Three generations of Jackie Robinson descendants are pictured, including his oldest nephew, Ted Colbert, right, Colbert’s daughter, Jennette, center, and his granddaughter, Kristina, front left, a freshman at San Gorgonio High School. The trio live in Highland. Photo by Obrey Brown
* From my files: Eighteen years ago, three generations of Jackie Robinson descendants living in Highland
It was April 15, more than just the deadline for filing income taxes.
On that date in 2004, Kristina Williams, a freshman member of San Gorgonio High School’s track & field team, couldn’t attend her dual meet against San Bernardino.
“Family,” she said, “is more important.”
Family, in this case, means Jackie Robinson.
Williams is the great, great niece of baseball’s pioneer player who broke the color barrier in the major leagues in 1947. On April 15 across the land, it was Jackie Robinson Day at every major league stadium hosting a game.
It corresponds with the date, April 15, 1947, when Robinson stepped onto a major league field for the first time in a regular season game.
Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow, stood on the field at Shea Stadium in New York — center stage for the heritage day. Robinson has plenty of relatives spread across the land.
That includes Highland, a city located next to San Bernardino, Calif.
Williams lives with her mother, Jennette, in Highland. Jennette Williams’ father, Ted Colbert, is the oldest nephew to the onetime Brooklyn Dodger star who retired after the 1956 season. Robinson’s family legacy lives on.
“I see him,” says Williams, who has played JV volleyball and varsity basketball for the Lady Spartans prior to the spring track season, “as an inspiration. In our family, we talk about him a lot.
“It took up a lot of courage to stand up against a lot of animosity.”
The Williams family moved to Highland from Glendale, Ariz., due mainly to Jennette Williams’ bout with cancer. She is a patient at the City of Hope. They have been around Highland for about six months. They may be gone soon; possibly to Pasadena — closer to her medical center.
On that April 15 date, Jennette Williams, along with her mother, Ola, attended the Jackie Robinson Day ceremony at Anaheim Stadium. “I got to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen for a long time. I saw my uncle Mack’s family,” she said.
Mack Robinson, a fairly famous athlete before Jackie Robinson’s prominence started on the American baseball scene, was his older brother . “You’ve got to know, I grew up with this, all this talk,” said Jennette Williams.
Neither Colbert, nor Kristina Williams attended in Anaheim. At first, the notion seemed to be that Colbert was ill. Or that Williams wasn’t dressed properly for the pre-game event.
But Colbert spilled the true facts. “There are certain family members they’d allow on the field for something like this. I’ve done it a lot. Kristina wasn’t going to be allowed on the field for the ceremony.
“I stayed home with her. I let her go out with her friends.”
A shrug of the shoulders. Yes, she feels bad. Kristina , an ailing travel softball player suffering from a rotator cuff injury, said, “I’d be out playing softball instead of track.”
In class, it’s a different story. When it comes to writing essays about famous Americans, she didn’t have far to go for anyone. “I’m related to him,” she said.
Of course, she wrote about Jackie Robinson.
“Everyone (at San Gorgonio High) thinks I’m lying about all this.”
Before that April 15 Mariners-Angels game in Anaheim, representatives from both teams said they were delighted to take part in the celebration of a great life and a greater legacy. Garret Anderson and Chone Figgins, said Jennette, each expressed great admiration for what Robinson did.
Colbert, 64, says there are players in this generation who don’t know the name of Jackie Robinson. “I really believe that,” he said. “There aren’t very many, but there are a few. I’m disappointed in that.”
Being a nephew of baseball’s great legend didn’t bother Colbert, who noted there were still barriers for Black players, even after Jackie’s MLB debut in 1947.
“That kind of thing (racist reactions) happened every day when I played a game. It was O.K. with me. Other players would give me their best.”
His memories of Robinson are immense. “I was a bat boy in a lot of the games he played in,” he said. “I remember a game at Wrigley Field in L.A. when Satchel Paige pitched against Bob Feller. There were 43 strikeouts in that game.
“I think Jackie went 0-for-3.”
Colbert talked about a time Robinson returned from Brooklyn after his 1947 rookie season. “He must’ve had 30, 40 cousins who were at his (Pasadena) home, ” said Colbert, “and he gave them all a dollar. That was a big deal.”
Colbert recalled the patience Robinson had with fans. Colbert said, “We went to the theatre one night to see the Ten Commandments. We walked up to the mezzanine level. All of a sudden, everyone started coming at him for autographs.
“He was just as cool as anyone I’ve ever seen.”
If Robinson hadn’t broken the color barrier, said Colbert, “I don’t know who’d have done it.”
Colbert doubted that it would have been Larry Doby, the first American League black player. Nor could Roy Campanella, the famous Dodger catcher, an eventual teammate of Robinson’s in Brooklyn.
“It would’ve probably been Willie (Mays),” he said. “Nothing bothered Willie.”
Kristina Williams has learned her family history well. She said, “He didn’t play baseball just to be the first Black player. He wanted to play baseball.”
Right, said Colbert. “He wasn’t out for that. They had to get the right man for that. He was that man. He went to college. He was in the military. He was a little older. He had everything they needed.”
Seventeen years after Robinson’s 1972 death, Kristina Williams was born. She started figuring out who her famous relative was in about fifth grade.
Williams had one elite memory about Robinson before moving to Highland. During an eighth grade basketball game in Arizona, Williams said she was walking down the hall at a rival school. She spotted a poster of Robinson in a classroom, walked in and told the teacher she was a relative of the Hall of Famer.
“The teacher took the poster off the wall and gave it to me,” she said. “Right now, it’s on my wall at home.”
