Jackie Robinson Spiking. Racially Motivated or Otherwise?

Today I will tell you Joe McDonald’s take on the Jackie Robinson story.

As you may remember, Mr. McDonald was batboy for the Cardinals when Enos Slaughter spiked Jackie Robinson at Ebbets Field.  Since Mr. McDonald sat in the opposition dugout he had a great view of the game.  Mr. McDonald saw everything and his opinion is that the spiking was unintentional.

According to Mr. McDonald, Jackie Robinson was not a trained first baseman.  When the Dodgers brought him up to the major leagues, they played him at first.  Mr. McDonald explained that there is a different way to hold your feet so you are less likely to get spiked (who knew?).  Most stories make it seem like the spiking was racially motivated, but Enos Slaughter denied it. He said it was just because of his rough playing style.  As Mr. McDonald said to Mom and Dad, “Was Enos a racist? Maybe, but the spiking was unintentional.”

So there you have the scoop on the spiking of Jackie Robinson. Here is one more of Mr. McDonald’s rings.images.duckduckgo.commIt has nothing to do with the story at hand, but I thought it was pretty cool.

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Nathaniel

Nathaniel is the main trumpet player for Longbow and handles much of the blog work. He is currently being homeschooled through high school.

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