Cheech Marin Quotes

I would love to see as many of the black players as possible in today's Major League Baseball make every effort to go to the Negro Leagues Museum and get a first-hand view of how it all started.

Were it not for Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey would be remembered, if at all, as a Bible-thumping midwestern Methodist windbag who neither played baseball on Sundays when he was a mediocre catcher for the St. Louis Browns and the New York Highlanders, nor attended games on the Sabbath as a baseball executive.

When I went to Brooklyn in 1948 Jackie Robinson was at the height of his brilliant career.

All though I didn't meet him. His legend and his saga and his story is just that. Jackie Robinson, we all have to tip our hat to him. Because he made the game available to guys like me.

The story of Jackie Robinson is also the story of Branch Rickey. He had many reasons for doing what he did, but he stood up against his own people.

Mine was an easy ride compared to Jackie Robinson's.

As I look out there and see the culture of baseball, a lot of blacks and Latins, it's given me a lot of joy to know that Jackie started that. If Jackie hadn't come in '47, me and Ron Santo wouldn't have played in Double-A and all those years in the big leagues.

I cannot but feel that the one man, above all others, who deserves the eternal thanks of his own race, and all thinking people, for bringing about baseball’s greatest reform, is Jackie Robinson himself…Certainly baseball people should be eternally grateful for the contribution he made to his own people, and to the game.

Mr. Rickey, I'll put more people in the park than anybody since Babe Ruth.

American history and the history of baseball are bound up together: our racial politics can be described and traced through it.

Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.

What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league.

I was glad to play in the Negro Leagues. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

We in the Negro leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing. We played with a round ball, and we played with a round bat. And we wore baseball uniforms, and we thought that we were making a contribution to baseball. We loved the game, and we liked to play it.

I literally integrated the small town of Libertyville, Illinois. I was the first person of color to reside within its borders.

I liked Jackie Robinson because he was cool to watch, not because he was black. Every time you turned around, he was hitting a triple or making a great play in the field or, best of all, stealing home.

It's nice to come into a town and be referred to as the manager of the Cleveland Indians instead of as the first black manager.

Robinson was important to all blacks. To make it into the majors and to take all the name calling, he had to be something special. He had to take all this for years, not just for Jackie Robinson, but for the nation.

One of my heroes growing up was Jackie Robinson. My mom, an ardent baseball fan from whom I got my love of the game, had an old baseball card of his from the 1950s and told us his amazing story of courage in integrating baseball.

I believe that one of the reasons I get to play golf all over the world is because of the barriers that Lee Elder broke down. I just think he's amazing.

It was a breaking period for black people coming into baseball, and how many followed depended on Jackie's conduct. But that's not the case now. What and how I do doesn't mean nearly as much as what and how Jackie did.

You want to get something changed, you send sport. Look what happened when Pee Wee Reese puts his arm around Jackie Robinson. That did more for racial relations in the United States through sport.

Floyd Thompson, a white man, desegregated NASA. Period.

There is an incredible film, 42. It's the incredible story of Jackie Robinson. I have extolled the virtues of this movie to everyone I meet. I've given quotes to everyone I talk to.

We used to have an all-Black baseball team, all Black stars and when White folks took Jackie Robinson and brought him into the major league that was the beginning of the crushing of Black baseball teams and leagues.