Today, all players in baseball will wear the number 42 in honor of the anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Long removed from the worst of this formal segregation, it is hard to imagine it now, that Black players were simply not allowed to play. He endured a hatred that few of us will ever know just to prove that he could play with the best, and what he proved is he was one of the best of the best.
The stakes of a single regular season baseball game played in April will never be so great.