Los Angeles – Jackie Robinson was the first to break the baseball color barrier with Brooklyn Dodgers 78 years ago on Tuesday. His legacy continues to inspire people inside the main league – and also outdoors.
Players and employees from Dodgersincluding Shohei era, Mookie Betts and a newcomer Roki Sasakiand Colorado Rockies Surrounded by Robinson’s statue at Centerfield Plaza clock before the Los Angeles game at Jackie Robinson Day around the main league.
They joined the Basketball Hall of Fame Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who turns 78 on Wednesday. He remembered that he was wearing a Brooklyn baseball cap while growing up in the neighboring district of Manhattan.
“I would come in fighting people from giants, yankees, quite often,” he said, “but I kept my cap and no one could knock it. I was so tall.”
Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor, followed Robinson’s tracks as a sports star in UCLA, where he won three national championships under the Hall of Fame Coach John Wooden.
Robinson continues to be a lifelong inspiration for Abdul-Jabbar.
“He meant perfection, gave you everything, gave the best,” said Abdul-Jabbar, “and for all the critics that are out there, just ignore them and continue.”
Each team playing Tuesday wore jerseys No. 42. It is the only number general retirement in large companies.
“It’s not just a one -time day,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “We understand what this man has done for our world, our country. This is what life is. That’s something for me, keeping his heritage burning.”
Roberts and Ron Washington of Los Angeles Angels They are only black managers who are currently in large companies.
“One of the things Jackie apparently nailed is that he realized that life would be difficult,” Roberts said. “He was strange and was included in this position to get up higher and knew it wasn’t just a baseball game. It’s bigger than him.”
Dodgers and Rockies joined Sonya Pankey Robinson, the oldest grandchild Jackie and Rachel Robinson and the only child of Jackie Jr., who was killed in a 1971 traffic accident at the age of 24. The granddaughter Ayo Robinson, whose father David Robinson, was also at hand.
“He was so progressive in many ways,” Pankey Robinson said about her grandfather. “When I think kindly, I just think about all his contributions to society and for us as a family. I feel the real responsibility for observing his values and taking this job very seriously.”
Robinson’s 102 -year -old widow marked the anniversary of the Jackie Museum Robinson in Brooklyn with Commissioner MLB Rob Manfred.
“He looks great and greets everyone,” Pankey Robinson said. “Not only did she instill in the values she knows that my grandfather would expect to follow, but she had her own values and our own expectations from us soon set goals for ourselves in life.”
Pankey Robinson lives near her grandmother in New York and says, “We keep it close and tight.”
Robinson was in the news last month when the Ministry of Defense’s website describing his military service was renewed after removal. The department removes content emphasizing the contributions of women and minority groups within the President Donald Trump administration directive to remove materials supporting diversity, justice and integration.
“Folding, but indiscriminate, because I think what he has done is improved in history and it is not a place where it would be anyone else,” Pankey Robinson said after the ceremony. “Its impact is great and we feel good that when it is disappointed, what mattered.”
Angels’ Washington learned of Robinson when he bought a book about it during a bus stop at Waterloo in Iowa on a small league road in 1972.
“It influenced me to find out what he had to go through, just to play baseball game,” Washington said, “and then look back and say,” Wow, I could do that during this period? “I want to think I could, but I don’t know if I could.”
New York Yankees Manager Aaron Boone called Robinson “one of the most important characters in American history”.
“It is obvious that it was part of the integration of our sport, but part of the further integration of America and other sports. It is so great as we need to do today, and everyone on ourselves 42, pointing out and just honor what an amazing heritage is.”
