On the 100th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's birth, writer Tony Blengino at Forbes reminds us that while Robinson was an amazingly strong man who re-integrated baseball after more than 50 years of segregated play, he was also an amazing ballplayer.
Blengino spends some time measuring Robinson's stats against other top players and shows how he easily ranks with them. And he notes that Robinson's career started late -- he was 28 in his rookie season, thanks to World War II and segregation itself.
It's pretty easy to see that even without the historical context, Robinson would be a Hall-of-Fame level player. That he was a great man as well as a great ballplayer is one of history's fortunate convergences.
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