good, simple Christianity for us to face realities and to recognize what we're up against. We can't go out and preach and crusade and bust our heads against a wall. We've got to fight out our problems together with tact and common sense."

Well, Jackie was sold on Mr. Rickie's faith and optimism, and he agreed to his proposition. It was hard, but together they began something that eventually would go a long way to not only integrating baseball, but also in uniting the entire country. Part of the reason, I suppose, was it was just the right time. A larger part of the reason is this: When you begin to look past non-consequential things like color and start looking at the character of the man, and when you start cheering for that man, not as an individual of a particular color but as a vital part of your team, you then begin to see things differently. And when you begin to have an affection for a man or woman, regardless of what they look like or where they come from, you then begin to live and act as you were designed by your Creator to live and act.

There are enough problems in this world to worry about small-minded people who wish to divide over race. It is when we see people of true character - men like Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickie who could ignore the bigotry of the ignorant to move ahead with what they believed they were responsible in God's eyes to do, that we can begin to live as Christ intended us to. So I like looking at stories like these, for they show what can be accomplished when we have the good sense to be slow to anger and to have enough Christian character to overlook an offense.