MLB calls for justice continue
Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 is displayed at Marlins Park on Friday
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 while the racial reckoning continued.
Ten baseball games were postponed over two days as some teams joined other sports like the NBA, WNBA and MLS in protesting social injustice.
Jackie Robinson Day is usually on April 15, but the celebration was moved to
Aug. 28 this season to accommodate the COVID-19-altered schedule, which started in late July. The date was chosen because it is the anniversary of the March on Washington in 1963 and also the day in 1945 when Dodgers GM Branch Rickey met with Robinson to discuss breaking the color barrier.
“I think (Robinson) would want us to talk about change,” said 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, you get to hear stories about things that people have never heard.”
Yankees manager Aaron Boone broke down in tears during a media briefing and left the room when he was asked about his two Black adopted sons Friday. He returned a few minutes later, still shaken.
“I would just say, I know I’m talking to a lot of people out there, it’s a hard, heavy year, and a heartbreaking year in so many ways,” Boone said.
Yankees: RF Aaron Judge landed on the 10-day injured with a strained left calf just days after the star slugger returned. Judge was activated Wednesday but aggravated the injury in a game in Atlanta and was removed in the sixth inning. He was added back to the IL before the opener of a doubleheader against the Mets. The team promoted top OF prospect Estevan Florial to be the 29th man, batting the 22-year-old seventh and starting him in center. Judge has now been sent to the injured list four times in the past three seasons. Manager Aaron Boone was hopeful that Judge wouldn’t miss much more than the 10 days this time but didn’t have a firm timetable. Judge, 27, is batting .292 with nine home runs, 20 RBIs in 18 games.
White Sox: The team acquired speedy OF Jarrod Dyson in a trade with the Pirates and reinstated INF Nick Madrigal from the 10-day IL. Dyson is batting just .157 (8-for-57) this season, but he swiped 30 bags last year. He won the World Series in 2015 with the Royals and could serve as a valuable pinch runner for the White Sox as they chase their first playoff appearance since 2008. The White Sox sent international signing bonus pool money to the last-place Pirates for the 36-year-old Dyson, who is a .245 career hitter with 254 steals in 879 games. To make room, the team designated OF Nicky Delmonico for assignment and optioned OF Luis Gonzalez to its alternate training site in Schaumburg.
Mets: Dominic Smith hit the go-ahead home run in his first game since tearfully pleading for help combating racial inequality, Pete Alonso also connected and the Mets beat the crosstown Yankees 6-4 in the opener of a doubleheader. Smith, a 25-yearold Black man, wept Wednesday night reflecting on a recent shooting by police of a Black man in Wisconsin. Smith and his teammates were all smiles after his decisive solo shot against Chad Green in the sixth inning on what was Jackie Robinson Day around the majors.
MLB: A diversity report released on MLB showed a modest increase in its overall diversity hiring practices, spurred by its improved gender diversity. The Institute for Diversity and Ethics and Sport at Central Florida gave MLB an overall score of 80.7, which was a letter grade of B. That’s up from a 79.5 in 2019. The grade for racial hiring dropped slightly from 89.4 to an 88.7 for a B-plus while gender hiring increased from 69.6 to 72.7 for a C. Richard Lapchick, the institute’s director and lead report author, called baseball’s gender hiring improvement a “highlight” of this year’s study. At the beginning of the 2020 season, there were 21 women who had on-field coaching or player development positions, which is up from seven in 2018.
Tigers, Twins: Friday’s doubleheader between the Tigers and Twins was postponed because of bad weather. The teams now have a doubleheader scheduled for Saturday that allows them to make up one of Friday’s two games. The other is being made up as part of a doubleheader in Minnesota on Sept. 4.