Jackie Robinson Day

As I sit here and write this it is a day that a lot of people in America think of as tax-day; but us baseball fans? we know it as Jackie Robinson Day! The Day everyone wears 42 in honor of Jackie. A day that baseball fans everywhere celebrate the start of integration in baseball. A day that changed the course of history for the better. MLB will be celebrating all day and night.

You will probably be reading this many days after the festivities, but hopefully this will recall to your mind the importance of the celebration of Jackie Robinson Day. Hopefully I can give you a few new tidbits, as I celebrate this man and what his courage a poise meant and means for baseball to this day.

While most baseball fans know Jackie played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, not everyone is familiar with what an elite athlete he truly was. In his 10-year career in MLB, Jackie earned the Rookie of the Year award, he was the National League MVP, the National League batting champion, a World Series champion, a six-time All-Star and twice led the league in stolen bases. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY, in 1962.

Did you know he has a FOOTBALL statue at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena? Or that he was a 4-sport athlete at UCLA? I thought it might be cool in honor of Jackie to recount some of his college career at UCLA.

Jackie was born in Georgia, but his family relocated to sunny Pasadena when he was a child. He enrolled at UCLA in 1939 and was a 4-sport letterman: Baseball, Football, Track, and basketball. Out of the gate, baseball was not going well at UCLA, and in fact football might have been his best sport at UCLA. He led the nation in punt return average in 1939 and 1940, and also in 1940, Jackie led the Bruins in passing yards (444), rushing yards (383) and in scoring (36 points).

In basketball, Jackie earned West Coast Conference MVP. In one game, on Feb. 12, 1940, he torched Stanford for 25 points. He averaged 12.4 points per-game in 1940 and 11.1 points per-game in 1941.

Jackie still remains the only UCLA athlete to ever letter in four sports. He won the Pacific Coast Conference and NCAA titles in long jump with jumps of 25-0 and 24-10 in 1940. He almost certainly would have been in the Olympics had they not been cancelled in 1940 and 1944 as a result of World War II.

Thank goodness for all of us baseball fans and especially us Dodger fans that he chose to focus on baseball!

Speaking of everyone wearing 42 on this momentous day, why did Jackie choose that number to begin with? I wish I could tell you there is some great meaning behind it, but according to historians, there is not any concrete evidence to suggest anything other than, he was assigned that number when he was called up to the Dodgers. He wore 28 in football at UCLA, 18 in basketball, and several numbers in his career before being called up to the Dodgers, 5,8,23,10.

Numbers can be significant to people and most players today have a very personal reason they wear a certain number. Number 11 is my favorite number because of my favorite college wide receiver when I was a kid in 1984 – Mark Bellini, BYU. Seems a little silly, but he was my hero, and I’ve always loved number 11.

Most people have a favorite number, I guess that’s why it seems weird that the most important jersey number in baseball, one that is retired across the league, was a mere afterthought. Today, that number represents everything good about baseball and about people.

When I lived in southern California, my daughter and I would be sure to go to the game at Dodger stadium. Since I moved away it has been harder to get there, but I have a couple of times. (I shared a story from the 2022 Jackie night at Dodger stadium in a previous article). While I won’t be there in person this year, I will be in spirit.

I hope all of you who watched on Jackie Robinson day and saw everyone wearing 42, it reminded you of the significance of this day in history. May we all act with the class and courage that Jackie displayed throughout his life.

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” ~Jackie Roosevelt Robinson

By Scott Carter