Mitchell: A day to remember Jackie and Rube
From Kevin Mitchell at Home Plate Don’t Move on April 18, 2016:
On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African American since before the turn of the century to play Major League baseball. Wearing No. 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson played first base and batted second in the team’s home opener at Ebbets Field against the Boston Braves. In three at bats, he reached base on an error and scored a run in the Dodgers’ 5-3 win.
To celebrate the day of Robinson’s debut, this past Friday was designated “Jackie Robinson Day” by Major League Baseball. All Major League players that day wore No. 42 on their uniforms.
In the midst of all the events that took place at Major League ballparks to honor Robinson, let us not forget the name Andrew “Rube” Foster. That spring day in 1947 was also a great one for him!
“We are the ship, all else is the sea,” Foster famously said. Foster, a National Baseball Hall of Fame Negro League pitcher and manager and the founder of the first Negro National League (NNL) in 1920, saw Negro League baseball at that time as a ship sailing through the sea troubled by the stormy winds of racial segregation and discrimination that kept African Americans out of Major League baseball.
Read the full article here: https://homeplatedontmove.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/a-day-to-remember-jackie-and-rube/
Originally published: April 18, 2016. Last Updated: April 18, 2016.