Tough discussions part of celebration
PHOENIX — Andrew McCutchen has relished these past few days in the Philadelphia Phillies’ clubhouse, having difficult, important conversations with his teammates about racial injustice.
As a Black man in a sport in which most of the players are white or Hispanic, he doesn’t feel it’s a burden to lead such discussions. He was just glad that on Jackie Robinson Day, they are conversations everyone was willing to have — even if the answers aren’t always clear.
“People want to know what’s next, want to know the answers,” McCutchen said. “It’s OK to not have the answers, it’s OK to not know what’s next. What’s not OK is not caring what’s next.”
Major League Baseball observed a Jackie Robinson Day like no other Friday, with teams celebrating a man who broke the sport’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. More than 70 years later, the racial reckoning continued.
Ten baseball games were postponed over the previous two days as some teams joined other leagues including the NBA, WNBA and Major League Soccer in protesting social injustice.
For Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, the timing was serendipitous.
“I did find it almost crazy and kind of great, after everything that went down yesterday in baseball and in sports and with our organization as well, that we come right back here today and wear No. 42 and we go out there and celebrate Jackie Robinson and everything that he’s done for our game, and really, for the nation,” Baldelli said.
Jackie Robinson Day is usually on April 15, the anniversary of his milestone, but the celebration was moved to Aug. 28 this season, which didn’t start until late July because of the coronavirus pandemic. The rescheduled date was chosen because it is the anniversary of the March on Washington in 1963 and also the day in 1945 when Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey met with Robinson to discuss breaking the color barrier.
Teams across the league celebrated the day in various ways. As usual, players, managers, coaches, umpires and other on-field personnel wore Robinson’s No. 42.
In Boston, players from both teams lined up along the baselines before the game and the Red Sox played a clip of Robinson speaking in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964. During a recording of the national anthem by Ruth Pointer, outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. — the only Black player on the Red Sox — knelt, as did Alex Verdugo next to him.
“I think (Robinson) would want us to talk about change,” said Colorado Rockies outfielder Matt Kemp, who is Black. “Coming up in the Dodgers organization and the name Jackie Robinson, it just meant so much more. I wore the jersey that Jackie Robinson wore back in the day. To be around guys like Don Newcombe and Maury Wills, some of the legends that were with the Dodgers, you get to hear stories about things that people have never heard.”
According to a recently published study on diversity in baseball, only 7.5% of rosters consisted of Black players on opening day this year, the lowest percentage in the game since the study began in 1991.