Today is a special day not just in baseball, or in sports for that matter, but for the entire country.
The reason: Today is the 64th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier, as he played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.
MLB will commemorate this day, as it has since the 50th anniversary of this historic event in 1997, with all 30 teams, including the Dodgers as they play the St. Louis Cardinals at Dodger Stadium tonight, wearing Jackie’s number 42 for their games.
April 15, 1947 is considered the most important day in the history of sports, because as was said in Ken Burns’ iconic documentary Baseball, “Baseball became, in truth, what it always claimed to be – the national pastime.”
It can also be said that the Civil Rights Movement began with Jackie Robinson breaking the color line, as it happened seven years before the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, which made racial desegregation in schools illegal, and eight years before Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat at the front of a Montgomery, AL bus, triggering the legendary bus boycott in that town.
Add to that the fact that Jackie Robinson was the greatest athlete that Southern California ever produced, hailing from Pasadena and starring in four sports at UCLA (incredibly enough, his worst sport was baseball, as he batted a mere .097 in his one year as a Bruin ballplayer!), and one can see why today is special and should be commemorated.
People everywhere should take at least a few moments, whether it’s watching the Dodger game tonight or whatever, to remember the greatest man in the history of sports today not only for what he did for baseball, but for this country.
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Original Story:
http://socalsportshub.com/2011/04/15/...
