Today is 'Jackie Robinson Day' across Major League Baseball, honoring the man who broke the MLB color barrier 75 years ago when Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the Boston Braves.
Today, all Major League players wear Robinson's number 42.
In honor of the race barrier broken in 1947, the Texas Rangers have asked another race pioneer to throw out the first pitch at tonight's game at Globe Life Field.
"From Robinson’s birthplace in Cairo, Ga., to New York City, where he changed the game and the country, to Los Angeles, where he grew up and where his Dodgers reside, Robinson’s importance to sport and society will be celebrated Friday with the most ambitious Jackie Robinson Day yet," the MLB announced in a press release.
The "Grandmother of Juneteenth" Opal Lee will be accompanied to the mound by two of the Rangers' greatest African-American players of the past, Fergie Jenkins and Al Oliver.
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The MLB announced this year’s celebration 'marks not just the 75th anniversary of Jackie’s debut but also the 25th anniversary of then-Commissioner Bud Selig’s announcement that Robinson’s No. 42 would be retired across MLB. Ten years after that landmark 1997 decision, Griffey requested and received permission to wear No. 42 on Jackie Robinson Day, and a few other players took part. And in 2009, the practice of every player, coach and manager wearing No. 42 on April 15 became a new tradition.'