1960's Jackie Robinson Single Signed Baseball....

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The man who saved the game...

1960's Jackie Robinson Single Signed Baseball. It was Neil Armstrong who famously declared, as he descended the ladder of Apollo XI to the powdery, white surface below,"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." But the sentiment is just as appropriate for the brave first step that Jackie Robinson took across baseball's unjust color line twenty-two years earlier, when racial equality seemed just as distant as the Moon for millions of Americans living beneath the shadow of Jim Crow.

"They want to see your pride, your dignity" Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey told Robinson as he set him on a course toward his dangerous destiny, "because then they'll see it in themselves." Whereas Babe Ruth had gradually become living folklore through his brilliance on the baseball diamond, Robinson had been thrust into the role from the first moment his spikes dug into the red clay of Ebbets Field, a breathing symbol, an aspirational movement crafted from blood and bone beneath skin that mattered both more than anything, and--he aimed to prove--not at all.

For hobbyist with an appreciation of the sport's larger context within American society, Robinson is an essential component, and this single signed baseball would make a fine addition to any such collection. The Hall of Famer's 8/10 blue ink signature is preceded by a "Best wishes" salutation and placed at the top of a side panel, each typical of his signing modus operandi. The ball is an "Official Tri-County League" model with an area of brown staining well clear of the signature but otherwise white and bright. Full LOA from PSA/DNA.