They’re not wearing No. 42, but the Marlins still found ways to honor Jackie Robinson Day
They didn’t play baseball Wednesday. They didn’t have the chance to wear his No. 42 as has been tradition on this day for Major League Baseball since 2004.
But the Miami Marlins still found a way to honor Jackie Robinson on the anniversary of the day he broke MLB’s color barrier in 1947.
Eight current and former members of the Marlins organization took part in a virtual roundtable, “Connected to 42,” that aired Wednesday afternoon on the club’s YouTube page to have a conversation about Robinson’s impact on various generations of baseball.
Former Marlins catcher Charles Johnson moderated the half hour talk, which took place via Zoom to ensure proper social distancing during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Alumni Juan Pierre and Cliff Floyd, bench coach James Rowson and current Marlins players Lewis Brinson, Jazz Chisholm, Sterling Sharp and Stephen Tarpley participated in the discussion. Tarpley, at 27, is the oldest of the four current players.
“It’s the stories that are handed down to us,” said Pierre, who played 14 MLB seasons, including four with the Marlins (2003-2005 and 2013), and now serves as the organization’s minor-league outfield coordinator. “That’s how it was before we had Google and all that stuff. Guys told stories and you read about it. Now, there are these young guys who didn’t get to watch him play and we get to hear about how he impacted them. ... You get all kind of perspectives.”
The discussion began with each participant explaining Robinson’s importance to the game, both overall and to them individually. How his debut in 1947 paved the way for black baseball players in the future. How he endured prejudice and still went out and performed. How his example transcended the sport itself.
“He had such an impact on so many areas of life,” Rowson said during the roundtable. “We talk about baseball, and baseball’s such a small work in terms of what his impact was on everyone’s life, on America, on American society. I’m just incredibly thankful from my standpoint of the things that he’s done and the path that he’s blazed for all of us.”
And that is not lost on the Marlins players in the game today even if they weren’t alive when Robinson broke barriers.
Brinson, a Fort Lauderdale native and Coral Springs High alum, was able to feel Robinson’s impact through the early Marlins teams when he watched players like Johnson, Pierre and Floyd.
“As a kid, when you watch someone play who looks like you, it gives you confidence and makes you say ‘Man, I can do this myself one day and do what they’re doing,’ “ Brinson said. “I’m in the middle of my dream right now. I was honored to be on that call and honored to be having that discussion with those guys on there.”
And on a broader sense, just the simple talking of baseball gave the panel some normalcy as players wait to return to the field. The MLB season has been on an indefinite hold since March 12.
“Anything baseball right now is great,” Brinson said. “Just talking about baseball and thinking about it. Obviously we all want to get back on the field. We’re all professional athletes, playing the game we love. But just to have a conversation about baseball and about Jackie Robinson, someone who’s an icon in our game, it’s great to have something like that.”
In addition to the roundtable, the Marlins also distributed meals to 500 families in Liberty City in collaboration with Ark of the City as well as essential nutrition items to 25 KIPP Sunrise families from Liberty City dealing with food insecurity.
Marlins not part of coronavirus study
As first reported Tuesday night by ESPN, MLB is taking part in a vast coronavirus study in conjunction with Stanford University, USC and the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL) in which 10,000 players, staff and ballpark employees to detect the prevalence of COVID-19 antibodies in the general population.
The Marlins are one of three teams that has opted not to participate in the study, a team’s spokesperson confirmed.
The study’s purpose, according to the ESPN article, is “to get a better sense of the virus’ true infection rate by utilizing a nationwide sample.”
All people taking part in the study will be anonymous.
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