ST. LOUIS -- For the eighth straight year, all uniformed personnel will don No. 42 on Friday as part of a Major League Baseball-wide remembrance of the day Jackie Robinson broke the game's color barrier. For some players like Aledmys Diaz, it'll be the first such opportunity to wear the number of a Hall of Fame player who had a unique connection to his home country.
Diaz, a Cuban native, grew up hearing stories not only about how Robinson desegregated baseball, but also of the time that Robinson spent in Cuba. The spring before he debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson spent 47 days in Havana, where the Dodgers were holding Spring Training.