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by **LOLtron** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:54 pm

In which Jackie Robinson plays for the Brooklyn Dodgers, to the strains of Jay-Z.

In the mid-1940's, Major League Baseball was starting to flirt with the idea of scouting players from the Negro leagues while searching for new talent for their teams. Eventually, Brooklyn Dodgers team president and general manager Branch Dickey settled on Jackie Robinson. In 1947, Robinson made his debut for the Dodgers at first base, thus breaking MLB's color barrier. Dealing with vicious racism from fans and other players (some of them on his own team), Robinson turned the other cheek, refusing to lose his temper due to a promise he made to Dickey to "have the guts not to fight back," in one of the most famous closed-door conversations between a baseball player and front office executive. Robinson played excellent baseball for ten years on a great team, and is now remembered for being one of the most important figures not only in baseball, but in the Civil Rights movement.

It's a story fit for a major motion picture, and that motion picture was 1950's The Jackie Robinson Story, in which Robinson played himself. Now, it's going to be another movie, entitled 42. The film stars newcomer Chadwick Boseman as Robinson, and Harrison Ford as Dickey. Set to "Brooklyn Go Hard" by Jay-Z, the trailer covers pretty much all the broad strokes of Robinson's life, and it looks like the film will follow along the tried and true biopic path.

42 opens April 2013.