42 is about baseball player Jackie Robinson
42 is a 2013 American biographical sports film written and directed by Brian Helgeland about the racial integration of American professional baseball by player Jackie Robinson , who wore jersey number 42 through his Major League career . Jack Roosevelt Robinson ( January 31 , 1919 -- October 24 , 1972 ) was an American professional baseball second baseman who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball ( MLB ) in the modern era .