'A Handshake for the Century'

'A Handshake for the Century'. .

‘If you are ever put on the spot, just do the right thing and everything will work out fine.’ - George “Shotgun” Shuba, ‘A life is not important except for the impact it has on other lives.’ - Jackie Robinson

, The handshake. It has long been a symbol of a business agreement, a popular greeting among friends and family and, in sports, a gesture of good sportsmanship. , The handshake offered by Youngstown native George Shuba to Jackie Robinson after Robinson hit his first professional home run on April 18, 1946, in Jersey City, N.J., with the Brooklyn Dodgers' top minor league team, the Montreal Royals, was the first time a white ball player congratulated a black teammate in professional baseball. It has been called "A Handshake for the Century." Many do not know that the two players who were on base and scored on Robinson's hit shunned him and did not wait for him at home plate. , In an era of open racism, that was telling. So was this: The on-deck batter, Shuba, noticed the snub, so he stepped up to shake Robinson's hand, just as he reached home plate. That gesture marked a new era in baseball and much of American life., Robinson played in that historic game because Ohio native Branch Rickey, a co-owner of the Dodgers, had the vision and the courage to challenge Major League Baseball's unwritten rule to ban black players from participating in the country's national pastime. No stranger to overcoming barriers, Robinson, who was assigned to the Montreal club, Rickey later said, "There was never a man in the game who could put mind and muscle and everything else together quicker than Jackie Robinson." , This statue commemorates that seminal moment in time that paved the way for integration in professional sports, and it was made possible by the simple, yet powerful, gesture of a man who grew up on Youngstown's West Side., Shuba died Sept. 23, 2014. He played seven seasons for the Dodgers that included three World Series appearances as well as a World Series championship in 1955. A one local journalist wrote: "It seems surprising today that a handshake would be so significant but baseball at the time was segregated, baseball was America and it was about respect and kindness. It was respect on how to act and how to treat people, regardless of skin color, and the handshake was a reflection on that, of simple acts of respect and kindness, be might have otherwise been lost." , The Robinson-Shuba Commemorative Statue is a lasting monument to this principle of racial harmony Americans espouse today. That statue should be judged by the color of their skin, but rather by the content of their character. Youngstown is proud of its native son, George Shuba, and honored to be the first Ohio city to showcase a statue honoring Robinson. , Robinson died Oct. 24, 1972. He was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in July 1962. Every year, in April, Major League Baseball honors him with Jackie Robinson Day, where all baseball players wear his number, 42.