{"id":606226,"date":"2026-04-15T18:15:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/606226\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T18:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:15:14","slug":"mlb-celebrates-jackie-robinson-day-on-anniversary-of-historic-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/606226\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB celebrates Jackie Robinson Day on anniversary of historic debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Major League Baseball will honor Jackie Robinson<\/a> on Wednesday, when every player, coach and umpire will wear his No. 42 to mark the 79th anniversary of the infielder breaking the sport’s<\/a> color barrier.<\/p>\n

Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. He went on to win Rookie of the Year honors, become a six-time All-Star and the 1949 National League MVP. He played in six World Series, and won his only championship in 1955 with the Dodgers.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> and New York Mets<\/a> will hold a joint reflection ceremony later Wednesday at the centerfield statue of Robinson at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cA special day, especially for me as a Latino. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t because of him,\u201d Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. \u201cTalk about dealing with pressure at this level, imagine what he dealt with back in the day.” <\/p>\n

Two of Robinson’s granddaughters will join the teams at Dodger Stadium, not far from Robinson’s adopted hometown of Pasadena. He was a four-sport star at Pasadena Junior College before going on to UCLA, where the Georgia native was better known for football than baseball.<\/p>\n

Also on hand in Los Angeles will be recipients of scholarships from the Jackie Robinson Foundation.<\/p>\n

For the first time in at least two decades, the percentage of Black players on opening day rosters increased this season<\/a>. Major League Baseball says 6.8% of players on opening day rosters, injured lists and the restricted list were Black, up from 6.2% at the start of the 2025 season and 6.0% at the start of 2024.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Major League Baseball will honor Jackie Robinson on Wednesday, when every player, coach and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-606226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}