BOISE, Idaho — This Day In Sports: April 15, 1947, 75 years ago today
More than 25,000 fans witness history as Jackie Robinson bats second and plays first for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier. It was Opening Day at Ebbets Field, and the 28-year-old Robinson, signed by Branch Rickey, went 0-for-3 against Boston Braves starter Johnny Sain but scored the deciding run in the Dodgers’ 5-3 win. Black players had been relegated to the old Negro Leagues since the 1880s, but Rickey, who Robinson would always consider a father figure, was bent on changing history.
Robinson would be named National League Rookie of the Year in 1947, and two years later he was the NL’s Most Valuable Player. He played in six World Series and was part of Brooklyn’s world championship team in 1955.
The verbal (and sometimes physical) abuse Robinson endured during his first few seasons as a Dodger was well-chronicled, but he famously persevered. Robinson retired after the 1956 season rather than accept a trade to the Dodgers’ hated rivals, the New York Giants, although the point is made that he had already agreed to take an executive position with Chock Full O’ Nuts.
Robinson probably could have played in the NFL, too. He was a star halfback for UCLA, one of the first integrated college football teams in the country, before serving in World War II. For the Bruins, he was not just the first Black player, but first athlete overall to letter in four sports: baseball, football, basketball and track. But he especially excelled in baseball, and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 1962.
Today, we celebrate MLB’s 19th annual Jackie Robinson, as every big leaguer will don No. 42 in his honor. Robinson’s numeral was retired throughout the majors in 1997. The last player grandfathered in to wear No. 42 was the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera, who retired in 2013.
Robinson’s impact was as big off the field as on it. He was a tireless advocate for equality on all levels. After his death in 1972, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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