Wait Till Next Year.

ROBINSON, Jackie; Carl T. Rowan.

$4,800.00

Item Number: 148332

New York: Random House, 1960.

First edition of this biography of the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. Octavo, original half cloth, top stain red, illustrated. Presentation copy, inscribed by Jackie Robinson in the year of publication on the front free endpaper, “6-1-60 To Mike Klebenoff with best wishes. I hope you enjoy reading ‘Wait Till Next Year’ Sincerely Jackie Robinson.” Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Anita Walker. Rare and desirable signed.

“Probably no other athlete has had a greater sociological impact on American sport than did Robinson. His success on the baseball field opened the door to black baseball players and thereby transformed the game. He also helped to facilitate the acceptance of black athletes in other professional sports, particularly basketball and football. His influence spread beyond the realm of sport, as he emerged in the late 1940s and 1950s as an important national symbol of the virtue of racial integration in all aspects of American life” (ANB). Carl T. Rowan was a groundbreaking journalist whose, “passionate reporting on race relations made him one of the most highly visible and vocal black men in America” (New York Times).