In Rickey & Robinson, legendary sportswriter Roger Kahn at last
reveals the true, unsanitized account of the integration of baseball, a
story that for decades has relied on inaccurate, second-hand reports.
This story contains exclusive reporting and personal reminiscences that
no other writer can produce, including revelatory material he'd buried
in his notebooks in the 40s and 50s, back when sportswriters were still
known to protect players and baseball executives.
That starts, first and foremost, with an in-depth examination of the two
men chiefly responsible for making integration happen: Branch Rickey and
Jackie Robinson. Considering Robinson's exalted place in American
culture (as evidenced by the remarkable success of the recent biopic),
the book's eye-opening revelations are sure to generate controversy as
well as conversation. No other sportswriter working today carries Kahn's
authority when writing about this period in baseball history, and the
publication of this book, Kahn's last, is a true literary event. In
Rickey & Robinson, Kahn separates fact from myth to present a truthful
portrait of baseball and its participants at a critical juncture in
American history.