Jackie Robinson goes hard, and other things we learned from the first '42' trailer

The first trailer for 42 hit the Internet on Thursday, and no, it is not a gritty reimagining of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Brian Helgeland's film is a Jackie Robinson biopic starring Chadwick Boseman as the Dodgers second baseman who broke baseball's color barrier, Harrison Ford as GM Branch Rickey and Christopher Meloni as longtime Dodgers (and later Giants, Cubs and Astros) manager Leo Durocher.

Unlike some other recent trailers -- I'm looking at you, Lincoln -- the 42 trailer approaches a venerated historical figure seriously but without too much schmaltz. There's no Oscar-bait-type soundtrack to be heard. The main musical accompaniment is Jay-Z and Santigold's "Brooklyn Go Hard," which is anachronistic yet strangely appropriate at the same time.

What details can be gleaned from the short preview and what do they say about the film's accuracy? One thing to notice is that while Boseman does look like the Robinson, he sure isn't trying to emulate his voice. You can hear the real Robinson's distinctive high pitch in this clip (dramatizing an exchange also present in the 42 trailer) from the 1950 film The Jackie Robinson Story, in which he played himself.

Pirates pitcher Fritz Ostermueller, No. 21, did hit Robinson with a pitch (though on the elbow, not the head) and surrender a home run to him -- two, in fact. However, both homers came later in the season than the HBP. Ostermueller was also actually a lefty, but he's not even close to the most high-profile MLB player whose handedness has been messed up by Hollywood.

And what about the uniforms? The ones for Brooklyn and their top farm team of the time, the Montreal Royals, look spot-on. The Pirates jersey replicates the unusual script wordmark Pittsburgh wore only in 1947, but renders it in the Bucs' familiar black instead of the correct blue. I'm fine with that artistic license.

Ebbets Field -- which was played, with the help of some CGI, by Engel Stadium in Chattanooga, Tenn. -- looks meticulously recreated, including the content of the scoreboard ads, at least judging by this photo.

We'll be able to judge the merits of the actual film when 42 is released on April 12, 2013 -- three days before MLB's annual Jackie Robinson Day.

-- Dan Wohl / MLB.com