True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson
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True is a probing, richly-detailed, unique biography of Jackie Robinson, one of baseball’s―and America’s―most significant figures.
For players, fans, managers, and executives, Jackie Robinson remains baseball’s singular figure, the person who most profoundly extended, and continues to extend, the reach of the game. Beyond Ruth. Beyond Clemente. Beyond Aaron. Beyond the heroes of today. Now, a half-century since Robinson’s death, letters come to his widow, Rachel, by the score.
But Robinson’s impact extended far beyond baseball: he opened the door for Black Americans to participate in other sports, and was a national figure who spoke and wrote eloquently about inequality.
This book is an unconventional biography, focusing on four transformative years in Robinson’s athletic and public life: 1946, his first year playing in the essentially all-white minor leagues for the Montreal Royals; 1949, when he won the Most Valuable Player Award in his third season as a Brooklyn Dodger; 1956, his final season in major league baseball, when he played valiantly despite his increasing health struggles; and 1972, the year of his untimely death. Through it all, Robinson remained true to the effort and the mission, true to his convictions and contradictions.
Kennedy examines each of these years through details not reported in previous biographies, bringing them to life in vivid prose and through interviews with fans and players who witnessed his impact, as well as with Robinson’s surviving family.
These four crucial years offer a unique vision of Robinson as a player, a father and husband, and a civil rights hero―a new window on a complex man.
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Kostya Kennedy, is the author of 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports and Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. Both were New York Times bestsellers and both earned the Casey Award as Best Baseball Book of its respective year. A former senior writer and assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated, he is now an editorial director at Time, Inc. As an on-air commentator Kennedy contributes regularly to the MLB Network, MSNBC and other news outlets. He teaches at New York University’s Tisch Institute for Sports Management, Media, and Business and has taught journalism at NYU and Columbia University. He has edited several books, including The Hockey Book and 2015’s Super Bowl Gold: 50 Years of the Big Game.
Kevin Kenerly, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, earned a BA at Olivet College. A longtime member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has acted in more than twenty seasons, playing dozens of roles.
