I wrote all of this stuff on Jackie Robinson Day one year ago, and you know what, it's all still true. So, begging your forgiveness for repeating myself, I offer the following thoughts with a couple of additions:
Today is the anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. That means that in his honor all players on both teams will be wearing #42 today.
That was nearly 70 years ago, a long time, but not THAT long. It was before my parents' time but not my grandparents. When they were born, for the first two decades of their lives, black men could not play baseball with white men. Society has come a long way in fighting this kind of overt racism.
I always remember reading an interview with Frank Robinson where he spoke about how his first thought when he got traded to Baltimore was that he remembered it as a place where he couldn't even go to the movie theater because it was segregated. That one was within my parents' lifetime.
There are those who believe that Eddie Murray being run out of town was in part racially motivated. Maybe it was. I don't know. I wasn't old enough to remember, but this one was within my own lifetime. Now I am in my 30s and Adam Jones is the face of the Orioles franchise, one of your favorite Orioles, if not your favorite.
The problem of racism is not solved, nor should we all pat ourselves on the back thinking it is. Baltimore got a reminder of that last year. Many issues are right there, barely under the surface. But gone are the days of separate water fountains, separate entrances, and separate baseball leagues - and that's worth something. Today in a small way we remember that.