Honoring Jackie Robinson...

As for all of us follow baseball know, today is earmarked as celebration of Jackie Robinson and the 60^th anniversary of his first game. Today, in about 200 players throughout baseball, including the entire Los Angeles Dodgers team, and at least one representative of each team will be wearing the number 42 to honor him.

What Jackie Robinson did for African-Americans and even more or less, minorities in society, was nothing short of extraordinary. He was not only a special person in terms of baseball, but in the American lexicon.

He did more than simply play baseball; he sacrificed himself to allow us not only to play a game, but also allowed many to garner to strength to stand up against injustice and hate.

Even though things in society are not perfect, he made things better – a lot for all of us. America is still not where it should be or could potentially be in terms of race relations, but keeping your memory alive is a step in the right direction.

Jackie, even though I was not alive to see you play, I am glad you were able to step on a field 60 years today.

You made the game brighter and opened the door for many great players such as Frank, Roy Campanella, Lou Brock, Larry (Doby), Reggie, Joe Morgan, Junior (Ken Griffey, Jr.), D-Train, Ryan Howard, and countless others.

As I get older, you sometimes have to take a step back and analyze why things are the way they are. I love baseball, and played it and as well have caught maybe close to a thousand games in my game. Being African American, I do find it sad that the numbers of us in baseball are dwindling; however, the game is more incredibly diverse with the influence of Big Papi, Soriano, Tejada, Ichiro's, Albert', and Dice-K all a part of it.

Thanks Jackie, thank you so much.