MLB players wear No. 42 Tuesday to honor Jackie Robinson

On Tuesday, Major League Baseball will celebrate Jackie Robinson Day to honor the date — April 15, 1947 — when Robinson first took the field for the then-Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the color barrier in baseball.

While MLB players will wear No. 42 in Robinson's honor — his number was retired throughout the Majors in 1997 — few know that Robinson's ties to Brooklyn remain to this day, despite the fact the Dodgers left for Los Angeles following the 1957 baseball season.

That's because Jack Roosevelt Robinson is buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery, right off Jamaica Avenue and the Jackie Robinson Parkway — originally the Interboro, renamed in his honor, also in 1997.

"It really is incredible, important, to have him here," Cypress Hills Cemetery vice president Anthony Desmond said Monday, noting that Robinson is among a host of notable historic figures buried at Cypress Hills — and, featured on the cemetery's notables map.

Desmond said baseball fans still make their way to Cypress Hills to pay their respects to Jackie Robinson, leaving baseball bats and baseballs at his gravesite. The epitaph on Robinson's gravestone reads: "A Life is Not Important Except in the Impact it has on Other Lives."

The cemetery is open to the public daily from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and a map showing notable grave locations is available at the office.

"I think it is important because he made such a profound impact and changed the whole landscape of sports," Desmond said.

The MLB has celebrated a leaguewide Jackie Robinson Day since 2004 and has asked all on-field personnel to wear his No. 42 for those games since 2009. Tuesday's tributes to the trailblazing ballplayer will include a video played at all MLB stadiums. All players, managers, coaches and umpires will wear caps with the "42" insignia.

Volunteerism, youth empowerment and education are also on the MLB's list of events in Robinson's honor Tuesday, according to its website. The Jackie Robinson Museum in Manhattan will host an event for youngsters involved in the league's Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities program and their parents to "learn about Robinson’s legacy in fun ways" with museum and MLB staff.

Robinson was at the center of an ongoing national controversy earlier this year when a Trump administration directive to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] references saw the Department of Defense briefly eliminate postings on its website that highlighted Robinson's military service during World War II.

In March, when the defense department first took down online postings and articles related to what the Trump administration equated with DEI initiatives — only to backtrack on articles related to Robinson, the Tuskegee Airmen, Navajo Code Talkers and former U.S. Marine Ira Hayes [one of the Iwo Jima flag raisers]— it sent out a news release:

"Everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson, as well as the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee airmen, the Marines at Iwo Jima and so many others — we salute them for their strong and in many cases heroic service to our country, full stop. We do not view or highlight them through the prism of immutable characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, or sex. We do so only by recognizing their patriotism and dedication to the warfighting mission like ever other American who has worn the uniform. In the rare cases that content is removed — either deliberately or by mistake — that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period."

Born to sharecroppers in Cairo, Georgia, on Jan. 31, 1919, Robinson moved with his family to California when he was an infant. He attended and became a multisport star at Pasadena Junior College and then UCLA before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army's 761st "Black Panthers" Tank Battalion. But his military career was sidetracked by trumped-up insubordination charges. Robinson was later acquitted by an all-white panel of officers.

Following his military service, Robinson, whose middle name honored President Theodore Roosevelt, played one season for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues, then played in the minor leagues with the Montreal Royals before joining the Dodgers.

After his debut at age 28, Robinson played 10 seasons with Brooklyn, batting .311 with 1,518 hits, 273 doubles, 137 home runs and 197 stolen bases — including stealing home in the 1955 World Series against the Yankees; the lone World Series the Dodgers won while in Brooklyn. Rookie of the Year in 1947, Robinson was the National League MVP in 1949 as a 30-year-old.

Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, Robinson died in 1972. He was 53.

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”