On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson, at age 28, became the first
African American player in Major League Baseball’s modern
era when he steps onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to compete
for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson broke the color barrier
in a sport that had been segregated for more than 50 years.

Exactly 50 years later, in 1997, Robinson’s groundbreaking
career was honored and his uniform number, 42, was retired
from Major League Baseball by Commissioner Bud Selig in
a ceremony attended by over 50,000 fans at New York City’s
Shea Stadium. Robinson’s was the first-ever number retired
by all teams in the league.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson
(January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972)

Opening Day welcomes the new spring baseball season each
year, a uniquely American tradition steeped in history and
fanfare.       

On this day in history, April 14, 1910, President William Howard 
Taft (above) became the first U.S. president to throw out the 
first pitch at a Major League Baseball game.       

William Howard Taft (1857 – 1930)

On this day in 1974 — In the opener in Atlanta, Hank Aaron broke
Babe Ruth’s career record by hitting his 715th home run off Los
Angeles left-hander Al Downing in the fourth inning. The Braves
beat the Dodgers 7-4 before a crowd of nearly 54,000.

Henry “Hank” Louis Aaron (1934 – 2021)

,

SANDY KOZEL

Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was
fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-
story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation
workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet
struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was
pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He
was only 39 years old.

James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998)

Ray was convicted of the Assassination of Martin Luther
King, Jr.

The Lorraine Motel, now known as the National Civil Rights Museum, where King was assassinated.

On February 27, 2006, baseball pioneer Effa Manley became the
first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Manley, who
died in 1981, was co-owner of the Newark (New Jersey) Eagles,
a Negro League powerhouse, and a huge advocate for Black
ballplayers and civil rights causes.

Photo of Effa in a Newark Eagles ball cap while being
instructed on how to hold a bat by one of her players.