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" During my life, I have had a few nightmares which happened to me while I was wide awake. One of them was the National Republican Convention in San Francisco, which produced the greatest disaster the Republican Party has ever known - Nominee Barry Goldwater. "

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" When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don't take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn't know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don't talk about baseball at home. "

Jackie Robinson

Game

Know

I Am

" The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity. "

" I want everybody to understand that I am an American Negro first before I am a member of any political party. "

" I had practiced with the team, and the first scheduled game was with the University of Missouri. They made it quite clear to the Army that they would not play a team with a black player on it. Instead of telling me the truth, the Army gave me leave to go home. "

Jackie Robinson

Team

Truth

" I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. "

Jackie Robinson

You

Respect

" This ain't fun. But you watch me, I'll get it done. "

" After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job. "

" The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it. "

" Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade. "

" A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. "

" My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people's kids than I did my own. "

" Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life. "

" I have always been grateful to Colonel Longley. He proved to me that when people in authority take a stand, good can come out of it. "

" I had no future with the Dodgers, because I was too closely identified with Branch Rickey. After the club was taken over by Walter O'Malley, you couldn't even mention Mr. Rickey's name in front of him. I considered Mr. Rickey the greatest human being I had ever known. "

" I speak to you only as an American who happens to be an American Negro and one who is proud of that heritage. We ask for nothing special. We ask only that we be permitted to compete on an even basis, and if we are not worthy, then the competition shall, per se, eliminate us. "

" When I look back at what I had to go through in black baseball, I can only marvel at the many black players who stuck it out for years in the Jim Crow leagues because they had nowhere else to go. "

" In all my years of baseball, I have always expected to be traded. I never liked the idea. "

" I guess you'd call me an independent, since I've never identified myself with one party or another in politics. I always decide my vote by taking as careful a look as I can at the actual candidates and issues themselves, no matter what the party label. "

Jackie Robinson

Independence

Myself

" I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made. "

" The black press, some liberal sportswriters, and even a few politicians were banging away at those Jim Crow barriers in baseball. I never expected the walls to come tumbling down in my lifetime. "

" Above anything else, I hate to lose. "

" I think if we go back and check our record, the Negro has proven beyond a doubt that we have been more than patient in seeking our rights as American citizens. "

" In my opinion, baseball is as big a business as anything there is. It has to be a business, the way it is conducted. "

" Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead. "

" It kills me to lose. If I'm a troublemaker, and I don't think that my temper makes me one, then it's because I can't stand losing. That's the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first. "

" I felt unhappy and trapped. If I left baseball, where could I go, what could I do to earn enough money to help my mother and to marry Rachel? The solution to my problem was only days away in the hands of a tough, shrewd, courageous man called Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers. "

" My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions. "

Jackie Robinson

Results

Realize

" If I had been white with the things I did, they never would have allowed me to get out of baseball. "

Jackie Robinson

Things

Never

" The colonel replied that he didn't care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with. "

" Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect. "