Jackie & me

Growing up in Sheboygan, Wis., Ronnie Rabinovitz would run home from school each day and race to the mailbox. He was looking for a letter from his pen pal, Jackie Robinson.

“If there wasn’t one, of course, I was disappointed; and if there was, I was so thrilled,” Rabinovitz told a room of third-graders.

As Major League Baseball prepares next month to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line, the 61-year-old Edina man remains devoted to keeping Robinson’s memory alive among schoolchildren in the Twins Cities. And just as he once received letters from his hero, Rabin­ovitz has stacks of letters from children who learn the incredible story of the black baseball player who with poise and grace fought off the racial taunts and slurs from fans in the stands and from other players.

On Wednesday, Rabinovitz went to Lakeview School in Robbinsdale to talk about No. 42 of the old Brooklyn Dodgers. The children sat wide-eyed as he told them about pitchers throwing at Robinson’s head and infielders intentionally spiking his hand.

“He’d slide into second base and he’d put his hand on the bag, and in those days the cleats were really sharp … his hand would bleed, and he couldn’t fight back.”

He told, too, his own story about a star-struck 9-year-old, waiting and waiting outside the locker room at Milwaukee County Stadium, the home of the National League Braves. And finally the door opening, and Jackie taking young Ronnie by the hand.

“He took a ball out of a bag, and he went from locker to locker to locker. All of my heroes: Duke Snider , Pee Wee Reese , Roy Campanella , Carl Furillo , Gil Hodges, all of them signed the ball.” The rookie Sandy Kou­fax signed it, too.

Written by hand

Rabinovitz’s unlikely friendship with one of baseball’s most famous players started with a letter from his lawyer father, David Rabinovitz, to Robinson and lasted through the years, until Robinson died in 1972 at age 53.

Robinson’s first letter to Ronnie was typed with an autographed photo, telling him the next time the club was in Milwaukee “he would love to meet me.” The rest, about 18 or 20, were handwritten.

The family occasionally dined with Robinson in Milwaukee, and the elder Rabin­ovitz and the ball player talked politics. The letters to Ronnie were warm and often full of advice.

“I appreciate your friendship and feel as long as you set a worthwhile goal and head for it you will do well,” Robinson wrote in one letter. “Continued good luck. Give my regards to your family.”

After Wednesday’s talk, the children at Lakeview watched a video shot in 1997 when the Twins — along with all the major league teams — retired Robinson’s number and Rabinovitz finally got to meet Robinson’s widow, Rachel Robinson.

“You’re Ron Rabinovitz? Lord have mercy,” she exclaimed as she hugged him. They sat together for several innings in a box watching the game

The Twins will honor Robinson again on Sunday, April 15, when they host Tampa Bay.

And while Major League Baseball moves to celebrate Robinson’s legacy, an annual study released Thursday by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport showed that black participation at the highest level of the game keeps slipping — from a high of 27 percent in 1983 to 8.4 percent in 2006.

Lots of questions

A dozen Lakeview third-graders’ waving hands shot up Wednesday, seizing on the opportunity to ask questions of Rabinovitz, who has been visiting classes for nearly 20 years.

“Why was he your hero?” “Why did Jackie Robinson choose baseball as his sport?” “If Jackie Robinson was alive, would you still be sending letters?” “Have you ever been to a World Series?”

There were no questions about race, but 9-year-old Nikhi Flah told a reporter after the talk that the way Robinson was treated was racist.

“That’s wrong. That’s disrespectful,” 9-year-old Blanca Johnson chimed in. The kids looked at the old letters in a red scrapbook protected in plastic folders, and they looked at photos of Robinson, his hair prematurely graying, at dinner with the Rabinovitz family.

“Is the black guy Jackie Robinson?” one child asked innocently.

While the Hall of Famer wrote to other children through the years, Rabinovitz told the grade-schoolers that he sometimes wondered why he was so lucky to gain his special friendship and affection.

“I really don’t know why. We were so different. I was white. He was black. I was a kid. He was an adult. I was Jewish. He was Christian. I was from a little town in the Midwest. He was from out East. But yet there was this bond, this chemistry.”

Rabinovitz, who is a sales representative for a carton company, talks to about 10 classes a year, especially during Black History Month. And he often gets enthusiastic thank-you letters.

One student from Plymouth Middle School wrote: “I can’t believe everything Jackie had to go through, just to play baseball.” And another: “I never thought that a baseball player would be so friendly with the kids.”

Rabinovitz said he feels these talks are a way to say thank you to Jackie Robinson.

“It almost seems like Jackie handed me a baton — a baton of friendship … I feel like I’ve taken that baton, and I’ve sent it out to kids all over the Twin Cities.”

Pamela Huey • 612-673-7044