Taking the Field

The logo of the New York Mets—a bright orange N and Y interlocking on a vibrant blue background—is instantly recognizable for many baseball fans. But the story behind it may be less well known. The Mets rose from the ashes of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants, both of whom left the Big Apple for California in 1957. Five years later, when the Mets took the field for the first time, they did so wearing caps that acknowledged their ancestors: the orange of the Giants paired with Dodger blue.

The crowd of 12,447 at the Polo Grounds that first opening day of the Mets likely focused more on the game than on what the players wore. But 15 years earlier at Ebbets Field, when the Dodgers squared off against the Boston Braves for the first game of the season, the crowd’s attention rested on an entirely different matter.

It was on that day that Jackie Robinson, the first player to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier, took the field. Robinson’s journey from the Negro League to the major league is told in 42, Brian Helgeland’s biopic of Brooklyn’s most famous Dodger.

Helgeland keeps his viewers’ eyes trained on the same matter that captivated crowds that opening day—the color of Robinson’s skin—for the entirety of this two-hour film, which he wrote and directed. The journalist Wendell Smith, portrayed capably by Andre Holland, narrates portions of the movie and guides Robinson through the gauntlet of racism and apathy that awaited him at every juncture of his journey from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro leagues to the end of his rookie season with the 1947 Dodgers. Chadwick Boseman’s fine performance as Robinson and Harrison Ford’s steely turn as the Dodgers’ president and general manager Branch Rickey produce much of the movie’s most memorable dialogue. Rounded out by the superb work of Nicole Beharie, playing Robinson’s wife Rachel, the leading cast of “42” pays fitting homage to the revolution Robinson helped spark in Major League Baseball and American society at large.

Still, for those already familiar with the basic contours of Robinson’s biography, “42” is more likely to provide supporting details than broad new insights. It comes as no surprise, for instance, that fans and fellow ballplayers hurled racial slurs at Robinson virtually everywhere he played. But many viewers may know little about the extraordinary vitriol of the Philadelphia Phillies’ manager, Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk), whose dugout barkings the movie depicts as more violent than those of any other character. The presence of the Dodgers’ manager, Leo Durocher (Christopher Meloni), whose famous quip “Nice guys finish last” earns a spot in the movie, also contributes some interesting details. Though a defender of Robinson’s right to play big-league ball, Durocher was suspended for the 1947 season, and the iconic Dodger skipper vanishes from the film shortly after spring training breaks.

What “42” lacks in biographical incisiveness, however, it makes up for in thought-provoking moral and social commentary. One example of this is the way the film handles the virtue of courage or, as different characters call it many times, “guts.” Helgeland’s script makes tacit appeal to the Aristotelian claim that all virtues have opposites as well as deceptive equivalents, both of which are vicious. In one scene, Robinson questions Rickey, saying, “You want a player who doesn’t have the guts to fight back?” Rickey responds: “No. I want a player who’s got the guts not to fight back.” This marks the first of many times that “42” throws light on the thin line between courage and the vices of cowardice and recklessness.

Each time Robinson steps into the batter’s box amid a cascade of boos and insults, the viewer understands his dilemma: if he lashes out against his critics, if he spins around and jaws with, say, Chapman, Robinson looks rash; if he remains silent, if he goes about his business of hitting .297 that rookie season, Robinson looks cowardly. Either way, Robinson loses. History has correctly decided that Robinson had a superabundance of guts and a stunning lack of both recklessness and cowardice. “42” reaffirms this decision by showing how deftly Robinson navigated the virtuous median between two vicious extremes.

The film also takes on the topic of conversion, both its slowly emerging presence in some characters and its tragic absence among others. One myth “42” dispels is that Robinson was lucky to be called up by the Dodgers, a team in a progressive part of the country that surely would have been glad to break baseball’s color barrier. On the contrary, the movie depicts most of Robinson’s teammates as apathetic, and some of them as openly hostile, to Rickey’s experiment. It is only when pitchers start whizzing fastballs at Robinson’s head and the slurs become especially violent that some Dodgers start to stand up for their teammate. Even then, the conversion is sluggish: more than one Dodger clarifies that his support of Robinson has everything to do with the colors on Robinson’s uniform, not the color of his skin. Many never even get that far.

While Robinson could not count on the support of every Brooklyn Dodger, his most valuable teammate never set foot in the clubhouse. In one moment, the film paints Rachel Robinson in the colors of a stereotypical American housewife of the 1940s, as she cares for a newborn child, keeps a home in Brooklyn and loves her husband unconditionally. But “42” also gazes beyond this idyllic picture and presents a woman who disregards signs for segregated restrooms, who bears the sting of every threat uttered against her husband and who shows that Jackie is not the only Robinson to whom Americans owe a debt of gratitude.

In one of the more memorable scenes from “42,” Pee Wee Reese (Lucas Black), Brooklyn’s Hall of Fame shortstop, gives voice to his dream that, one day, “We’ll all wear 42. This way they won’t tell us apart.” To some extent, Reese has gotten his wish. When Major League Baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson Day on April 15 each year, every player and umpire wears the same number: 42. But Reese’s words, and “42” itself, also remind our culture of what still needs doing, of the unity and equality our country must work for, not just in ballparks, but beyond.