April 15 is “Jackie Robinson Day,” marking the anniversary of his debut in 1947. In honor of the occasion, every player wears his number, 42, causing no little bit of confusion for broadcasters, especially when you consider how defensive shifts move infielders out of their normal positions.
Robinson’s number is the only one retired from every single team. Mariano Rivera of the Yankees was the last player to wear 42, having been grandfathered in since it was his number before the decision was made by MLB.
Even though it’s not Throwback Thursday, I guess this previous Bookshelf entry highlighting books about Robinson qualifies for Flashback Friday.
I recommend, with some reservations, the new Ken Burns two-part documentary on Robinson which premiered on PBS earlier this week. The reason for my hesitation is two-fold. There’s no question that it beautifully produced, like all of Burns’ productions. But it’s just another same-old, same-old: evocative music, voice-over narratives, talking heads, archival footage that only tangentially has to do with the subject matter used because it looks nice. There has also been some discussion about the accuracy of some of the narrative and the “re-use” of material from Burns’ multi-episode Baseball, original aired in 1995. In other words, how much of this material is new?
Don’t get me wrong: Robinson is one of those figures who needs to be kept in the public consciousness. Goodness knows there are a lot of younger people who can’t fathom how important he was to American history. (Even older ones; remember Vince Coleman? Sadly, he wasn’t the only ballplayer who didn’t get it.) I guess when you take something like that into consideration, Burns’ project — coming almost a generation after his previous baseball work — is probably better/more important than I’ve been blathering about.
is available on Amazon.com,
Comments on this entry are closed.