Happy Jackie Robinson Day

Tonight, the St. Louis Cardinals will join all of Major League Baseball in paying homage to the man who broke the game's color barrier. Players will all wear the number 42 Jackie Robinson wore with the Brooklyn Dodgers when he came up in 1947. (Cardinals fans know Hall of Fame pitcher Bruce Sutter also wore the number during his playing days.)

My hometown of Rochester, NY saw Robinson play before he made it to the big leagues. The city was home to the Cardinals' longtime AAA affiliate in the International League, and is where legends like Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst and Bob Gibson honed their talents before coming to St. Louis. Robinson played for the Dodgers affiliate in Montreal that season.

The attention paid to the Robinson story, now in light of 42, the movie depicting what it was like coming to the majors and breaking that barrier, has also resulted in attention paid to one of Robinson's Dodger teammates, pitcher Don Newcombe. (Check out an interview Bob Costas did with Newcombe, Harrison Ford and Chadwick Boseman, which I've attached with this story).

Newcombe came up to the Dodgers in 1949 and won the Rookie of the Year award. He'd later win the Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards--he was the first to claim all three trophies in a career and the only one to have done so until Detroit's Justin Verlander did so a few years back.

Newcombe finished with a 149-90 record in a 10 year MLB career that one could argue started late because of the color barrier, and was interrupted by military service. 

One of my first experiences with opinion writing came as a teenager in a letter writing campaign that tried to get him elected to the Hall of Fame through the Veteran's Commitee. I don't think that will happen, although put into context, including his work after baseball to clean up a life hit by alcoholism and what he's done to help players who have come after, I think he deserves more consideration.

If you're looking for a St. Louis connection to the Robinson story, you don't have to go too far down Warson Road outside Creve Coeur. I strongly recommend you check out Frank Cusumano story featuring rare photos of Robinson, Newcombe and others found by the granddaughter of the former Dodgers GM Branch Rickey.