In June of ’47, I was seven years old. And I remember Jackie. Now, 70 some years later, “I see the boys of summer in their ruin.” It’s a lovely, gloomy line that surprises me because I’m old. But it is also the statement of my passions — baseball and language — that I cannot imagine my life without.

I heard Dylan (Thomas) read and I saw Jackie (Robinson) play. They are two matchless moments in my life.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were a spectacularly democratic team, not at first and not easily. But in the end, they were. And Dylan penned that line for them.

There was Roy Campanella, the best catcher who ever lived.

With “Big Newk” on the mound. Other pitchers threw curves or fastballs. But Don Newcombe, like Joe Black, threw strikes.

Gil Hodges on first. We called him “The Gentle Giant,” He wore the biggest glove in baseball; his hands were huge.

And my Jackie at second, caught in run-downs, and still stealing home! Has anyone ever stolen home since Jackie did it last?

And the “Little Colonel” from Kentucky, Harold (PeeWee) Reese who, when three Alabama teammates objected to playing with a black man, said he saw no reason why he shouldn’t, and refused to sign their statement. Nobody shortstopped better.

And nobody played the hot corner like Billy Cox. A good ole boy; chewed tobacco a lot. But that was in the days before we knew that it could hurt you.

And then there was that outfield! A lanky Polish kid named Gene Hermanski in left field before he got traded to the Cubs for Andy Pafko.

Carl Furillo, the Italian kid, out in right field with an aim so accurate and an arm so strong and deadly, they said he “could throw a lamb chop past a wolf.”

And in the center was “Duke” Snider. His real first name was Edwin, but we all called him “Duke.”

They were, in Dylan’s phrase, “The boys of summer.” And I simply couldn’t believe it when I found out that they got paid too. All I wanted in this world was to grow up and play baseball for The Brooklyn Dodgers!

But I was a girl, and life was unfair.

You weren’t a Dodger fan for long before you learned that life was unfair.

They played the most heartbreaking game in the history of baseball!

That’s when I knew the first time that the world will break your heart.

When Jackie first came to Brooklyn, some people in the stands would hold up dead black cats and yell at him, “Here’s some relatives of yours.”

He is gone now.

Stole home.

And so many others with him; no more the graceful, agile athletes who ran the earth like it was air.

Jackie’s gone now.

Stole home.

But some of us inhabited his time. 

Happy Hundredth Birthday, Dear Jackie.

And to all “the boys of summer in their ruin”… and return, for another hundred years.

Because of you.

Yolande Robbins is a community correspondent for The Post. Email her at  yolanderobbins@fastmail.com