"Change come hard for some, but it still comes, and 100 year after his birth and 46 years after his death, that is the ultimate legacy that Jackie Robinson leaves."

I have always loved learning about Jackie Robinson. It took a lot of courage for him to choose to be baseballs greatest experiment and I just have so much respect for him. I haven't read a ton of books about him but what I loved about this one is that it focused not just on Jackie Robinson but the people he played baseball with and interacted with. Yes he was baseball's greatest experiment but it took more than just him to make it happen. I just loved that this book focused on all the people who supported (or did not) Branch Rickey's decision to break the color barrier in major league baseball. Also the book shows how Jackie Robinson affected their lives and careers and how they had an impact on his. It shows how much support he had through out his career.
This book was well written and you can tell that the author really did his research. I mean its not easy writing a book about a baseball player that has had multiple books already written about him. I do feel like I learned so much and I just really enjoyed this book! I think any baseball fan will too.

*I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

What an honor to read A Fine Team Man and learn more about Jackie Robinsons life and career. Reading about him played like a movie in my head because the writing was excellent. Jackie Robinson had my respect because I knew of him as a legendary baseball player who broke down barriers of segregation. Now I have a whole new respect for him just for the life he lived and attitude he had. Thank you to Joe Cox for bringing this book to life and to the publisher for giving ,me the chance to read it.

Do we need another book about Jackie Robinson in 2019? Well, Joe Cox answers with a definitive 'yes' in his newest book, A Fine Team Man: Jackie Robinson and the Live He Touched.

Eschewing the traditional biography, Cox instead looks at Robinson's life through the prism of nine individuals closely associated with him- his wife, Rachel; Dodgers executive Branch Rickey, scout Clyde Sukeforth, manager Burt Shotton, and broadcaster Red Barber; baseball commissioner Happy Chandler; African-American sportswriter Wendell Smith; and Dodger teammates Pee Wee Reese and Dixie Walker. A chapter each is devoted to these individuals, with Cox providing biographical sketches of each individual's life before, during, and after their interactions with Robinson.

Because there have been so many books about Robinson, and a hit biopic just a few years ago, the author necessarily covers some familiar ground. The chapters on Rachel Robinson and Branch Rickey will be familiar to those who have previously read about Robinson and the breaking of baseball's color barrier. Even so, Cox does not allow accepted myth to stand as fact without exploration. A fine example of this is the well-known (but maybe apocryphal) event when Reese walked over to Robinson and put his arm around Jackie. Cox reviews the available record, including contemporary accounts and the recollections of those who were there, and comes to a very likely and well-supported conclusion.

The book's real strength comes from the chapters on the lesser known individuals. Two particularly strong passages detail Wendell Smith's work as a co-laborer for the integration of baseball, and Dixie Walker's evolution and regret regarding his initial resistance to playing alongside of Robinson.

Overall, A Fine Team Man is an interesting and informative addition to the Jackie Robinson canon. While it's hard to break completely new ground on a story so oft told, Joe Cox has produced a work that increases substantially our understanding of the influence that Jackie Robinson had on several of the people in his orbit.

Thanks to Net Galley for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank Netgalley for sharing a copy of A Fine Team Man with me in exchange for an objective review. MR Cox deserves credit for attempting a very difficult task: first, to write a book that provides a new perspective on one of the most written about sports figures; second, to write a book where that person (Jackie Robinson) is more the background than the subject for what is written. I experienced the same two difficulties from the perspective of a reader. I often felt like I was looking at one of those reversible figures , those optical illusions where you can see one of two different things (rabbit/duck, old woman/young woman) depending on what you see as subject and what as background. As I read this book I experienced different degrees of success with this process. There were chapters that I enjoyed and where I was drawn to learn about the subject (Wendell Smith, Clyde Sukeforth, Happy Chandler) and could keep Jackie Robinson in the background. There were other chapters, however, where I found myself losing interest in the subject and reading about well known (and therefore less interesting) aspects of Jackie Robinson and his life. Surprisingly, this happened for people that, going into the book, I was more interested in (Red Barber, Branch Rickey, Dixie Walker. In the end, I enjoyed the book: it was an easy read; and reading about baseball while suffering through winter is almost always a positive experience.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.
Much has been written about Jackie Robinson, the Hall of Fame baseball player who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in the late 1940s. Movies have been made about his life. So what more can be said, more than 70 years after his debut in baseball? Author Joe Cox, using and demonstrating extensive research, chronicles how Jackie Robinson affected the lives and careers of nine people, all of whose success and/or claims to fame were greatly enhanced by their interaction with Robinson. He starts with Jackie’s wife (Rachel). He continues with Branch Rickey, the veteran baseball executive that signed Robinson and brought him up to the major leagues with the old Brooklyn Dodgers. Former baseball commissioner Happy Chandler gets a chapter as does former Dodger shortstop and captain Pee Wee Reese. It was actually Reese who was called the “fine team man”, which became the title of this book.
Two of the more interesting chapters were the ones on broadcaster Red Barber and outfielder Dixie Walker, both of whom grew up in the South and suffered from racial biases in their upbringing. Because of their interactions with Jackie Robinson, they overcame their prejudices and went on to be better and more accomplished people as a result of what they learned by dealing with Robinson.
The book devotes a chapter to each of the one people profiled. Each person’s background before they encountered Robinson is presented and this gets a little dry in some cases. But by the end of each chapter, it was gratifying to read how well things turned out for these people after they were graced with being a part of the life of Jackie Robinson.