Great Time Coming

The pioneering Jackie Robinson's on-the-field accomplishments have inspired many books, stories, and movies over the years. Here David Falkner gives a well-rounded overview, culling a lot of research to craft a comprehensive biography of the man, not just the player. Richard M. Davidson delivers a steady narration of a life worth hearing about. Davidson keeps it straight, using a consistent tone and avoiding any vocal impressions that could come across as disingenuous. And that's just as well, because most of the subject matter is serious, including much attention to Robinson's political leanings in his life after baseball. Davidson sounds like an engaging professor talking to eager students. Consider this more of a history lesson than a book about baseball. M.B. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

January 30, 1995
Far more than a sports book, this is an in-depth portrait of an individual of admirable simplicity and forthrightness, as well as a great athlete. Born in Georgia but raised in Southern California, Robinson was a gifted athlete in many sports in high school and junior college and while at UCLA. It was his intensity and fury, born partly from discrimination, that made him a fighter. Those same qualities got him in trouble as a lieutenant in the segregated U.S. Army during WWII, but brought him success at last when he broke the color line in major league baseball. His spectacular career on the diamond is well known, but Falkner (The Last Yankee) goes beyond his subject's sporting career to detail what happened to Robinson from the time he left the Dodgers in 1957 until his death in 1972. He relates how Robinson devoted himself to the goal of integration with equal rights for all, while around him swirled struggles by the NAACP, the Black Panthers and the Republican and Democratic parties to ally themselves with Robinson, the legend and the symbol, and while diabetes wracked his body. A comprehensive account. Photos not seen by PW.

Thanks to Davidson's excellent presentation, the listener experiences a lively history lesson of baseball and the Civil Rights era. Robinson was very athletic and masculine, but he also had a poetic side, which Davidson illustrates with well-chosen inflections. S.G.B. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine