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Jackie Robinson’s birthday, a 75th anniversary celebration & a vandalized plaque

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts interviewed David Robinson on Monday at Dodger Stadium

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Colorado Rockies v Los Angeles Dodgers Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

Monday was the 103rd anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s birth, and with it brought a celebration at Dodger Stadium involving the Jackie Robinson Foundation and manager Dave Roberts at Dodger Stadium.

Speaking to a group of baseball and softball players from John Muir High School, Robinson’s alma mater — Roberts said he took great pride in being the first manager of color in franchise history.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined me managing the Los Angeles Dodgers,” Roberts said.

Roberts also conducted an interview with David Robinson, Jackie’s son, about building on his father’s legacy, with the upcoming 75th anniversary of Jackie’s major league debut. David Robinson stressed the importance of committing to service, and that Robinson’s life was about much more than just April 15, 1947.

“The glitter and glamour of that one moment should never blind us from the realities of how we got to that moment, the suffering and the sacrifices and the work that was carried on to get us to that moment, and what still has to come,” Robinson said Monday.

The Dodgers are scheduled to host the Reds on April 15 at Dodger Stadium.

Also in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of Robinson’s major league debut, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City plans to house a plaque that was once on display outside of his birthplace in Cairo, Georgia.

The plaque was shot at recently in Georgia, and ultimately replaced, with the help of a donation from Major League Baseball.

“There’s something about using gunfire on historical markers telling stories about Black people that leads you to believe that it wasn’t simply just a coincidence,” Georgia Historical Society president W. Todd Groce told James Wagner of the New York Times.

Now headed to Kansas City, the vandalized plaque will be on display at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, “where it can serve as a reminder that the ugliness of America’s past persists to this day,” said the museum’s manager of digital strategy and community engagement Kiona Sinks.

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