Cosby Honors Jackie Robinson

Comedian Bill Cosby, in his first live TV appearance since his son was killed, honored baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson on Monday in a serious moment on the usually irreverent ESPY awards show.

President Clinton also saluted Robinson in a taped message, and boxer Muhammad Ali was honored on the sporting awards program sponsored by cable network ESPN.

Cosby beckoned the applauding Radio City Music Hall crowd to sit down when he took the stage an hour into the program.

“Hello, friends,” he said.

He said Robinson, who broke baseball’s color barrier 50 years ago, “was a sportsman in the truest sense of the word and a role model for millions of Americans.”

Former heavyweight champion Ali, slowed by Parkinson’s Syndrome, was given the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage. Super Bowl MVP Desmond Howard and Olympic sprinting champion Michael Johnson both saluted Ali when picking up their own awards.

The show celebrated memorable sports moments of the past year like Kerri Strug’s Olympic vault into history.

It also ran tape of some lowlights, like a golfer vomiting on the course.

Golf prodigy Tiger Woods was named breakthrough athlete of the year, heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield was the comeback athlete of the year and Olympians Amy Van Dyken and Johnson the outstanding female and male athletes.

The World Series champion New York Yankees and their manager, Joe Torre, were named outstanding team and manager of ‘96.