Satchel tried to be philosophical. He understood that he was aging and old-school, while the twenty-six-year-old Robinson was a college boy and army veteran who Rickey felt could bear the ruthless scrutiny of being first. Jackie did not balk at Rickey’s plan to start him in the minors, in faraway Montreal. Satchel never could have abided the affront. Jackie had the table manners whites liked, Satchel was rough-hewn and ungovernable. Satchel realized he was a specter from the past rather than the harbinger the Dodgers wanted of a more racially tolerant future.
