42

Leave it to Don Imus to wreck something else this week.

By sending America's sports fans into a divisive frenzy over his comments, there hasn't been a lot of emotional room left to commemorate the achievement of Jackie Robinson.

Admit it, if you're a white sports fan, the last week probably affected how you view this anniversary. C'mon, you're all alone, no PC police to write you up. You have "African-American athlete" fatigue, right?

Because of that, you've kinda listened to the tributes about Robinson and skimmed the headlines. You know what you're thinking: "First black player on a MLB team... sixty years ago, broke the color barrier... blah blah blah, whatever..."

If that's what you believe, indulge me for a minute. Cuz there's so much more to this man.

Think about it.

1947.

Blacks had to use separate bathrooms. Separate water fountains. This isn't hyperole. They were breaking the law to drink from the same fountain. They couldn't go to restaurants, stay in hotels, go to movie theatres.

Just sixty years ago in our own country.


Black men were lynched for smiling at a white woman. Literally. They were called "nigger" as a matter of course by millions of white Americans. They were denied jobs in mainstream America... except as housekeepers and janitors.

There was no Barack Obama. No Jamie Fox. No Colin Powell or Neil deGrasse Tyson or Shaquille O'Neal or Toni Morrison, John Harold Johnson, John Legend, Oprah Winfrey. (Well, at least none white America had heard of.)

When Jackie Robinson walked on to Ebbet's Field on April 15, 1947, that was the world he lived in. No black player had walked before him in MLB history.

Think about that.

It would be hard enough to be in "the show," but imagine tens of thousands of spectators looking at you, at best, like a curiousity, at worst like a scourge on the Earth.

Larry Schwartz of ESPN wrote a great piece that encapsulates the achievements of Robinson and puts them in the context of the time he lived. Read it all but here's one section:

Few people -- and no athlete -- this century have impacted more lives.

And he accomplished this feat by going against his natural instincts. He was an aggressive man, outraged at injustice, and quick to stand up for his rights. He had the guts to say no when ordered to the back of the bus in the army, and was court-martialed for his courage. His instinct wasn't to turn the other cheek, but to face problems head on. He was more prone to fighting back than holding back.

That's what Robinson had to do when Dodgers president Branch Rickey selected him to become the first African-American to play in the majors this century. Rickey wanted a man who could restrain himself from responding to the ugliness of the racial hatred that was certain to come.

A shorthand version of their fateful conversation in August 1945:

Rickey: "I know you're a good ballplayer. What I don't know is whether you have the guts."

Robinson: "Mr. Rickey, are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?"

Rickey, exploding: "Robinson, I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back."

This unwritten pact between two men would change the course of a country. Baseball might only be a game, but in the area of black and white, it often is a leader. Robinson's debut for the Dodgers in 1947 came a year before President Harry Truman desegregated the military and seven years before the Supreme Court ruled desegregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

Rickey was dead-on about the racism. As Sports Illustrated's Bill Nack wrote: "Robinson was the target of racial epithets and flying cleats, of hate letters and death threats, of pitchers throwing at his head and legs, and catchers spitting on his shoes."

Robinson learned how to exercise self-control -- to answer insults, violence and injustice with silence. A model of unselfish team play, he earned the respect of his teammates and, eventually, the opposition.

The 6-foot, 195-pound Robinson was the Rookie of the Year and two years later he was MVP. His lifetime average was .311 and he was voted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

Pigeon-toed and muscular, it was No. 42's aggressiveness on the basepaths that thrilled fans. It wasn't so much his two stolen-base titles or his 197 thefts. It was the way he was a disruptive force, dancing off the base, drawing every eye in the stadium, making the pitcher crazy, instilling the Dodgers with the spirit that would help them win six pennants in his 10 seasons.

"Robinson could hit and bunt and steal and run," Roger Kahn wrote in The Boys of Summer. "He had intimidation skills, and he burned with a dark fire. He wanted passionately to win. He bore the burden of a pioneer and the weight made him stronger. If one can be certain of anything in baseball, it is that we shall not look upon his like again."

So when you see 42 today worn by all these players, take it in.

Process it.

There are so many counterfeit celebrations and awards given to the undeserving, that it's hard to not to discount the importance of another "special day."

Don't discount this one. It's huge.