75 years after making history, Jackie Robinson remembered

The baseball dignitaries took their turns at the podium outside in Times Square, from commissioner Rob Manfred to Mariano Rivera, and many others in between. They delivered their tributes over the traffic, sirens and construction noise filling the air, the sounds of the city. 

Later, some of those dignitaries pulled a lever for a lighting ceremony at the Empire State Building.

Then came the temporary placement at 42nd and Broadway of a Cooperstown-bound street sign that had been unveiled at the first gathering, making it 42nd and “Jackie Robinson Way” on Jackie Robinson Day. 

Major League Baseball hosted several events in Manhattan Friday to celebrate the 75th anniversary of when Robinson began making noise in the city, manning first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. It was April 15, 1947, the day a Black player finally burst past the color barrier.

Seventy-five years later, there’s still an appreciation for No. 42 after he withstood racial abuse and paved a path in baseball and society.

“I wouldn’t have had a chance to live out my dream and play Major League Baseball,” former Yankees lefthander CC Sabathia said out on the 86th floor observatory deck at the Empire State Building, which was lit in blue and white Friday night with a rotating 42. “I probably wouldn’t have played baseball at all without him.”

Sabathia told Newsday that April 15 should be made a national holiday.

“I think it’s an important day in American history for everybody, Black and white,” he said.

Players, managers and coaches have worn 42 on this day in tribute to the late Hall of Famer dating to 2009. Butch Huskey used to wear it every day.

He was a high school kid in Oklahoma when he did a book report on Robinson. So it became important to Huskey to wear 42, too. The infielder/outfielder wore it with the Mets from 1995-98. He was one of the players grandfathered to continue wearing it after the number was retired by MLB in 1997.  

“To be able to wear the number when I turned professional, it was just a tremendous honor, just a small part that I could pay back to Jackie and his family for what he went through breaking into Major League Baseball,” said Huskey, who, like Sabathia, participated in the Times Square and Empire State Building events. 

So did Joe Torre. He grew up a New York Giants fan in Brooklyn. The 81-year-old former Yankees manager and Mets player and manager saw Robinson play, mainly at Ebbets Field.

“He was fierce on the bases,” Torre said. “He dared for you to throw him out. He didn’t have blinding speed, but he ran hard all the time.”

The historical marker at Robinson’s birthplace on County Route 154 in Cairo, Georgia, was vandalized last year — by gunshots. 

MLB provided $15,000 to replace it and create a duplicate at the Cairo library, and gave a $25,000 endowment for care of the markers.

“I think whether it’s George Floyd’s memorial or any way that you disrespect people’s accomplishments, it really just shows where people need to grow and develop their own minds and openness to others,” Sonya Pankey, Robinson’s oldest grandchild, told Newsday at Times Square after speaking. “But that’s what we have to do as a society.”

Pankey said it means a lot to the family that her grandfather and his legacy are remembered by baseball, especially at this time in history.

“I think he’d be very proud that we are being bolder,” she said, “but also know that they we have work ahead.”