Jackie Robinson Day

75 years ago today, baseball finally and truly became America's game. Jackie Robinson made his regular season debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers, shattering the precedent that kept Black players out of the major leagues. A great day for baseball, a greater day for this country.

New York's pride in that moment is reflected in the entrance to Citi Field. The Jackie Robinson Rotunda displays a series of tributes to the man, his determination and his accomplishments -- because by proving the haters to be wrong, he allowed baseball to be right by opening up its fields to all.

Robinson not only joined a rising team that would go onto win six pennants over the next decade, he changed the game. He helped re-introduce the stolen base into baseball strategy. There's so much film of him dancing off a base, intimidating the other team, helping his Dodgers play better and smarter. 

Today, across the major leagues, every player on every team wears the number 42 to honor the man, his lessons and his legacy.

Tomorrow, 42 returns to its symbolic status -- retired across the game to honor Jackie Robinson's accomplishments -- and his singular place in history. Let's not overlook his excellence as a scholar-athlete in high school and college. Before he integrated the major leagues, he excelled in four sports at UCLA. To this day, he is the only Bruin to letter in four different sports. 

What of that game when Jackie made his Dodger debut? In 1947, April 15th fell on a Tuesday; the Boston Braves visited Ebbets Field. Robinson hit second, reaching base on a 7th inning error. Moments later, he scored the go-ahead run on Pete Reiser's double. The Dodgers won it 5-3.

And baseball had righted its greatest wrong.

Along with Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson remains one of the two most important baseball players of all time. A man whose legacy only becomes more impressive through the lens of time: as a sports figure, as an activist, as an American hero.