As one of his teammates put it, "most men would have cracked." Daily abuse included everything from name calling, to purposeful spiking, to death threats. Several of his white teammates were honest enough to say that, had they been in Jackie's shoes, they didn't think they would have been able to do it.
His teammates saw and heard how other players abused him. There were always some insults hurled at opposing players, but with Jackie this "bench jockeying" could get out of control.
One of the most abusive teams was the Philadelphia Phillies, led by their manager Ben Chapman. He was so verbally abusive to Jackie that it shocked the other players who heard him. When Chapman started to get negative attention, he asked to have a photo taken with Jackie to show there were no hard feelings. Jackie agreed, only because he was determined not to make things worse.
When they stood together for the photo, Chapman refused to shake the hand of a black man. So they both held on to a bat. Jackie later wrote that posing for that photo was one of the hardest things he ever had to do.
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