Jackie Robinson Day in MLB

• April
• 15

11:47 am mlb

Sixty three years ago today Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson first stepped out on a baseball diamond as the first black player to play in the Major League Baseball. Today every player in the MLB will be wearing #42 in honor of the importance of that very first game Robinson played in. They will wear #42 to honor the man that grew up poor in a family of sharecroppers in rural Georgia. Jackie’s middle name was in honor of another famous maverick Teddy Roosevelt, who died around the time of his birth. Robinson would go on to become a star athlete in numerous sports at John Muir High School & UCLA before becoming a rare African-American second lieutenant in the US Army during World War II. Your ball club will be wearing #42 today to remind us of our country’s ugly history of racism and how the world of sports was forever changed by the man who wore that jersey.