Jackie Robinson Day today: JR, # 42, was not the first black major league baseball player.

Today April 15th is when we celebrate "Jackie Robinson Day" for his breaking of the color barrier in major league baseball. Altho his jersey number, 42, has been officially retired by MLB all players will wear #42 today. What most people do not know tho is that Jackie Robinson is not the first black (negro) player to play in the majors. He was the first to play MLB in the modern era when there was desegretation between the major leagues and the negro leagues. However, there were several that preceded Jackie Roosevelt Robinson. On June 21, 1879 William Edward White played first base for the Providence Grays. He was a student at Brown and played first base. His father was white and his mother was classified as a mulatto (mixed race; negro and white) at the time. Technically then he was more white than black. The first all or mostly black player was Moses Fleetwood ("Fleet") Walker who was a former Univ of Michigan baseball player who in 1884 played a season as catcher for the Toledo Blue Stockings (American Association)...making his major league debut on May 1st of that year. He suffered a season ending injury in July and the team later folded...he returned to play in the minor leagues until the color barrier was formerly established a few years later.

Yep, incredible how Robinson gets all this love. Dude wasn't even that good.

On a side note, retiring jersey numbers is stupid. Yes, stupid. It accomplishes nothing except limiting the amount of numbers a team can wear.

reply to post by DaTroof

I watched the original movie, The Jackie Robinson Story last night (in black and white and where he played himself in the movie) and he seemed like a nice guy.

Originally posted by DaTroof
Yep, incredible how Robinson gets all this love. Dude wasn't even that good.

On a side note, retiring jersey numbers is stupid. Yes, stupid. It accomplishes nothing except limiting the amount of numbers a team can wear.

I dunno...6 consecutive All Star game appearances, one NL MVP award, lifetime .311 hitter.

Not bad for an 11 year career.

As far as retiring numbers, there are plenty available 0 thru 99 and 00...retiring a number won't really impact the availability that much.

reply to post by bg_socalif

He is in the Hall of Fame....sure there were better players in the Negro Leagues who (based on merit alone) deserved a shot first (ie slugger Josh Gibson and picher Satchel Paige; altho Paige did get called up later when he was over 40 years old)....but Branch Ritchey (owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers) had criteria based on the whole man and his character and how well he could handle the verbal abuse, etc.