Show at Turnage honors Robinson

Published 1:14 am Thursday, February 25, 2010

By By KEVIN SCOTT CUTLER
Lifestyles & Features Editor

The story of one of the greatest athletes to ever grace a baseball diamond comes to the Turnage Theater on Sunday.
“Everybody’s Hero: The Jackie Robinson Story” will be presented at 3 p.m. Tickets may be purchased in advance or at the door; the box office opens Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
“Everybody’s Hero” is a drama with musical elements, said Scotty Henley, executive director of the Turnage Theaters Foundation. It is being staged by the Mad River Theater Company of Ohio.
“I think it’s a wonderful story that everyone can draw inspiration from, but especially for young people to know that no matter what obstacles that are in your path, you can overcome them,” Henley said. “But it will take time and persistence.”
Sunday’s show is a fitting tribute to Robinson on the last day of Black History Month.
“Everybody’s Hero” is being staged on the 80th anniversary of the grand opening of the Turnage Theater. What is particularly ironic is, in those days of segregation, on Feb. 28, 1930, Robinson himself would not have been welcome in the main seating area of the theater. But now his memory and his accomplishments are being honored in that very same theater.
In late 1947, what was called the Negro League in baseball was filled with promising, talented players. Club president and general manager Branch Rickey, in a landmark decision for the time, decided to recruit an African American player for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
That player turned out to be Jackie Robinson. He was special; not only was he a top-notch ballplayer, but he knocked down racial barriers that had previously kept Major League Baseball an all-white sport for decades.
Robinson, over the course of 10 seasons, played in six World Series and was a major force in the Dodgers’ World Series championship in 1955. He was the recipient of the first Rookie of the Year Award in 1947 and the first black to receive the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award. A 1947 public poll named him the second-most-popular man in America, placing behind crooner and movie star Bing Crosby. He was the first black player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Robinson made a difference off the field, as well. After his retirement in 1957, he became the first African-American television analyst in Major League Baseball. He also helped establish the Freedom National Bank, a Harlem-based financial institution owned by African.
Shortly after his retirement from baseball, Robinson was diagnosed with diabetes, which brought about a physical deterioration in the former athlete. But he stayed active; along with his business pursuits he immersed himself in politics, supporting Richard Nixon for president in 1960, although he later praised Nixon’s opponent and the eventual winner John F. Kennedy for his pro-civil rights stance.
Plagued with diabetes and heart disease, the almost-blind Robinson died at the age of 53 in 1972. In recognition of his achievements on and off the baseball diamond, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.
Tickets for “Everybody’s Hero: The Jackie Robinson Story” are $20 per person for downstairs seating or $15 per person for seats the balcony. Youths up to age 15 may sit anywhere in the theater for $10 per person, and group discounts are available for as few as 10 people, according to Henley.
Individuals may sponsor a ticket or tickets for young baseball enthusiasts, Henley added. For more information on donating tickets to local youth organizations, call the Turnage box office at 252-975-1191, weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.