7 On Retiring 42

David Naze

In 1997, fifty years after Jackie Robinson radically transformed the landscape of baseball, and America, through racial integration, Major League Baseball retired his jersey number—42. There’s a strong likelihood that anyone reading this chapter can conjure the iconic image of that beautiful Dodger blue filling in the 4 and 2 on the back of Robinson’s jersey. We’ve seen it on baseball stadium walls, stadium banners, and commemorative jersey patches, among many other places. The retirement of Robinson’s number has certainly given fans something significant to remember and revere. But it’s important to keep in mind that this ceremonial gesture, no matter how significant, can never capture his legacy.

The retirement of a player’s number is certainly nothing new to sports. In some organizations, like the Boston Celtics and the New York Yankees, it has become practically commonplace. Several reasons have fueled this increasingly popular practice: to commemorate an individual’s impact on an organization; to highlight a player’s athletic accomplishments and longevity; to thank the player for his or her commitment to and excellence within the organization; and to cement the number in organizational history to the point that no other player will wear it again.

In Robinson’s case, 1997 marked a first: his was the first number retired across an entire sport. At the 1997 commemorative ceremony, acting Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said, “In honor of Jackie, Major League Baseball is taking the unprecedented step of retiring his uniform number in perpetuity. Number 42, from this day forward, will never again be issued by a major league club. Number 42 belongs to Jackie Robinson for the ages.”1 The players who were wearing number 42 at that time included Mo Vaughn of the Boston Red Sox, Butch Huskey of the New York Mets, Tom Goodwin of the Kansas City Royals, Buddy Groom of the Oakland Athletics, and Marc Sagmoen of the Texas Rangers. Each was allowed to wear the number for the remainder of his career.

Perhaps the most famous 42 that fell under this grandfather clause was the one worn by Hall of Fame New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera. In January 2019, Rivera became the first player unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame. Reflecting on the moment, he said, “One thing I will always remember is wearing No. 42 and representing Mr. Jackie Robinson. He, I assume, was the first No. 42 elected, and me being the last player to wear No. 42 and being elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously is amazing.” While Dayn Perry of CBS Sports did not see an exact equality between the two men, he appreciated the star pitcher’s continuation of Robinson’s legacy. “Rivera, though, will be just behind Robinson when it comes to those most associated with this canonized uniform number,” Perry wrote. “Given Rivera’s generous spirit and his sterling reputation on and off the field, he again makes a fitting capstone for the proud history of No. 42.”2

What was the impetus behind the retirement of Robinson’s number in 1997? Obviously, something significant was going to be planned for the fiftieth anniversary of Robinson’s debut, but the decision to retire his number across all Major League Baseball teams was not as obvious. As Jayson Stark of ESPN recounts about those involved in the decision, “They were there to do something that had never been done before: retire a number, Jackie Robinson’s 42, across an entire sport. And to do their part to ensure that the power of Robinson’s major league debut, 50 years earlier to the day, would keep resonating through history.”3

In 2017 Stark recorded an oral history of the minds behind the retirement proposal, including Len Coleman, then the National League president, later the chairman of the Jackie Robinson Foundation for eighteen years; Bud Selig, then the acting commissioner of Major League Baseball; Sharon Robinson, Jackie’s daughter, now MLB’s educational consultant; and Claire Smith, who covered the ceremony for the New York Times.

In his comments, Coleman recalled the origin of the decision:

I actually got put in charge of orchestrating the festivities for the 15th, and I was struggling in thinking about what we were going to do to capture the moment . . . that would be totally distinctive, that would separate Jackie from every other ballplayer and capture the significance of his accomplishment. I was driving on the Garden State Parkway, and it was like a lightning bolt hit: “Retire his number from the whole game.” I thought about it as I was driving, and I said, “That’s it. I’m going to go to Bud and say: ‘Let’s retire the number.’”

According to Selig, he found Coleman’s idea compelling:

You know, there’s always pressure on [retiring] numbers. And you’ve got to be so careful, and I really mean that. But this one, to me, there was just no question about it. This Jackie Robinson thing was really special, and so it just appealed to me greatly. . . . In the [college] course I teach—which is “Baseball in American History, 1945 to the Present”—I start with Jackie Robinson. He’s my first lecture every September. I really believe [his first game] was the most powerful and important moment in baseball history.

Sharon Robinson remembered that she and Rachel had initial questions and slight reservations about the proposal:

Len called us first and gave us the heads-up that this was going to happen, just a few days in advance. And my mom and I were like, “Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing?” What about Mo Vaughn? What about all the players that we knew at the time were wearing No. 42? Some of them were wearing it to honor my dad. . . . So when they walked out on that field, I remember sort of holding my breath, because we had anxiety over how the retirement of the No. 42 would be received. We weren’t sure how the fans were going to take it. But when Bud announced it, they jumped out of their seats. We just couldn’t believe it. The fans jumped out of their seats and stood up and cheered. So we knew it was the right decision.4

The historic decision to retire Robinson’s jersey followed a number of earlier commemorations. The first occurred on June 4, 1972, when Robinson was invited to Dodger Stadium to celebrate the quarter century that had passed since his rookie year in 1947. This particular ceremony was designed to provide Robinson with the ultimate organizational legacy: the retirement of his number across the entire Dodger organization. The Jackie Robinson spectators saw that day was a physically altered version of the one they were used to. He was suffering from a number of ailments, including diabetes, blindness, a limp, and high blood pressure. Former teammates Sandy Koufax and Roy Campanella also had their numbers retired that same day.

On October 15, 1972, Major League Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn invited Robinson to make an appearance in a ceremony prior to game 2 of the World Series. At one point, Robinson had protested baseball’s poor record on minority hiring, particularly for managerial and front-office positions. Despite this, he agreed to attend the televised event. But after he threw out the ceremonial first pitch, he stepped to the microphone and said, “I am extremely proud and pleased to be here this afternoon but must admit I’m going to be tremendously more pleased and more proud when I look at that third base coaching line one day and see a black face managing baseball.”5 Nine days later, Robinson passed away due to his poor health.

The 1997 ceremony at Shea Stadium garnered significantly more attention compared to the 1972 event. Robinson’s pioneering spirit was marked with a big celebration that included musical entertainment by Tevin Campbell. During Campbell’s performance, video screens in the outfield displayed images of Robinson on and off the field. President Clinton, Selig, and Rachel Robinson then delivered brief remarks. The elements of this ceremony proved to be more dynamic compared to the 1972 ceremony.

But there was a major voice of dissent: Hank Aaron. In his New York Times editorial, the former Negro League star and Major League Baseball Hall of Famer stated, “Now, 50 years later, people are saying that Jackie Robinson was an icon, a pioneer, a hero. But that’s all they want to do: say it. . . . It is tragic to me that baseball has fallen so far behind . . . in terms of racial leadership. People question whether baseball is still the national pastime, and I have to wonder too.” Aaron continued to lament the concerns that are invisible in the integration narrative: “Here’s hoping that . . . baseball will honor [Robinson] in a way that really matters. It could start more youth programs, give tickets to kids who can’t afford them, become a social presence in the cities it depends on. It could hire more black umpires, more black doctors, more black concessionaries, more black executives. It could hire a black commissioner.”6

On April 15, 2004, thirty-four thousand fans attended the first “Jackie Robinson Day” at Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets. In the run-up to the event, Major League Baseball announced that it would mark Robinson’s shattering of the color barrier every April 15. The intention was to preserve the legacy of a man who made baseball, and American, history in 1947. With Rachel and Sharon Robinson present, Commissioner Bud Selig led a ceremony that included a video montage of Robinson from his days as a baseball player. Jackie Robinson’s impact on the game, society, and history, along with his memory and legacy, were now “official.”

The prominent theme surrounding the 2004 commemoration focused on Major League Baseball’s inability, or unwillingness, to cultivate a culture that included more African American baseball players. Many members of the African American community, including present and former players, expressed concern that the game still suffered from racial inequality.

Dave Stewart, a four-time twenty-game winner in the late 1980s and early 1990s, put it this way: “In Bud’s words, the game is better today than it has ever been, but I think it has taken a drastic step backward. When you look at the numbers of blacks playing the game and the numbers in decision-making positions off the field, they’re way down from even three years ago.” When asked about the celebrations that started in 1997 to honor Robinson, Stewart replied, “There was good progress and a feeling among black players I think that baseball was trying to do something positive. Now . . . it’s as if there’s been a quick turnaround. . . . Why that’s happened only the people internally know, but it’s not good.” Veteran Major League Baseball scout John Young followed suit, arguing, “I think there [are] societal changes to which baseball was slow in responding.”7

The San Francisco Chronicle weighed in, too: “What has changed since Robinson’s arrival? Still no black owners. Only three black general managers, one currently. What appeared to be a progression in 1975 turned out to be a peak.” The Chronicle also reported on another point ignored in the anniversary celebration: “The number of African-American big-leaguers is under 10 percent for the first time since full integration—that was 1959.”8

Rachel Robinson also expressed disappointment with MLB’s racial landscape. When asked how her husband would view the ongoing racial inequality, she said, “Jack would be disappointed, obviously, and he would be fighting back, as he always did in his lifetime, and saying, ‘Let’s not forget what it took to get us to this point.’ . . . I think there is a perception that there is a level playing field now, and that things have progressed. That is not true.”9

The version of “Jackie Robinson” that MLB presented during the 2004 commemoration highlighted his role as a great athlete and a racial pioneer. Robinson appeared apolitical. Rather than encompassing his entire legacy, this version functioned more as a convenient, uncomplicated representation of racial equality in MLB and America; it served the ideal patriotic narrative that MLB has typically portrayed through Robinson.

Mystery still surrounds the impetus behind the creation of Jackie Robinson Day. Selig has often insisted that he did it because he wanted to ensure that people, especially young people, know who Jackie Robinson was. But the year 2004 seemed an odd choice, even arbitrary; it was an off year, unlike the significant twenty-fifth and fiftieth anniversaries. But it was a year marked by issues that garnered more national notoriety for baseball—including rumors of a possible player lockout and of players utilizing performance-enhancing drugs at an unprecedented level. Perhaps the best remedy to cure these ills, as well as waning fan interest, was for Major League Baseball to divert attention away from them by focusing on the positivity of Jackie Robinson’s legacy.

In 2007, Cal Fussman published After Jackie: Pride, Prejudice, and Baseball’s Forgotten Heroes: An Oral History. In the introduction, Fussman frames the collection as a project designed to help us move forward by learning and unlearning our racial past: “Every step of progress made since the day Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball has come from education, learning, knowledge.” Fussman goes on to explain, “The more I spoke with the men who came after Jackie, the more certain I became of one thing: The only way to unlearn is to learn. The surest way for us to move forward is to know where the old have been.”10

Later in Fussman’s book, Hall of Famer Frank Robinson shares a compelling anecdote about the number of black players in Major League Baseball:

When I came into professional baseball, we used to leave our gloves in the outfield after the third out. That was 1953. You left your glove right there on the field. If you ask people who played back then when gloves stopped being left on the field, they can’t tell you. They just know the practice stopped. And that’s what’s so disturbing about this business of the dwindling number of African-Americans in the major leagues. It’s happening right in front of us. We see it. If we don’t address it pretty soon, there’s not going to be any of us here to remember when there stopped being blacks in baseball. Just like the gloves in the outfield.11

Frank Robinson’s anecdote makes a crucial point about the role history plays in our ability to cultivate the legacy that Jackie Robinson left us. And that is why it is so incredibly important to ensure we find creative ways to spotlight Robinson beyond an annual ceremony. We owe it to Robinson to provide an active and sustainable space for the remembrance of his social impact. While Jackie Robinson Day serves that role to a certain extent, we can, should, and need to do more. For instance, author Jeff Snider offers one such option that might serve baseball fans well:

Every April 15, Jackie Robinson Day, the league honors Robinson’s memory by having every player wear his number 42. Originally, Ken Griffey Jr. received special permission to wear number 42 on April 15, 2007, the 60th anniversary of Robinson’s MLB debut. The idea spread (much to the chagrin of many players), and more than 240 wore 42 that day. In 2008, the number jumped to more than 330, and in 2009, it became official that every player and coach would wear the number on that day.12

So the number of players participating has been maximized. But why limit a commemorative tribute to Robinson’s legacy to just once a season? As Snider continues,

But let’s go back to Griffey’s original idea: one player wearing a number as tribute to a great player. What is a better way to honor a player: putting his number in mothballs, or letting a player who exemplifies his greatness wear that number as a tribute? You want to honor a player by slapping his number on an outfield wall? That’s great, and there’s no reason to stop that. But let’s separate that honor from the idea of retiring a number, and let’s accept the fact that the best way to honor a player is by letting another great player follow in his footsteps.13

I believe we could benefit from Snider’s proposal. Let’s consider the impact of taking an increasingly commonplace practice of jersey retirement and turn it on its head. As more and more jerseys are retired, the ultimate impact is diluted. Certainly, the idea of a jersey number hanging from the rafters or being posted on a stadium wall or upper deck façade is compelling and without question represents that player’s impact on an organization or even an entire sport. But that number, sitting among so many other retired jersey numbers, lying static, isolated, and inactive, loses its power.

Robinson’s 42 has been put on a shelf to be dusted off and rolled out for a celebration every April 15. While that’s a meaningful commemorative gesture in its own right, it’s only one day per year. What if we allowed players to wear 42 again? What if we reactivated 42, allowing it to breathe life into his legacy once again?

Imagine it. Instead of players wearing 42 just once a year, a good number of players would have the opportunity to wear it every single game for six months a year. Imagine the conversations that could be sparked on a daily basis for 162 games per year. Or imagine the World Series MVP wearing 42 and using that opportunity to create a space that identifies and commemorates Robinson’s legacy at an even greater level.

Pulling Robinson’s number out of retirement would encourage us to talk more about him; to keep him front and center in our discussions about baseball, race, and culture; and to create new and fresh ways to honor his legacy. Commemorating Robinson’s legacy through Jackie Robinson Day and retiring his number is helpful but not sufficient. There is room for creativity. There is room for expansion. There is room for further distinction. In fact, creativity, expansion, and distinction might be the most fitting options for remembering a man who embodied each of these characteristics on and off the field.