April 15, 1947 was Opening Day for Major League Baseball, with eight games played to kick off the new season. However, all eyes were on one specific game in Brooklyn, New York, as the Brooklyn Dodgers hosted the Boston Braves. The game itself, a 5-3 Dodgers win, was not the biggest talking point. It was the debut of a player on the Dodgers that made headlines as it was possibly the most significant professional sports debut of all time.
When Jackie Robinson stepped foot on Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, he was making history as the first African-American to play in the MLB. April 15 may not be the most memorable date on the calendar, but it is one that deserves more recognition. Before the Montgomery bus boycotts or the march on Washington, Robinson’s debut was the biggest moment in civil rights. This Saturday will mark the 70th anniversary of Robinson’s debut and all 30 MLB teams will honor his massive contributions to professional sports and the civil rights movement by wearing his number, 42, on their jerseys.
Robinson’s impact has been acknowledged, respected and celebrated over the years, as it opened the door for more athletes of color and ethnic backgrounds to pursue their dreams of superstardom in sports. In the game of baseball, the sport has since been well represented by players from places such as the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Netherlands, Venezuela, Mexico, Japan and Colombia. As a result of baseball becoming such an international sport, the World Baseball Classic was founded in 2005, a tournament in which 16 teams representing 16 different countries participate. This would not have been possible without a person like Robinson.
However, during the fourth installment of the Classic in March, Ian Kinsler, the second baseman for team USA, made some controversial remarks regarding the excessive celebration from his counterparts on teams such as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
“I hope kids watching the W.B.C. can watch the way [team USA players] play the game and appreciate the way we play the game as opposed to the way Puerto Rico plays or the Dominican plays,” Kinsler said. “That’s not taking anything away from them. That just wasn’t the way we were raised. They were raised differently and to show emotion and passion when you play. We do show emotion; we do show passion. We just do it in a different way.”
While Kinsler would clear up these comments, they are still significantly ignorant. To his credit, Kinsler is correct, players from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other Latin nations were indeed raised differently. They were raised without the same privileges as Kinsler. Most grew up in poverty, using milk cartons as gloves, sticks as bats and rocks as baseballs. For most, there were no travel teams on baseball fields, there were simply groups of friends playing in a street. So when José Bautista decides to flip his bat after hitting a mammoth home run or Javier Baez celebrates while tagging out a runner at second base, it is because they were unapologetically raised different and the game of baseball means something more to them. In America, baseball is simply a sport. In places like Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, baseball is a pastime, a culture; more than a sport but less than a religion.
So as we reflect on Robinson’s impact on the game of baseball and his nation, remember that were it not for being raised differently, the landscape of professional sports and America as a whole could have looked drastically different.
