MLB celebrates Jackie Robinson

PHOENIX — Andrew McCutchen has relished these past few days in the Philadelphia Phillies clubhouse, having difficult, important conversations with baseball teammates about racial injustice.

As a Black man in a sport that’s filled with mostly white and Hispanic players, he doesn’t feel it’s a burden to lead in the discussions. He’s just glad that on Jackie Robinson Day, they’re conversations that everyone is 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.

Eleven games were postponed this week as some teams joined other leagues like the NBA, WNBA and MLS in protesting social injustice.

The Oakland Athletics and Houston Astros took the field Friday night and then left after a moment of silence, draping a Black Lives Matter T-shirt across home plate as they chose not to play. They will play a doubleheader Saturday.

Teams across the league were celebrating the day in various ways. As usual, players, managers, coaches, umpires and other on-field personnel were wearing Robinson’s No. 42.

For Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, Jackie Robinson Day comes at a good time.

“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, but the celebration was moved to Aug. 28 this season to accommodate the COVID-19altered 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.

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.

During the national anthem at Angel Stadium, Black players from the Angels and Mariners stood together in center field and linked arms with Los Angeles’ Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon and David Fletcher.