Posted
on April 15, 2016
Did
you know that Major League Baseball celebrates the anniversary of
Robinson's MLB debut?
On
Opening Day, April 15, 1947, Robinson first played in the Majors,
thus ending eight decades of racial segregation.
He had to be brave
and calm to stand up to all the hateful words – and sometimes
things – that were hurled at him. He did great with the bravery,
astonishingly well with the calmness, and superbly with the baseball.
Eventually
(1962) Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and
later still (April 15, 1997) his number, 42, was retired throughout
ALL of MLB!
That's
never been done before.
So from then on no player, on any team, would ever wear the number 42 on his jersey. But on
Jackie Robinson Day, all players, coaches, and managers of both
teams, and umpires as well, wear #42 on their jerseys!
Breaking
the color barrier – also expressed as crossing the color line –
is considered an important event, not just for baseball, but for the
whole country. A year after Robinson began the integration of
baseball, President Truman integrated the military, and in 1950 the
National Basketball Association signed several black players. Less
than a decade after Robinson's debut, the Supreme Court ruled for
integration of public schools.
(Actually,
professional football broke the color barrier before Robinson's
debut, with the Los Angeles Rams leading the way in 1945 by signing
two black players. I'm not sure why this didn't have the impact of
baseball's integration.)
Still,
it is Robinson who, many say, “changed the face of American
sports.” Documentary film maker Ken Burns has called Jackie
Robinson “the most important person in the history of American
sports.”
Also
on this date:
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