It’s a story that sounds like “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of.”
When Jackie Robinson and his family were between homes — stymied in their search because of the racist real estate practices of the early 1950s — they were taken in by a white Connecticut couple that helped them secure a plot of land. Like the Robinsons, the couple had young children, one of whom was a 10-year-old girl who would tag along with Jackie to Dodgers games and serve as the team’s unofficial mascot. And, like Jackie, she would go on to compile a lot of hits … only hers were of the music variety.
Carly Simon’s relationship with the Robinsons is a fun footnote in both Jackie’s story and her own. Not many know these two Hall of Famers — Robinson in Cooperstown, Simon in both the Rock and Roll and the Songwriters Halls of Fame — crossed paths, let alone that they had an almost familial friendship.
