Today will be Robinson’s day
Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball and a baseball historian, can name all the important players and recite all the significant dates in the game’s long history.
Ask him to identify the most important player and the most significant date, and Selig doesn’t hesitate.
Jackie Robinson. April 15, 1947.
“I’ve often described it as the most powerful and greatest moment in baseball history,” Selig said. “I do think it’s our proudest moment.”
Sixty years ago today, Robinson made his major league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, and … a world of possibility opened for African-Americans.
“Think about what (Dodgers president) Branch Rickey did,” Selig said. “This happened seven years before Brown vs. Board of Education. It happened before Harry Truman integrated the armed forces. And it happened 18 years before the civil rights movement.”
Today, players and/or coaches on every major league team will honor Robinson by wearing his No. 42 jersey. Though Selig retired the No. 42 throughout baseball in 1997, he is permitting players and coaches to wear the number today.
Robinson endured abuse and racial epithets at every ballpark and was shunned by many of his own teammates, but despite that climate, he would put together a Hall of Fame career. He will be honored today at each of the 15 ballparks where games will be played, with the core ceremony at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
Johnson may be ready
Manager Bob Melvin will decide after a Monday bullpen session whether Randy Johnson is ready to join the Arizona Diamondbacks rotation or needs one more minor league rehabilitation start.
“Right now it’s literally 50-50,” Melvin said before the Diamondbacks’ game against Colorado.
Johnson, who underwent back surgery after last season, threw six innings for Triple-A Tucson against Colorado Springs on Friday night. He allowed two earned runs and eight hits, striking out three and walking one.
The 43-year-old five-time Cy Young winner threw 85 pitches, 59 for strikes.
Astros’ Jennings out
Houston Astros right-hander Jason Jennings will miss at least two starts with tendinitis in his throwing elbow.