AN OPEN LETTER TO BUD SELIG

On opening day keep the promise to retire Jackie’s number

It is my understanding that as a supposed “tribute” to Jackie Robinson, Bud Selig is permitting the use of Jackie Robinson’s number by major league players. But on a memorable occasion in 1997 in front of Mrs. Robinson and President Clinton and tens of thousands at Shea Stadium, he pledged that no major league player would ever wear that number. That pledge is a greater and well deserved honor for Robinson. It is an honor bestowed on no other player. I believe that that honor should be reinstated now at the opening of the 2009 season.

Please read below and let major league baseball know what you think.

The year 1997 marked the 50th anniversary of that great moment when Robinson first walked out on a major league field. I was sitting in my club, George’s, the luncheonette across the street from my office on Cutter Mill Road in Great Neck, reading that on that very evening, during the game at Shea Stadium, the home of the Mets (a pale imitation of the Dodgers), the anniversary would be marked by President Bill Clinton, Mrs. Robinson and the President of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig. Robinson had retired in 1957 and had died in 1972. I tried to interest about half a dozen people into going to the game and ceremony but the notice was too short for them to change their plans.

I felt that I had to be there. It was a fulfillment of my theory that that there are times when one more warm-blooded person makes a difference. Just being there is important. Even though there may be no other role to play, adding one more person sends a message. Especially since the newspaper had predicted less than a sell out event.

I drove alone to Shea Stadium that evening, bought a good seat, and participated in history. It was night. The field was brilliantly lit. The stadium looked full to me. Police officers were stationed at every aisle between the steeply pitched seats, their backs to the field, scanning the crowd. Even with that protection, I thought it courageous for the president to walk out, only with Mrs. Robinson and Selig, to the pitcher’s mound, to speak to the assembled tens of thousands, his body more clearly delineated than it would have been even in bright sunlight.

What made history that night were not the words of Bill Clinton or Mrs. Robinson. They performed well and said what would have been expected. What came next was what was probably the most emotional moment in baseball history since Lou Gherig called himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth in his Yankee Stadium farewell to baseball and to life.

The president of the major leagues called the attention of the over 50,000 present to the left field wall at the end of the foul line extending from home plate to third base and beyond. There were listed the names of the outstanding Brooklyn Dodger ballplayers whose numbers were retired, the numbers they wore on their baseball uniforms would never again be worn by a Dodger. The likes of Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider and Roy Campanella and Sandy Koufax.

Then he asked that Jackie Robinson’s number be unveiled. In fact, Robinson’s number had been retired since 1972 so that his number, too, could not be worn by any Dodger. Then Selig intoned words that had never been spoken before. Number 42, Jackie Robinson’s number, he said, would never be worn again by any player on any team in the major leagues. That honor was never given to any ballplayer before nor has it been since Jackie Robinson was honored in that way on that night.

Let’s keep that pledge.