This story originally ran in Hometown 9 on April 16, 2008.

By Nick Tavares

Last year was my first in the state of Arizona, and as part of my getting acclimated to my new surroundings, I made it a point to take in everything the Arizona Diamondbacks were about. As luck would have it, my first game was a Sunday afternoon match-up with the Colorado Rockies on April 15.

A few days before that, it was announced that April 15 would be a celebration of Jackie Robinson and the 60th anniversary of his breaking the color barrier. The Reds’ Ken Griffey Jr. petitioned baseball for the privilege of wearing Jackie’s no. 42, and soon the idea snowballed, with dozens of players asking for the right to wear Jackie’s number on their back, putting their own name and number in the laundry room for a day.

The experiment was a success, and on Tuesday, five Diamondbacks chose to again wear the only number retired by all of baseball, and the first such number to be honored by any North American professional league. Orlando Hudson, Justin Upton, Chris Young, Eric Byrnes and first base coach Lee Tinsley all donned the 42 on their Sedona red jerseys against the Giants yesterday. All but Upton (who was in the minors at the time) did the same last April 15. Byrnes had a special affinity for 42. Byrnes was one of the only caucasian players in baseball to wear the number last season (excluding players whose teams chose to collectively wear 42). His affection for Robinson and his plight was illustrated by the fact that Byrnes wrote his senior thesis on the man during his days at UCLA.

The reviews of these two days have been mainly positive. The sentiment of players putting aside their own jerseys to wear a tribute to one of the most important men in baseball history, not to mention a significant player in the civil rights movement, is a touching, subtle tribute. There are a few out there, however, who feel that the tribute is not as genuine as it could be. Is the act cheapened by having too many players wear the number? Is this just grandstanding?

Those may be legitimate questions, but this writer is of the solid opinion that anything baseball does to honor Jackie Robinson is warranted, and the more, the better. For the better part of a half century, baseball did all it could to keep black players off their fields, keeping the likes of Josh Gibson out of the record books forever and limiting the impact Satchel Paige could have made on the field.

Jackie Robinson, as has been written thousands of times before, helped put an end to all that. The color barrier would have fallen eventually, it can be argued, but Jackie was the one to take that step to make it happen. He was the first to absorb the hateful taunts from the stands and from the opposition on the diamond. He had to deal with being excluded from certain hotels and restaurants where the rest of his Dodger teammates would have been welcomed.

It took a special man to pave the way for generations to come. If wearing his number once a year does a little to remind people of his impact on the game, then it’s a good idea. It’s too bad that it only occurs once a year, but any recognition of his efforts and accomplishments is worth it.