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14 April 2007
Tribute to Baseball Great Jackie Robinson Benefits Charities
Athletes honor first black player in U.S. major leagues by wearing his number
Washington – When U.S. Major League Baseball (MLB) teams take the field April 15, 25 teams will have one player wearing the number 42 and five teams will have each of its players wearing number 42 -- all in tribute to Jackie Robinson, who six decades ago broke baseball’s “color barrier” while wearing that number.
A baseball Hall of Fame member, Robinson was the first black player in the U.S. major leagues when he took the field for New York’s Brooklyn Dodgers (the team moved to Los Angeles before the 1958 season) on April 15, 1947. To commemorate the 60th anniversary of Robinson’s baseball debut, the jerseys will be worn April 15 and later will be auctioned to the highest bidders. Proceeds will benefit the Jackie Robinson Foundation.
Robinson’s number was “retired” permanently – meaning no player again will wear that number – in 1997 to mark the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s breakthrough. The commissioner of baseball “unretired” the number for the April 15, 2007, anniversary.
One active player – New York Yankee pitcher Mariano Rivera – has worn the number 42 since he joined the team in 1995. Rivera, a native of Panama, was among a handful of players “grandfathered in” – allowed to keep wearing the 42 -- when the number was retired. Now, he is the only remaining active player who still wears the number.
“As a minority, I feel honored wearing number 42 and carrying the legacy that Jackie Robinson left,” Rivera said on Major League Baseball’s Web site. “I wear it with good pride. That’s the way it goes. All the guys retired or left, and I’m still carrying the number. I feel blessed for that.”
“Obviously, Jackie was a player who changed the game,” said Luis Gonzalez, a first-year Dodger, on MLB’s Web site. “The stuff that he had to go through opened the door for all minorities to be able to play this game.”
Major League Baseball began in 1903 and today has 30 teams in all. Today, 9 percent of the players are black; 27 percent are foreign born.
The Jackie Robinson Foundation, which provides mentoring and scholarships to outstanding black and Hispanic students, is headed by Robinson’s widow, Rachel Robinson, who founded the charitable organization after her husband’s death at the age of 53 in 1972.
Additional information on the April 15 commemoration is available on MLB’s Web site.
See also "Black Americans Have Rich History in Professional Baseball" and "United States Honors Baseball Great Jackie Robinson."
