when did jackie robinson retire from the brooklyn dodgers
Jackie Robinson In 1956, Robinson had 61 runs scored, a .275 batting average, and 12 steals.[150] By then, he had begun to exhibit the effects of diabetes, and to lose interest in the prospect of playing or managing professional baseball.[178] After the season, Robinson was traded by the Dodgers to the arch-rival New York Giants for Dick Littlefield and $35,000 cash (equal to $308,317 today). The trade, however, was never completed; unbeknownst to the Dodgers, Robinson had already agreed with the president of Chock full o'Nuts to quit baseball and become an executive with the company.[185] Since Robinson had sold exclusive rights to any retirement story to Look magazine two years previously,[185] his retirement decision was revealed through the magazine, instead of through the Dodgers organization.[186]
Jackie Robinson Robinson's career is generally considered to mark the beginning of the post–"long ball" era in baseball, in which a reliance on raw power-hitting gave way to balanced offensive strategies that used footspeed to create runs through aggressive baserunning.[192] Robinson exhibited the combination of hitting ability and speed which exemplified the new era. He scored more than 100 runs in six of his ten seasons (averaging more than 110 runs from 1947 to 1953), had a .311 career batting average, a .409 career on-base percentage, a .474 slugging percentage, and substantially more walks than strikeouts (740 to 291).[150][190][193] Robinson was one of only two players during the span of 1947–56 to accumulate at least 125 steals while registering a slugging percentage over .425 (Minnie Miñoso was the other).[194] He accumulated 197 stolen bases in total,[150] including 19 steals of home. None of the latter were double steals (in which a player stealing home is assisted by a player stealing another base at the same time).[195] Robinson has been referred to by author David Falkner as "the father of modern base-stealing".[196]