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

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.

Links

• After last week’s Hall of Fame election of David Ortiz, Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs took a stab at predicting the next five Cooperstown classes. Jaffe sees a pair of former Dodgers getting in during that time — Adrián Beltré on the first ballot in 2024, and Andruw Jones completing a steady climb toward election in 2026, his ninth year eligible.
• Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic broke down just how far apart players and owners are on core economic issues, and that a new collective bargaining agreement isn’t particularly close. Of note in the article, regarding franchise values: “Since 2002, all four of the major U.S. sports leagues have performed better than the S&P 500 companies on the stock market, according to Pitchbook. The return on MLB franchises was 669 percent, above the NFL’s 558 percent and exceeded only by the NBA’s 1,057 percent.”
• With the MLB lockout still ongoing, Jesse Rogers at ESPN looked at upcoming dates that could prove to be worry spots to possibly delay various points — reporting dates, spring training games, and the regular season.