What Happened to Jackie Robinson: How Did He Die?
Jackie Robinson was an American professional baseball player with a net worth of $6 million at the time of his death (adjusted for inflation). Jackie Robinson is remembered for breaking baseball’s color barrier when he made his Major League debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
How did Jackie Robinson die?
In 1968, Jackie Robinson had a heart attack. By middle age, complications like heart disease and diabetes had weakened Robinson and left him practically blind. Robinson died of a heart attack on October 24, 1972, at the age of 53, at his home on 95 Cascade Road in North Stamford, Connecticut.
Robinson’s funeral on October 27, 1972, at Upper Manhattan’s Riverside Church in Morningside Heights drew 2,500 attendees. Many of his old colleagues, other prominent baseball players, and basketball legend Bill Russell served as pallbearers, while the Rev. Jesse Jackson delivered the eulogy.
Tens of thousands of people lined the procession path to Robinson’s final resting place at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, where he was interred alongside his son Jackie and mother-in-law Zellee Isum.
Twenty-five years after Robinson’s death, the Interboro Parkway was renamed the Jackie Robinson Parkway in his honor. This parkway bisects the cemetery near Robinson’s grave.
Following Robinson’s death, his widow established the Jackie Robinson Foundation, where she remains an officer as of 2021. On April 15, 2008, she announced that in 2010, the charity would open a Jackie Kennedy museum in Lower Manhattan. Sharon, Robinson’s daughter, went on to become a midwife, educator, MLB director of educational programming, and author of two books about her father. His youngest son, David, who has ten children, is a coffee farmer and social crusader in Tanzania.
Meanwhile, Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball when he made his Major League Baseball debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Robinson spent his entire Major League Baseball career with the Dodgers, having begun with the Kansas City Monarchs. Throughout his career, he was a six-time All-Star and World Series champion in 1955.
In 1949, he won the National League MVP award and the NL hitting championship. Robinson was the MLB Rookie of the Year in 1947 and twice led the NL in stolen bases.
The Los Angeles Dodgers retired Robinson’s No. 42, and all MLB teams have since done the same. In 2004, the MLB announced April 15th to be “Jackie Robinson Day,” during which all players wear the No. 42 jersey. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first vote in 1962. He finished his major league career with a.313 batting average, 141 home runs, and 761 RBI.
