Jackie tells his story the same way he played the game - with integrity, pride, and heart. You learn firsthand the challenges he faced growing up, in the Armed Forces, the Negro Leagues, and making his way into the Majors. You learn about the hatred and bigotry he faced with restraint and grace. You learn how he really felt on those days he felt he was surrounded by teammates, yet felt alone in the world. You learn how much he loved his wife, the game of baseball, and how he felt being perceived as an icon.

His post-baseball career - including experiences with politics, Dr. King, the NAACP, Kennedy and Nixon, and his son's service in Vietnam also are topics of great interest. But it's the time he spent in the game that is most enthralling, heartbreaking, and inspiring.

I purchased the Audiobook, so I enjoyed the extra treat of having the book read to me by the legendary Ossie Davis, a man whom I greatly admire as well.

I recommend this to all baseball fans, but particularly to everyone who thinks you know what Jackie faced coming up into the Majors as an African-American. However hard you thought it was, it was harder. But he never gave up. God bless Jackie Robinson. ( )

Jackie Robinson does an incredible job of telling his story, from baseball to business to politics to parenthood. In the process, he shares lots of wisdom and insights, so much of which remains just as applicable today as when this book was written.

Of course, Robinson’s baseball career takes center stage for much of the book. His relationship with Branch Rickey and various baseball officials is beautifully described. It is alternately inspiring and frustrating to read about the efforts by Robinson and Rickey to break the color barrier in baseball.

While Robinson started off his baseball career by staying silent (as Rickey told him, he had to have the guts to stay silent in the face of inhuman treatment), after a few years, he was able to start speaking his mind. And he does so candidly about myriad issues in this book. Robinson’s discussion of racism and what it means to be a Black man in America is riveting. Decades before Colin Kaepernick knelt in protest, Robinson poignantly explains why he could no longer salute the flag or sing the national anthem. He also has harsh condemnation of politicians from both parties who fail to take action to eliminate racism. While many will disagree with or criticize some of Robinson’s opinions, his perspectives are thoughtfully expressed and the product of lived experience, and we would do well to consider, understand, and contemplate his perspective.

Robinson also shares much of his insight into business, sports, his experience within the Civil Rights Movement, his membership and estrangement from the Republican Party, and his experience with numerous Presidents, as well as Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Each anecdote of those encounters is accompanied by astute observations and commentary from Robinson.

But perhaps the most unexpectedly poignant—and personal—part of the book is when Robinson discusses his son Jackie’s battle with addiction and untimely death in a car accident (which was not related to his addiction). That retelling reflects all the deep love, grief, and devotion that is often part of parenthood.

All in all, this book is a very worthwhile read that touches on a number of subjects and details some critical events in American history. Highly recommended. ( )

This was a book I’d never heard of but was glad to have read. I think that is because of its content which is mostly non-baseball related.
This edition has good introductions from Hank Aaron and Cornel West who are both outspoken personalities about race relations as they pertain to black Americans.
This is actually one of the best books I’ve ever read. Not for any heights and depths of wisdom but because Robinson and his ghost writer are so honest and direct about expressing his opinion. Robinson tells you exactly what his position is without too much qualification. I respect and appreciate someone who writes that way.
Robinson wasn’t born in Los Angeles but he was raised in Pasadena. His father abandoned the family at a young age. He went to Muir High School, Pasadena City College then on to UCLA where he was the first four sport letterman. He faced discrimination in the US Army as an officer and again when he tried to play baseball in the Negro league. The then Dodger Owner Branch Rickey decided to change baseball by bringing in Robinson to abolish the exclusion of black players from Major League Baseball. Robinson and Vin Scully were both part of the Dodger organization when the team moved to Los Angeles from Brooklyn, New York with Walter O’Malley. Strangely, Robinson never mentions Scully in the book. I remember growing up listening to Scully and always hearing how great Robinson was from Scully. Robinson was also the first black player to be induction into the MLB Hall of Fame.
This book reveals how JF Kennedy wanted Robinson to endorse his 1960 presidential campaign but Robinson declined and supported Nixon. Afterwards Robinson concluded that Nixon had no intention of supporting black causes and never supported him again. Robinson did like conservative Nelson Rockefeller till Robinson’s final days. The book also covers his disagreements with Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. Lastly the book covers the drug recovery of his son Jackie Jr after he left the Army and serving in combat in Vietnam.
This isn’t a high-minded book trying to cover the importance of Robinson’s every word and action. This is an honest man trying to be true to himself and the other black Americans who needed someone to champion their interests in the wider American and sometimes unfair society.
You may have never heard of this book, but if you see it, you will learn a few inspiring things about he and his wife.
The Dodgers won one World Series with Jackie and even in one of the ones they lost to the New York Yankees Jackie was known for sealing home base to the eternal frustration of Yogi Berra who would forever claim that he was tagged out. Jackie did not like Walter Alston (the later long time Dodger manager) nor Walter O’Malley (owner). I did not know this before reading the book.
Robinson said that there should be black Americans in both Democrat and Republican parties to insure that blacks were included in all governmental legislation to improve the lives of all. This was an unusual philosophical position to take, even more so now. ( )

"I Never Had It Made" is one of those "as told to" books in which another writer does the grunt work of actually getting the author's words onto a piece of paper in publishable form (in this case that man was Alfred Duckett). Despite this, one comes away from this combination autobiography/political screed with a sense that these are largely Jackie Robinson's words, that the book is very personal to Robinson and that this is precisely the way the man expressed himself in his day (this book was published in 1972).

Baseball fans (by far, the primary audience for this book today)will be disappointed to find that only about one-third of the book is devoted to Robinson's baseball career And even that portion of the book, as it probably should, spends much more time on the racial aspect of Robinson breaking the baseball color barrier than it spends on his career itself.

Jackie Robinson was a very proud black man, a man comfortable with his race and determined to get a fair shake from the white-dominated world in which he lived. He was also, at the end, a very bitter man because as it became more and more obvious that the civil rights games he longed for were not likely to be accomplished in his own lifetime. All of that comes across very strongly in the remaining two-thirds of the book, and considering the progress made after Robinson's death it, at times, makes for sad and tedious reading.

"I Never Had It Made" is a reflection of its times and the personal struggles that Robinson (and his fellow blacks) went through during those years. It is worth a read - but it is not about baseball. It is about the civil rights struggle in this country during the first six or seven decades of the twentieth century. ( )

Wonderful read whether you're an avid baseball fan or (like me) completely uneducated on the baseball world. Jackie Robinson's voice comes through loud and clear in a tone of humility, pride, and dedication. Robinson was a hero in so many ways and affected the history of the US in more ways than I ever imagined. ( )