After Jackie: What Happened with Baseball and Black America?

ESPN Daily

ESPN

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4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2022

⏱️ ? minutes

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Summary

It’s been 75 years since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, becoming the first Black player to take the field in Major League Baseball in 1947. Jackie was a specific player chosen at a specific time, when baseball was highly aligned with Black popular culture. But what happened between baseball and Black America in the decades after Jackie’s pivotal act? Why didn’t baseball become a majority Black sport, like basketball and football? Why didn’t MLB follow the culture into hip hop or grow its Black fan base? Jesse Washington uses his own lapsed baseball fandom to explore these questions with guests like Public Enemy’s Chuck D, Jackie’s son David Robinson, and current players and executives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jesse Washington every April we see Major League Baseball celebrate Jackie Robinson Day.
0:07.7	So how would you describe what that day today commemorates?
0:15.2	So Jackie Robinson Day and the basic sense is the day that he ended racial segregation
0:22.0	in Major League Baseball.
0:23.3	It's the day that for the first time a black man played in what had been a totally white league.
0:33.9	But in the larger sense it's a huge moment in American history.
0:37.7	Some say it was the beginning of the civil rights movement and it set America on a course
0:43.1	toward what we hope is real equality.
0:46.9	And so how does an occasion like that get celebrated across baseball?
0:51.3	Yeah, it's really a wonderful thing.
0:54.7	Every player in the league on every team wears Jackie's number number 42.
1:04.3	And this year will be in Dodger blue on every jersey.
1:07.1	There are ceremonies at every game to honor Jackie Robinson and his family.
1:12.6	Back on the 50th anniversary Jackie Robinson's number 42 was retired not only for the dodgers
1:18.0	we played for but across the league.
1:20.0	Throughout its long history Major League Baseball has operated under the premise that no single
1:27.8	person is bigger than the game.
1:30.9	No single person other than Jackie Robinson.
1:35.3	No Major League Baseball player will wear 42 again except on this day.
1:40.2	It's really special.
1:41.6	In honor of Jackie Major League Baseball is taking the unprecedented step of retiring his
1:48.9	uniform number number 42 in perpetuity.
	...

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