On or around every April 15 I go to a baseball game to watch the league honor Jackie Robinson. It is never quite the same experience, but it has also never been enough. This year Jackie Robinson Day is being celebrated today, August 28, the 75th anniversary of the day Robinson first met with Branch Rickey to discuss the possibility of integrating Major League Baseball. By some mix of luck, fate, circumstance, planning and destiny today is also the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington and both events are occurring amidst historic protests condemning police violence and brutality against Black people — protests that earlier this week spilled into baseball after the Milwaukee Bucks and Brewers decided they would not play Wednesday night.
MLB is having its annual Jackie Robinson Day amid historic protests
