Jackie Robinson 1947 Rookie Jersey

The jersey from 1947

Jackie Robinson made his major league debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, at Ebbets Field, playing first base before a crowd of 26,623, more than 14,000 of them Black. He wore number 42. By the end of the season he had hit .297 with 175 hits, 125 runs and a league-leading 29 stolen bases, and he won the first Rookie of the Year award.

This is a home white flannel jersey with 'Dodgers' in script across the chest and the number 42 in blue felt on the back. The tag at the interior collar reads Spalding, with a secondary '42 Regular' size label. According to the catalog description written for its 2017 sale, Robinson was the only Dodger wearing a zipper-front jersey in the 1947 Opening Day photos, an older style the club had dropped after 1946. This jersey is the newer button style he wore later in the season.

The number itself carried no prestige at the time. The same catalog notes that the Dodgers had issued 42 only once before, to a little-used pitcher in the late 1930s. Fifty years after Robinson's debut, in 1997, Major League Baseball retired the number across every team, the first time any professional athlete had been so honored.

The man who wore it

Robinson was born January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, and raised in Pasadena, California. At UCLA he became the school's first athlete to letter in four sports: baseball, basketball, football and track. He won the 1940 NCAA long jump title.

Drafted in 1942, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in January 1943. In July 1944 at Fort Hood, Texas, he refused an order to move to the back of a segregated Army bus; he was court-martialed that August and acquitted. In 1945 he played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro leagues, hitting .387 in 47 games.

Branch Rickey agreed to sign him at $600 a month, and on October 23, 1945, it was announced that Robinson would join the Dodgers' top farm club, the Montreal Royals. Robinson hit .349 for Montreal in 1946 and was named the league's MVP. Brooklyn called him up for 1947.

The hostility of that first season is well documented. Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman taunted him to 'go back to the cotton fields.' Robinson kept playing. He was the National League MVP in 1949, hitting .342 with 124 RBI and 37 steals, won a World Series with Brooklyn in 1955, and played his final game in Game 7 of the 1956 World Series. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1962, his first year on the ballot, and died October 24, 1972, in Stamford, Connecticut, at 53.

Jackie Robinson Day, September 23, 1947

The photograph that identifies this jersey was taken on Jackie Robinson Day at Ebbets Field, September 23, 1947, one day after the Dodgers clinched the National League pennant. In the best-known image from that day, Robinson stands with his wife, Rachel, and the entertainer Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson beside a new Cadillac the fans presented to him. Experts at MEARS concluded that the jersey and the photograph match.

Brooklyn went on to face the New York Yankees in a World Series played from September 30 to October 6, 1947. It was the first World Series ever televised, though only to four Eastern markets linked by coaxial cable, and the first in which a racially integrated team played. The Yankees won in seven games. Robinson hit .259 in the Series, with 7 hits and 2 stolen bases.

The 2017 catalog notes that clubs of the era often debuted fresh uniforms for the World Series, since a season's home and road sets looked worn after 154 games, and it suggests that much of this jersey's wear came in the Series games played at Ebbets Field. That is the cataloger's reading, not a documented fact.

Seventy years in the family, then two records

The jersey stayed with the Robinsons. Rachel Robinson's letter of provenance reads in part: 'This 1947 home uniform was brought home by my husband Jackie Robinson at the end of his first major league season... The jersey has been in the Robinson Family Archives since the end of the 1947 World Series.' Before the sale, the auction's director of sports said the only reason it survived was that Robinson brought it home as a personal memento.

It was offered at auction in Dallas on November 19, 2017, with a pre-sale estimate of $3 million or more. The auction's sports director called it 'the most important article of sports memorabilia that we have ever presented at auction.' It sold for $2.05 million, a record for a post-World War II jersey, passing the $573,600 paid for a 1955 Sandy Koufax rookie Dodgers jersey. The overall sports memorabilia record at the time, $4,415,658 for a 1920 Babe Ruth Yankees jersey sold in 2012, stood untouched.

The record did not last long. On April 9, 2018, the same auction house announced that it had brokered a private sale of the jersey for $2.6 million, $550,000 more than the November price. Its sports director described the November buyer as a collector who believed 'if you buy the best of the best, there will always be somebody out there willing to pay more.' The new buyer was not named.

What to look for

The identifying details are the home white flannel with the 'Dodgers' script, the blue felt 42, the Spalding collar tag with the '42 Regular' size label, and the photo match to September 23, 1947. MEARS graded the jersey A9, deducting one point for breaks and later reinforcement in the stitching of the rear numerals and for minor soiling. Beyond a few stray anchor threads, the catalog describes it as original and unaltered.

Its rarity is the point. At the 2017 sale it was described as the only known surviving Robinson game-worn jersey from his rookie season, and a later catalog for a 1951 Robinson jersey cited the MEARS database as recording only four Robinson game-worn jerseys in all-original condition. That 1951 home jersey, a Rawlings with 'J Robinson' chain-stitched inside, sold in May 2019 for $553,500, about a fifth of what the rookie jersey brought.

The numbers

1947 season (Brooklyn)

151 G, 590 AB, 125 R, 175 H, 31 2B, 5 3B, 12 HR, 48 RBI, 29 SB (led NL), 74 BB, .297 BA, .383 OBP, .427 SLG

1947 awards

Rookie of the Year (the first awarded); fifth in NL MVP voting

1947 World Series vs. New York Yankees

7 G, 27 AB, 3 R, 7 H, 2 2B, 3 RBI, 2 SB, .259. Yankees won 4-3.

1949 season

.342 BA (NL batting title), 203 H, 124 RBI, 37 SB. NL MVP.

MLB career (Brooklyn, 1947-1956)

10 seasons, 1,382 G, 1,518 H, 137 HR, 734 RBI, 197 SB, .311 BA

Hall of Fame

Elected 1962, first ballot

Timeline

1. Jan 31, 1919

   Jackie Robinson is born in Cairo, Georgia.

2. Aug 1944

   Robinson is court-martialed after refusing to move to the back of a segregated Army bus at Fort Hood, and acquitted.

3. Oct 23, 1945

   Robinson's signing with the Montreal Royals, Brooklyn's top farm club, is announced.

4. Apr 15, 1947

   Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, wearing number 42.

5. Sep 22, 1947

   The Dodgers clinch the National League pennant.

6. Sep 23, 1947

   Jackie Robinson Day at Ebbets Field; Robinson is photographed in this jersey beside a new Cadillac.

7. Oct 6, 1947

   The Yankees win Game 7 of the World Series; Robinson brings the jersey home at season's end.

8. 1947

   Robinson wins the first Rookie of the Year award.

9. 1949

   Robinson is named National League MVP.

10. 1962

    Robinson is elected to the Hall of Fame on his first ballot.

11. Oct 24, 1972

    Robinson dies in Stamford, Connecticut, at 53.

12. 1997

    Major League Baseball retires number 42 across all teams.

13. Apr 15, 2004

    The first official Jackie Robinson Day is held across the major leagues.

14. Nov 19, 2017

    The jersey sells at auction in Dallas for $2.05 million, a record for a postwar jersey.

15. Apr 9, 2018

    A private resale of the jersey for $2.6 million is announced.

The world in 1947

• Jan 15, 1947

  The body of Elizabeth Short, the 'Black Dahlia,' is found in Los Angeles.

• Feb 21, 1947

  Edwin Land demonstrates the Polaroid Land Camera.

• May 22, 1947

  The Truman Doctrine takes effect, providing $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey.

• Jun 5, 1947

  Secretary of State George Marshall announces the Marshall Plan.

• Jul 7, 1947

  The Roswell incident occurs in New Mexico.

• Oct 14, 1947

  Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in the Bell X-1.

• Nov 24, 1947

  The House votes to cite the Hollywood Ten for contempt.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Jackie Robinson 1947 Rookie Jersey is number 43 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (38 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Robinson's number 42 had been worn by a Dodger only once before him, and was considered a throwaway number.
• In 1997 Robinson became the first professional athlete in any sport to have his number retired across an entire league.
• The jersey was photo-matched to Jackie Robinson Day, when Brooklyn fans gave him a new Cadillac a day after the pennant clinch.
• The 1947 World Series, in which Robinson played, was the first World Series ever shown on television.
• The jersey resold five months after its record auction for $550,000 more.
• Robinson was the first athlete at UCLA to earn varsity letters in four sports.
• Before he integrated the majors, Robinson was court-martialed, and acquitted, for refusing to move to the back of an Army bus.