On August 28, 2020, there was a rarity in the MLB: unity. Every player on every team took the field wearing the number 42, in honor of the barrier-breaking baseball player, Jackie Robinson. 

Jackie Robinson’s day usually takes place on April 15, the day he broke the baseball color line. However, the delays due to Covid-19 caused the MLB to temporarily reschedule. 

The bullying Jackie Robinson endured throughout his career was cruel, to say the least. He received death threats from baseball fans, was purposefully cleated at first base, and had baseballs blatantly thrown at his head at a time when helmets were not worn in the game. Players and coaches would openly protest his place in the game while attacking him with racial slurs. 

What was even more despicable was when some of Robinsons’ own teammates would treat him as poorly as opposing teams, with intense hatred, unjustified by any means. Despite the discrimination Robinson faced, he kept playing because at that point it was more than just a game. It was his life. It was a desire to stop allowing race to come between everything that he loved. Even more so, it was the people that he was paving a way for in baseball and in life.

Jackie Robinson once said, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” He lived by this statement, because playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers didn’t just change his life, it changed the game. There was a shift in the team mentality when players like PeeWee Reese began having his back on and off the field. That idea of unity is reflected every year, by the MLB wearing 42. 

The life and legacy of Jackie Robinson taught society to find hope in something others said was impossible.