The first contract signed by Jackie Robinson with Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey on October 23, 1945 was an agreement to play for the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' top farm club. The deal called for a signing bonus of $3,500 and $600 per month through the 1946 season.
Less than two years later, on April 11, 1947, Robinson, along with Rickey and National League president Ford Frick, signed his first major league contract. He would receive $5,000 for the season.
What happened next is well documented and celebrated every year.
Five days after his signing, Robinson made history by becoming the first black player to play in Major League Baseball, breaking the color barrier. The Dodgers second baseman was the rookie of the year and two years later the National League's most valuable player. He batted .313 for eleven seasons and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1962. His No. 42 was retired in baseball in 1997.
But what happened to the contracts? Sports memorabilia can fetch millions these days, and experts say the original player contracts of one Jack Roosevelt Robinson could have monetary value, Shohei Ohtani's 50/50 home run ball, Freddie Freeman's World Series Game 1 walk-off grand slam Ball or…could surpass All the high-end stuff worn or hit by Babe Ruth that's auctioned off for seven figures.
After decades of uncertainty, Robinson's contracts dating back to 1945 and 1947 are safely under seal and have been held by the U.S. Marshals Service since 2019 as part of an investment fraud investigation and prosecution.
Mykalai Kontilai, a broadcast executive who founded a sports memorabilia business called Collector's Coffee in 2013 by purchasing and presenting the two Robinson contracts, pleaded guilty last month to one count of mail fraud. He was convicted Sentenced Dec. 4 to 51 months in prison and ordered to pay $6.1 million in restitution to the investors he defrauded.
These investors, called “the Owners” in court documents, made loans to Kontilai and used the Robinson contracts as collateral, and Kontilai raised more than $23 million before defaulting on the loans.
A copy of Jackie Robinson's historic 1947 contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
(U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York)
Kontilai, 55, hindered the investigation by falsifying documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission and lying under oath to the SEC. During the investigation, but before indictment, he fled to Russia and unsuccessfully sought asylum as a whistleblower on American corruption. He was finally arrested in Germany in 2023 due to an Interpol Red Notice. He was extradited to the United States in May to face pending charges.
Kontilai was found guilty of embezzling funds — he reportedly bought a Cadillac, paid private school tuition and rent on luxury properties across the country — while intentionally misleading investigators and failing to pay taxes on proceeds from the scheme .
“Collectors Coffee and Kontilai, its CEO, have repeatedly lied to investors to raise money for the company – Money Kontilai regularly stole to fund his lavish lifestyle” Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a statement last year. “Investors should be able to trust those they give their hard-earned money to and not worry that these people will lie, cheat and steal.”
However, the Robinson contracts remain in limbo, although there may soon be a resolution with philanthropy Jackie Robinson Foundation and the owners share the spoils.
“I hope they succeed,” said David Kohler, president of the high-quality sports memorabilia house SCP Auctions in Orange County. “The proceeds would be used to repay people who were cheated. That seems like the right thing to do.”
Kohler gave a rough estimate of what the contracts could fetch at auction. He also identified a prospect who could afford to make a strong offer.
“I would say they would probably fetch $5 million or more at auction,” he said. “They go beyond the game of baseball. These are important American artifacts of the 20th century that are central to the civil rights movement.
“I sometimes wonder, when it comes to historical items, why don’t teams buy them? They would be worth more to their team than to collectors.”
Brooklyn Dodgers star Jackie Robinson steals home when Boston Braves catcher Bill Salkeld becomes unbalanced in the fifth inning at Ebbets Field in New York on August 22, 1948.
(Associated Press)
In fact, the Dodgers attempted to take possession of the contracts, claiming in a January 2019 letter to Collection's Coffee that “the property belongs to the Dodgers and is not the property of (Collector's Coffee, Inc.).”
However, later that year, the Dodgers relinquished their ownership interest to the Jackie Robinson Foundation.
According to court documents, the possible settlement hinges on a written agreement that would provide for the Jackie Robinson Foundation to receive the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers contract and waive its claim to the 1945 Montreal Royals contract, which would go to the owners.
In addition to receiving the 1945 contract, the holders also received an undisclosed amount from the foundation equal to the 1947 contract value. The SEC would also receive a small portion. Kohler said the Dodgers contract is more valuable than the Royals contract.
If the court approves the distribution, it could complete an extraordinary journey that the contracts have taken from Rickey's desk in the 1940s to auctions that the owners hope could generate enough money to cover their losses through Kontilais to cover losses caused by fraud.
Long before sports memorabilia became a million-dollar business, Rickey and Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley donated the contracts to the James A. Kelly Institute for Local Historical Studies in Brooklyn for an exhibit in 1952. And the contracts remained in the institute's basement for decades, along with nearly 4 million other documents documenting Brooklyn's growth.
The New York Daily News reported on the institute's move to St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights in 1974, noting that historical documents included the “Deed of Purchase of Coney Island in 1654” and Robinson's original contracts.
Another Daily News story from 1979 discussed the contracts, but the Dodgers made no move to claim them. The institute was under the direction of the St. Francis Professor Arthur J. Konopwho, before his death in 2009, left a letter with a key to a safety deposit box that said, “My children will know what to do with it.”
Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers infielder in 1953.
(Harry Harris/Associated Press)
Three years later, Arthur's wife and son sold the contracts to Gotta Have It Collectibles for $750,000. Odette Konop signed a letter confirming the title and stated: “My husband had these contracts in a safe deposit box at our home for over 45 years. … He cared for and protected her for over half of his life until his death.”
Gotta Have It only owned the contracts for a year before selling them in 2013 for $2 million to Kontilai, who used them as collateral for $6 million in loans to the holders.
Kontilai used the contracts to boost his fledgling memorabilia and auction business by holding events there Philadelphia's Constitution Center and New York's Times Square to publicize its acquisitions. He got a respected expert on American historical documents, Seth Callerassigning a value of 36 million US dollars to the contracts, then immediately went on a buying spree with the investors' money.
When the SEC began investigating Kontilai in 2017, he allegedly falsified documents, lied under oath and obstructed the investigation. It took three years, but an 18-count indictment was filed against him in Nevada, involving securities and wire fraud, money laundering and failure to file tax returns. He was also charged in Colorado, but the charges were dropped when he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.
The public, nonprofit Jackie Robinson Foundation, founded in 1973 by Robinson's widow, Rachel Robinson, to perpetuate her husband's memory, is joining the fight for at least partial ownership of the contracts. The foundation manages scholarship and leadership development programs for college students and played a central role in the creation of the Jackie Robinson Museum, which opened in New York City in 2022 and focuses more on his impact off the field than his achievements on it.
“Even if you come with the idea of looking at the history of baseball and learning more about it, you have to walk through the room that talks about its commitment to economic opportunity, civil rights and social justice,” says Della Britton, president and chief executive officer the Jackie Robinson Foundation, The Times said in 2022.
In one room, Robinson's life's missions are depicted in large capital letters: SOLDIER, CAMPAIGN, PUBLIC SERVANT, ACTIVIST, FUND COLLECTOR, ORGANIZER, PROTESTOR, ENTREPRENEUR, CITIZEN and more.
Also in the room are the framed contracts signed by Robinson and Rickey in 1945 and 1947. However, these are merely copies, with the originals still hidden, this time under the watchful eye of federal authorities until a court approves their new ownership and an auction will likely determine their monetary value.