B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 4 FIRST EDITION OF BASEBALL HAS DONE IT, FANTASTIC PRESENTATION-ASSOCIATION COPY INSCRIBED BY JACKIE ROBINSON TO DODGER ANNOUNCER ANDRE BARUCH 18. ROBINSON, Jackie. Baseball Has Done It. Philadelphia and New York, 1964. Octavo, original cream cloth, dust jacket. $12,500 First edition of this primary documentation of baseball’s integration—”what it is like to be both a baseball star and a Negro”—warmly inscribed to Dodgers announcer Andre Baruch and his wife Bea: “Best wishes Jackie Robinson. To the Baruchs with thanks for the many years of friendship and relationship that has been rewarding and lasting. I am certain it will continue to grow. Enjoy ‘Baseball Has Done It.’ You both have been a part of it. And thanks again, Jackie.” This is an extraordinary collection of interviews between a number of famous black players and baseball legend Jackie Robinson. “Professional athletes seldom speak as frankly to interviewers as these men do to Jackie Robinson. Integration is a fact in baseball—here [African-American players] speak out about what it means to them, to baseball, and to the country.” Grobani 8-261. Recipients Bea Wain Baruch (1917-2017) and Andre Baruch (1908-91) co-hosted radio programs from the 1940s to the 1980s; Bea Wain was a Big Band-era singer and radio personality. Her husband Andre served in the army for four years during World War II, where he reached the rank of Major; he was involved in the mid-1940s launching of the Armed Forces Radio Service, with stations in Algiers, Casablanca, Oran, Sicily and Tunis. After the war, Baruch and Wain worked as a disc jockey team in New York on WMCA, where they were billed as “Mr. and Mrs. Music.” On February 4, 1954, Baruch was selected to replace Red Barber as a broadcaster for the Brooklyn Dodgers on radio and TV. Text clean, mild toning and spotting to cloth, offsetting to endpapers. Dust jacket with shallow edge-wear, spine gently sunned. A very good copy, scarce and desirable inscribed. 18
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