Why are MLB players wearing 42 today? Jackie Robinson Day, explained

Jackie Robinson made history when he took the field at Ebbets Field in his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. His is a legacy that continues in perpetuity, 79 years later, as MLB commemorates the anniversary of the day Robinson broke baseball's color barrier. The tradition itself, in an official sense, is more recent than you might think; Jackie Robinson Day was first celebrated on April 15, 2004 and the practice of all on-field personnel — every player, manager, umpire and bat and ball boy — wearing Robinson's No.

42 didn't become firmly established for another five years after that. But according to the Jackie Robinson Museum website , it was tap dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson who inaugurated it almost 80 years ago. At the end of Robinson's rookie season, on Sept.

23, 1947, Bojangles led an on-field ceremony at Ebbets Field as a way for New York's Black communities to show their appreciation for Robinson and support for desegregation in the big leagues. Robinson was gifted a new car, TV set, gold watch and a fur coat for his wife, Rachel, through donations solicited by the New York Amsterdam News, a local Black newspaper. Fifty years later, MLB rang in the 50th anniversary of Robinson's debut by unilaterally retiring No.

42 across the league. Ken Griffey Jr. temporarily switched his number from 24 to 42 on that day to honor Robinson and a decade later, he asked Rachel Robinson and then-MLB commissioner Bud Selig if they could temporarily unretire the number so he could wear it once again in tribute to Jackie Robinson.