Awesome Visitor Email – Jackie Robinson Promises

Hello All,

I received an awesome email from a loyal site visitor yesterday. I feel it fits into the current mood perfectly, so I wanted to post it right here for you all to see!

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, he pledged to
tens of thousands of listeners at Shea Stadium with Mrs. Robinson and
President Clinton standing right there 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.

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.

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