The legacy of Jackie Robinson and his footprint on baseball and society still resonates today, according to Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston.
Throughout Major League Baseball, Thursday was Jackie Robinson Day to commemorate the day (April 15) that Robinson broke the colour barrier in baseball by playing his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in 1947.
“I think it’s very important (that the tradition continues),” Gaston said before Thursday’s game against the White Sox. “Without Mr. Robinson I wouldn’t be sitting here, President Obama would not be the president of the United States, because if you really go back and look at it, Mr. Robinson certainly started all this before even Martin Luther King.
“He went through a lot to make it better for myself and minorities. I think this celebration should go on until there’s no more world here, no more baseball, because this is the guy that got it rolling for everybody.
“So today is a special day for me and his family so we really appreciate Mr. Robinson for what he went through (the bigotry, the name calling, the death threats) to get us to where we are today.”
In the five years he spent in the minor leagues prior to moving up to the Atlanta Braves in 1967, Gaston felt some of the sting of bigotry and racism that Robinson confronted every day.
“The only thing I can tell you what it did to me playing in the minor leagues in certain cities is it gave me an idea of what he went through because I was treated that way some times,” Gaston said. “There were certain cities where we weren’t allowed to stay downtown, we stayed out in the country. We weren’t allowed to go into certain places to eat. I’ve been through some of that so I can only imagine what he had to go through all those years, both on the field and off the field.”
The oddity of today’s game is that the number of African-Americans taking up the game is dwindling, that for decades, football and basketball have replaced baseball in participation and popularity.
“I think baseball is trying to get the African-American player back into baseball and I think we should,” Gaston said.
“I think they’re reaching out and trying to do that and I don’t think it’s ever going to be lost. I think it’s turning around a little bit.”
mike.rutsey@sunmedia.ca
