A lot of us kids in the inner city, especially in like Seattle and places where baseball is

a play a lot, we thought, oh man, baseball is a white boy sport, man.

Not only white people play baseball and whatever, but my mom said, baby, that's, that's so

not true.

She said, we used to dress up on Sundays and our parents would take us to the Negro League

games and all man, the stands would be packed and it would be raucous and rowdy and everybody

was cheering and whatever the case is.

What happened, of course, was that as the Negro League faded and Jackie Robinson crossed

over and you know, the problem was we never had that smooth transition where African Americans

just boom, we're integrated into the league and it was a sport that we felt included and

invited to be a part of.

So Ken, he was really the bridge between the African American community and baseball

because before that man, I mean, to be honest with you, before Ken, me and then probably

90% of dudes that I ran with, we just weren't, weren't in a baseball like that, man.

Ken Griffey, Jr., and Jackie Robinson played baseball over 30 years apart, but they get

brought up in the context of each other quite a bit and for good reason, both were baseball

celebrities that brought black fans to the MLB, both were exceptional athletes, both had

strong family values and they both ushered in a new era of superstardom in baseball.

Jackie Robinson is up in the dodge of 5th just one away and he belts one high off the right

field screen for a double.

Jackie was the MLB's first black superstar and he's probably one of the most widely known

baseball names outside of baseball to this day.

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