A Dodger and a giant ...

Sixty-one years ago today ...



You can never remember enough. You can never thank him enough.

Sixty years ago today ...

Thanks.

The more, the merrier ...

As reported here and at other places, Sunday is the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson crossing the color line in Major League Baseball. April 15, 1947 can with great legitimacy be called the most important date in modern sports history, if not in 20th Century American history, because the moment Robinson ran onto the the grass at Ebbets Field as a Brooklyn Dodger, everything changed - everything. And that's why the Powers That Be in MLB are allowing any player or manager who so desires to wear Robinson's previously retired number 42 for Sunday's games. It was the idea of Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., who went to league officials with his personal request to wear 42 for one game. As of now, the number of players wearing 42 on Sunday has grown to more than 150, including five entire teams. You would think everyone would take pride in such a large turnout, but that wouldn't be the case. Torii Hunter, the star outfielder for the Minnesota Twins who was one of the first to jump aboard the 42 bandwagon, told USA Today that he thinks something will be lost if so many 42s are out on the diamonds of North America:

"This is supposed to be an honor, and just a handful of guys wearing the number. Now you've got entire teams wearing the number. I think we're killing the meaning. It should be special wearing Jackie's number, not just because it looks cool."

Of course, Hunter is entitled to his opinion. Of course, he's also talking out of his ass.

For one, why can wearing Jackie's number be both special and cool? A large part of me wouldn't have minded one bit if MLB had dictated that every uniformed player and manger wear 42 on Sunday. Yeah, it would have been hell on the scorekeepers (and it still will be to some extent for those handling the games with multiple 42s on the field at the same time), but so what? They'll live. It wouldn't be anything compared to the hell that Robinson went through during that first year when entire teams were conspiring against him, spewing racial invective at him during games. What he did was so special, so huge, that anything done to mark his importance to the game and beyond can and should be done, and it still wouldn't enough.

I especially love the fact that five whole rosters will bear 42, including Robinson's former team, the Dodgers. It's worth noting that two of the other teams that will be going all-Robinson all the time will be the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies. At the time Robinson broke the color barrier, the Cardinals were the South's favorite baseball club, including large numbers of fans living in Jim Crow states such as Alabama and Mississippi, where the Klan thrived and blacks were third-class citizens. There was even an alleged foiled plot by several Cardinal players, including future Hall of Famer Enos Slaughter (who always denied it, to be fair) to strike the games against the Dodgers. Meanwhile, the Phillies in 1947 were led by manager Ben Chapman, a through-and-through racist who ordered his players to call Robinson a "nigger," among other things, during a game against Brooklyn just a week of Robinson joined the team. Ironically, that episode may have done more to solidify the rest of the Dodgers behind Robinson than any other event. To have both St. Louis and Philadelphia saluting Robinson's legacy six decades later speaks volumes.

The most uncomfortable part about Torii Hunter's assertion that too many players will be wearing 42 on Sunday is what he's not really saying, but is implying - that only African American players should be allowed Robinson's number. Yes, it's true that today's black players gained the most from Robinson's sacrifice - but so did the Latino players who dominate today's baseball, and so, for that matter, did the white players. The whole game is better overall thanks to what Jackie went through, as is all of society. And if a child of any color asks his parent about why there are so many 42s out on the field on Sunday, and the parent explains who Jackie Robinson was and why he's such an iconic figure - why, that's called knowledge. And that's also a job well done. So chill out, Torii, and enjoy the view on Sunday.

The players scheduled to wear Jackie Robinson's number on April 15 (as of April 13)
Arizona: Orlando Hudson, Tony Clark, Eric Byrnes, Chris Young, Scott Hairston, Bob Melvin, Lee Tinsley
Atlanta: Andruw Jones
Baltimore: Corey Patterson
Boston: Coco Crisp
Chicago Cubs: Jacque Jones, Cliff Floyd, Derrek Lee, Daryle Ward
Chicago White Sox: Jermaine Dye, Harold Baines
Cincinnati: Ken Griffey Jr.
Cleveland: Josh Barfield, C.C. Sabathia
Colorado: LaTroy Hawkins
Detroit: Gary Sheffield, Curtis Granderson, Craig Monroe, Marcus Thames, Lloyd McClendon
Florida: Dontrelle Willis
Houston: Entire roster
Kansas City: Reggie Sanders, Emil Brown
L.A. Angels: Gary Matthews Jr.
L.A. Dodgers: Entire roster
Milwaukee: Bill Hall
Minnesota: Torii Hunter, Rondell White, Jerry White
N.Y Mets: Willie Randolph¹
N.Y. Yankees: Mariano Rivera², Robinson Cano
Oakland: Milton Bradley, Shannon Stewart, Tye Waller
Philadelphia: Entire roster
Pittsburgh: Entire roster
St. Louis: Entire roster
San Francisco: Barry Bonds
San Diego: Mike Cameron
Seattle: Arthur Rhodes, Jason Ellison
Tampa Bay: Carl Crawford
Texas: Ron Washington¹
Toronto: Vernon Wells, Frank Thomas, Royce Clayton, Mickey Brantley
Washington: Dmitri Young

¹One of only two African American managers in Major League Baseball
²Rivera was wearing 42 at time it was retired throughout the big league, so he's grandfathered in.

"That quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

Most of my friends know that I think Bud Selig is an idiot, not to mention the worst baseball commissioner in history. There are many reasons for my feelings toward Selig, reasons that can be enumerated at a later date. But one thing I will give Selig credit for is recognizing the achievements and the importance of Jackie Robinson. Robinson was not the best player in baseball history, but as the man who broke the color line in the major leagues on April 15, 1947, at a time when African Americans still were considered inferior by a large portion of white people in this country, the Brooklyn Dodger likely was the most important player in baseball history, if not sports history. More than once, in fact, I have called Robinson the originator of the American civil rights movement, starting his campaign when Martin Luther King was still in college.^*

Ten years ago, at a ceremony in New York's Shea Stadium marking the 50th anniversary of Robinson joining the Dodgers, Bug Selig declared April 15 to be known as Jackie Robinson Day throughout baseball, and permanently retired Robinson's #42 throughout the big leagues, an unprecedented act for any major sport. Since then, only players who were already wearing 42 at the time have been allowed to sport the number. (Today there's just one player, Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera, wearing #42.) But now, to mark the 60th anniversary, another idea - Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., who wears #3, went to Selig to ask permission to change his number to 42 for one day, the 15th, a week from this coming Sunday. In a somewhat surprising move, not only did Selig approve Griffey's request, but he subsequently announced that any player who wanted to do the same would be allowed to do so.

As a result, there has been a flood of superstars who have revealed plans to pay tribute to Jackie Robinson's legacy by bearing the jersey number he wore with pride six decades ago. The players who will make the one-day shift include the Cubs' Derrek Lee, Minnesota's Torii Hunter, Detroit's Gary Sheffield, San Diego's Mike Cameron, Boston's Coco Crisp and Washington's Dmitri Young. So will New York Mets manager Willie Rudolph and even baseball's active home-run king and active grump, San Francisco's Barry Bonds. Oh, and the entire Dodger squad will sport #42, which could give the official scorekeeper at that game a major headache.

It pains me to give Selig props for approving all this, but really, what choice did he have. If he had turned down Griffey's request, word would have leaked out and he would have come across as the myopic muckymuck that he is eight times out of 10. And once he said yes to Griffey, that opened the floodgates, so he decided to go with it. I also won't be surprised to see "Griffey 42" and "Bonds 42" jerseys being sold at MLB.com for a pretty penny. But if this huge gesture gets more kids asking about why their favorite player is wearing that strange number - and parents telling the story of the man who changed his sport and his world - then I can live with the extra commerce.

^*Strong words? Perhaps. But if you don't believe me, then believe Dr. King, who told Robinson's teammate Don Newcombe that they - along with another African-American Dodger, Roy Campanella - made it "possible for me to do my job." King told Newcombe this one week before his assassination in 1968.